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Bon Jovi

Shepherd's Bush Empire, London

Caroline Sullivan
Friday September 20, 2002
The Guardian

Big 1980s rock band plus smallish venue usually equals sad reversal of fortunes - unless you are Bon Jovi. Unusually for a group so identified with that grisly decade, New Jersey's deathless hairies continue to sell albums by the lorry-load. The last, Crush, was one of their biggest at 8m copies, so their decision to play the 1,200-seat Empire was dictated not by circumstance but by a yearning to revisit, in a mistily romanticised way, their bar-band beginnings.
But early Jersey Shore gigs probably did not involve £20 commemorative T-shirts or satellite broadcasts to cinemas around the country as a sop to those who couldn't get tickets. Nor, at a guess, did Ray Davies trundle on unannounced to open the show with his own Celluloid Heroes. (His presence was never explained; did he just happen to be wandering past?)

Further, no matter what fantasies Bon Jovi entertained about getting back to their roots, one thing remains true: you can take the band out of the stadium, but you can't take the stadium out of the band. It is not just a matter of wedging all your equipment on to a smaller stage and performing your normal arena show. Jon Bon Jovi, elegant cheekbones filmed with glossy pop sweat, has been doing the big-gig thing for so many years that he has forgotten how to scale down his frontman persona. "HOWYADOIN?" he roars, as if the audience weren't inches away. "AREYAWITHME?"

The house is definitely with him. Like Ozzy Osbourne, Bon Jovi have achieved a state of grace simply by still existing. Twenty years into a career distinguished by consistency, if not brilliance, they inspire ample goodwill, and if they are less cool than the nu-metal bands who currently rule rock, the crowd compassionately overlook it. Their two unequivocal classics, Livin' on a Prayer and You Give Love a Bad Name, spark a vestigial howl when they turn up early in the set, and the majestically foolish Wanted Dead or Alive is the cue for massed cigarette lighters. They play rather a lot of the new album, Bounce, which to its credit has people reaching for air guitars almost immediately.

Jon Bon's other half, Richie Sambora, feels confident enough to risk Union flag trousers and a sarong, which says a lot about audience loyalty. Will there be a Bon Jovi 20 years from today? Don't bet against it.