Pyro

It's a very, very sad story, but it's one of ineptitude and greed.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Station_Nightclub_Fire

That said, it would have no bearing on a band like Bon Jovi, and the venues they play. I've seen numerous bands use pyro in arenas and stadiums in the last few years. I'd say it's most likely that the band don't want to use them for whatever reasons.

I f**king love pyro! I am a KISS fan after all.

Bon Jovi and pyro came together hand in hand when when I discovered the band. It was the sight and sound of the band jumping off a platform with synced explosions going off in time with the drums on the video jukebox in the Bad Name video. To me, that was how it was supposed to be experienced and they apparently agreed with me since that is exactly how they did it the majority of the time from it's freshman outing on tour to go through the following two tours. Then they just stopped. I always felt like something has been missing since. It was cool to see it get a one-shot revival on the MTV Music Video Awards this past decade (unless I'm getting hazy on where as much as when.)

Similarly, since the Slippery tour was my first tour.. especially because it was unexpected then, I had gotten attached to the overhead light-truss explosions accenting "ALL THAT YOU GOT.. WHOOOA" in Prayer. The booms were so loud and the final wide-cast explosion showering down with blinding brilliance leading into that final climatic chorus made me fall in love with the song even more. Again, they agreed it needed to stay... and it did for three tours as well as going on to have variations of that done on tours through the 90s. I'll let someone else add if they have done it in the last decade.

Then there is the grand entrance pyro. Oh yes. I love the grand entrance. It was surreal and yes, at the time.. unexpected (keep in mind I hadn't seen KISS yet and they had toned down the pyro to very sparse usage in the mid-80's) Sparks shooting up throught floor of the stage revealing Jon standing on a platform above and behind the drums with that huge grin and a nod with his fist held in the air before running down the stairs to the stage.

I watched the LYHOM video repeatedly.... personally torturing myself over not being able to have been able to attend the show to witness it myself. It was the coolest entrance I'd ever seen from any band.

I didn't bother with the Faith tour, but I know they continued the tradition of using pyro to open the show in addition to the staples in Bad Name and Prayer. But if you really think about it... the Faith tour did not introduce anything new/unexpected pyro-wise. None of the new songs were accented in any way with pyro (except I Believe, which was probably more due to holding the opening number slot.) Jon had already decided it was time to get away from it going forwards. The Crossroads/These Days tour was the pyro-cessation tour.

It's not that Pyro is too dangerous or too 80's and there is any shame there. It's that they know full well that pyro works best when it is unexpected. When it's used in the same songs the same way and at the same points in the shows all the time, it becomes cliche' rather than climatic.

How did you feel the first time you saw those balls of fire shoot into the sky at the chant of "FAITH!" at Giants in 2001? An 8 year old song that had never had pyro in it now featured one of their most dramatic pyro moments ever in their shows and yet.. it seemed to mean something.... it's a rallying cry for celebration and union at major shows. It's been done so sparingly that it was still effective 9 years later at NMS.

Bon Jovi simply isn't KISS. That's paraphrasing Jon in the 80's when they were using it. It was standard touring industry issue at the time on major tours. I believe they would never have used it if they had been calling the shots the way they do now. Pyro is something they bring out once in a blue moon for special occasions rather than a tour show staple. If you want a band that does pyro, you get your fix elsewhere. I mentioned the re-appearance of pyro in the televised performance of Bad Name a few years ago, I forgot to mention it came off as cheesy rather than dramatic. It was just nice to see it because it had been so long. It really doesn't seem to suit them anymore.

Aloha !

Jon has been asked about why they don't use pyro anymore, this was during the Crush/OWN era. His answer was that he feels pyro distracts from the music and that he wants to focus on the music alone. He then followed up that statement by making video's for every song on the Bounce album, because they kept on focussing on the music.

In short; Jon is clueless.

Salaam Aleikum,
Sebastiaan

if you want lots, and i mean lots of pyro... go to a metallica concert. If you want a fireshow, go see ramstein. If you want lasers and stuff, see Phish

they used fireworks in Rock in Rio 2008. I was there.

No, you go see KISS. They do all the above (or in the case of lasers..have in the past.) I've seen.Metallica three times through their career. They are sparse compared to KISS.

So that's why KISS use so much pyro.. to take the attention off their shitty music.

they always had the visual factor above anything else. I'm pretty sure one of their gigs is amazing nonetheless.

When I saw them in Chicago a couple of weeks ago, I was definitely thinking that pyro would've been really cool at certain moments. I assume that they shy away from it to keep the focus on how strong their music actually is. The way I see it, the real fans already know how strong the music is, and the casual fans who are just there for a fun night out would enjoy some pyro. They do have a lot of other cool visuals, though.

P.S. KISS rocks. It always has been and always will be about the music for me, but their live shows have always been very stunning.

Absolutely. I've enjoyed the shows in recent years much more than the late 90s Reunion years because of the justice done to the music when playing live. The pyro, which make sense for the show presentation, is only the icing. When it was the Reunion, the Pyro and the nostalgia factor was all you really had.