Thursday, April 17, 2003

Bon Jovi looks -- and sounds -- sharp

By BILL WHITE
SPECIAL TO THE POST-INTELLIGENCER

Dwarfed by three mock satellite dishes upon which video feeds were projected, Bon Jovi bounced onto the KeyArena stage and the sold-out crowd bounced along with them.

Tuesday's concert was one of the last in a world tour that has brought back old fans and won a new generation of rockers who had never experienced a full-blown 1980s arena rock show.

Songs from the group's current best-selling album, "Bounce," and 1986 breakthrough, "Slippery When Wet," constituted half the show, with new songs like "Everyday," the first single from "Bounce," holding its own with "Livin' on a Prayer" and other classics

Singer Jon Bon Jovi, at 40 still the all-American boy, was clad in tight blue jeans and a button-down shirt. Guitarist Richie Sambora, who received equal face time on the monitors, sported a long fringe coat. Projecting a timeless sense of good times, these partners in rock 'n' roll took their fans on a two-hour ride that connected the idealism of youth to an adulthood in which emotions still run deep.

Songs like "Runaway," the band's very first single, with its simple melody covering a broad emotional range, showed off Bon Jovi's still flexible voice. Sambora's guitar playing was spot on, having lost neither the conviction nor the technique of his early years. The band as a whole had a crisp, dense sound.

Bon Jovi dedicated a new song, "The Distance," to "all the brave people abroad, wishing them a safe and swift return to their loved ones." It was one of the few moments in which the reality of current events penetrated KeyArena's laser-lit world.

After slipping backstage to change into a fresh shirt while Sambora took the vocals on 1988's "I'll Be There for You," Bon Jovi launched into a four-song boogie that pushed the fading crowd to near exhaustion until "Raise Your Hands" lifted them out of their seats for a final salute to the fire and the fury of a rock 'n' roll fantasy.

The Goo Goo Dolls had no trouble warming up the crowd. They were hot from the opening chords of "Dizzy" to the closing strains of "Iris," the breakthrough hit from the "City of Angels" soundtrack. Against the image of a young gamin crouching with hands outstretched in the bloom of a flower, the Dolls slashed through a 45-minute set drawn mostly from the albums "Dizzy Up the Girl" and "Gutterflower." Despite the brisk clip of their set, there was a sameness to the material that had the cumulative effect of making you feel as if you had listened to the same song a dozen times.