Aloha !

Right, here we go. I'm at Newark airport right now and my flight to Chicago just got delayed by 45 minutes, there apparantly is free wifi available though the signal strength is very poor, but I figured why shouldn't I kill some time by writing my all mattering opinion on the 4 shows at Giants stadium? Unlike previous reviews, I'm not going to get into these shows seperately but will give my opinion on what according to Bon Jovi are probably the most important or best shows of the the tour. I'll skip the bullshit about how I met my future wife, will met up with everyone and will save that for a separate review if I've got any time to kill later on in Canada or something, although meeting so many people this trip made it all worth it. But more about that later.

Night 1:
We got in the venue way to early due to will call closing too early as well. Backstage gives you early entrance, but that also means that you have to get your tickets earlier because their tent closes earlier as well. If you get there at 8pm you're ****ed, because that means you'll just have to get them at the regular will call office. A bit weird that, and for some reason I forgot that wasn't the way you wanted to go according to the Amurrecans I was with. I don't understand why anyone would want to arrive early at an all seated show anyway, unless it's to beat the traffic. There's no need to rush to get into the venue, you're seated anyway so why should you bother about being there on time? This is, I think, the only thing I liked about this compared to the European shows. You don't have this queuing up bullshit in order to get your good spot. However, with the GoldCircle tickets on the last 2 tours being there, I have my fingers crossed that these won't be too expensive next tour. I've always ended up in the back of the GoldCircle anyway, and when having a ticket for that area you won't have to deal with queuing up either, which is a good thing. I don't care about being front row at all, you end up in between a lot of tired tossers from Backstage who are too ****ing tired to care about anything apart from their spot, so I'd rather be with some people that appreciate the music instead of their private area.

The stage for the stadium shows is nothing fancy. As a matter of fact, I happen to think that after all the talk about robots, Batmans, marines, special lightning, pre programmed videos everything looked rather meh to me. I thought the same of the robot stage in Paris, and for a band of the size of Bon Jovi they once again missed the boat when it comes to a good stage for a stadium or arena show. I'm not saying they should pull a U2 and build this giant spider that blocks everyones view, but I've never seen a stage at a Bon Jovi show of which I thought looked cool. And the stage for the stadium shows looks like one you'd see at a festival. Further on, there's always something wrong with the screens, they never ever always work all the time, so it comes across as “We'll spend this much on the stage and that's it”. The stage for the Bounce tour was still the best I've seen, even though that looked a bit odd and low budget as well.

On to the show now; I think Train supported the first show, and they're a good band but not really my cup of tea. I think I went for a drink (which at the price of $6,- for a coke were obviously very cheap) and when I came back the wife told me I'd missed their Led Zeppelin cover. Now I am one who doesn't care about Led Zep anyway, but Train is not a band you want to hear covering a hard rock song. Obviously we got to hear all of their 2 hits (apparantly they've had more in Amurreca) and they were a good opener, but not better than any other average band. And I don't like this stuff of an opening band showing his pipes and everything just to show off. Just sing your songs and **** off.

When Blood On Blood opened Jon looked happy but nervous. A lot has been said about the setlist and although I agree that it was very bland and vanilla on paper the delivery indeed is a lot better to what many of us had seen before. Still, playing Whole Lot Of Leaving as your fourth song is just stupid. I'm not saying it's a bad song, because to me it isn't. But the energy was sky high after Bad Name, and when Leaving followed it looked like everyone was leaving, but no. I just witnessed the first piss break at a rock show. Never before had I seen such a mass exodus to the toilets, which made me even more surprised considering this wasn't the first time Jon played it as the fourth song, so I'm sure he knows that it doesn't work. So why keep doing it then? The same happened with Superman Tonight and When We Were Beautiful. I knew it when these songs were released; they were not going to work at a live concert, and they didn't. They just killed the atmosphere and Jon realised this as well. All through the night it looked like he struggled to stay happy, but I don't think he really was. Especially when the PA blew out and there was no sound coming from the PA anymore. The band kept playing, but during th break of the song right before the guitar solo Jon knew because suddenly his face turned all moody. I know Obie said they told him after the show but I don't believe it and neither did anyone else I talked to after the show. Jon was ****ing pissed and Richie kept trying to cheer him up. Right on from that moment Jon went on and off on autopilot. He was either trying to have a good time or trying to keep himself happy because he knew this was his homecoming show (once again; more about that later) but it was only during Who Says that he started to have a bit of fun again, which was a bit late in the set.Work For The Working Man. If there's one song that doesn't work live it's this song. It's a plonker, and they obviously put a lot of work in the visuals, but it comes across as very corny and even a bit dated as well. Still, the worst part is when Richie, Hugh, Jon and Bobbie start to march in the same way as the workers in the video who just lost their job. It's just wrong, wrong, wrong. And I don't think the band realises this but when they do such a thing they pretend to be the same people who just lost their jobs. A lot has been said about this song, but if there was ever a song that makes them sound like a bunch of hypocrites it's this one, and them pretending to be the workers who just lost their jobs even though they haven't done a proper shift in 28 years, and are so out of touch with the people who really have to work for their money is something that doesn't exactly makes me proud of this band. And when Jon touches the stage and the camera zooms in on his hand while it goes “these were my...streets” nothing makes sense anymore.

Keep The Faith however was good. Really good. Still, not that many people cared about this actually. All the fist pumping you see at the European shows during the “FAITH!” part of the song just doesnt happen. It falls flat on his face and it's weird but Jon still has to sell this song like crazy. They had visual effects for this song as well, as in pyro going off on the screen, which just looks silly. If you're going have pyro in the show, make it real pyro instead of these cheesy effects. Which was what they ****ing did in this show. And as soon as the pyro got off all around the venue Jon loved all that was happening again and seem to come to terms with the show and realised that it wasn't as bad as he felt it was. He was a bit late with this though, considering how this was the 23rd song of the set, but still. In my opinion they should use pyro like this at every venue. If it's not possible to do it all around the venue then at least do it inside. It makes the set finale so much better and really makes the show special. The performance rocked, and it was a solid main set. No, there weren't any huge surprises but it was just a good show. Though the encore might've been a surprise to most people there but we all kinda knew it was going to be Dry County. Which in this case, wasn't a bad thing at all. Now I heard Dry County at Dusseldorf when it made it's return to the set after 10 years and Jon's voice was show and Richie was drunk, I've heard Dry County at Twickenham where the performance was flawless but there wasn't any soul in there and it fell flat on it's face, I've heard the several other performances of the song on bootlegs and now I heard it at Giants Stadium. And I'll be honest here, but this really was the best Dry County that has been played in the past 14 years. Bobbie and Richie both did the guitar intro and outro and it just sounded lovely. Jon's vocals were a bit rusty and I think he was tired by now, but none of this mattered. I think every die hard knew that this song was being played for us, and unlike Twickenham tonight it got passion in it. And another thing I realised was that the crowd didn't suck during this song but they seemed to be really listening to the song and taking it all in. It wouldn't have been my choice to open the encore with but tonight it worked. The atmosphere was good, and when Wanted and Prayer finished it off we'd just seen a good show. No, it wasn't incredibly special, no it wasn't incredibly long (even though it was longer than any average show) but yes, this was one of the better shows of the tour and I liked it.