Aloha !

Right. I’ve just taken a shower, shaved myself a bit, put on some clean clothes and while listening to the bootleg of this show I’m now typing this review. And no, you’re not getting the bootleg, because 1) I am a cunt according to some of you, and 2) I had to promise to the taper that I wouldn’t share his recording, so there. Only girls with big tits, and I mean really big tits get the bootleg. If they blow me first, that is. So why did I mention the bootleg detail at all? Well, just to let you know that Seb’s got his business sorted.

Anyway. This brilliant day started off at 6 o’ clock in the morning when my alarm clock rang, And why, you will wonder, did Seb get up so early? Well, here in Holland bus drivers are on strike again so I had to charter someone who could bring me to the train station. And the only person capable of doing so was my uncle who started at 8, so there. Yes, it was a bit too early for my liking, but since Thierry lives about 50603km away from me (I think he lives close to Russia) and he was my personal driver for the day, I had to take an early train in order to get there a bit on time. And on time I arrived. Absolutely not, thanks to our brilliant railway service I was 45 minutes late, to the delight of Thierry who begged me if he was allowed to do some shopping first. “I need a poncho, need a poncho (no not the violist) because it’s a venue without a roof and I might get wet and I’ll melt!” Obviously I couldn’t resist Thierry’s begging eyes so we were off to do some shopping. Thierry bought some drinks, bought some batteries in case he would run low on energy, and forgot his poncho. At home we met Seem, a Dutch fan who I invited to join us and who got scared because she drove to Germany while driving to Thierry’s house. Funny and all that, got her on the phone in the car yelling: “My TomTom just gave me the advice to go to Germany!!!!!” “Yeah, said Thierry, that’s correct. In order to get to my house you need to drive a bit through Germany”. She did manage to get to Thierry’s house to, got a cup of coffee to shut her up and Thierry warned her about the mean, mean dog.



In the meantime I was off to Thierry’s room to dump my stuff there and it amazed me right from the start how clean it was under Thierry’s bed. The little boy must’ve done that all for me, I thought, but that wasn’t the case. Thierry just cleaned his room for once. I saw Thierry’s guitars for the first time, got a bit jealous, and Thierry told me how much they had cost him, which made me envy him just a little bit more. A little bit.

Finally we were off to Germany. I will spare you the jibba jabba we talked about but keep in mind that this was the first time me since the Bounce Tour that me and Thierry were going to a Bon Jovi show together so obviously a lot of nonsense was being said. In fact, half of what me and Thierry say to eachother it doesn't make sense. Howeverrrrrrr, something I can not neglect in this review is a sight that was nothing short but spectacular. A Scania transporting more Scania’s! I begged Thierry and Seem if we could just follow the truck for a while but they wanted to get to the show a bit on time, so this was answered with a very loud no. Booo!!!!!



For the rest I can barely remember what other highlights there were on the trip apart from a big traffic jam in front of the stadium. Thierry and Seem got very nervous when we heard Gianna Nanninio sing while we were still in the car…“will we make it to the pit” “yes Thierry we will make it to the pit” “but what if we don’t?” “Yes Thierry we will make it to the pit” “****ing krauts!” “yes but we’ll make it to the pit”… While I just got downright pissed which resulted into me giving every car that passed us a private Seb concert. Some liked it, lot of them didn’t, because, well, they were German, right? Finally, after an hour of driving 5km per hour we arrived at the parking at half past 8 (it took us 2 hours longer than planned!), the weather was brilliant (no poncho’s were needed), got in the pit and realized that we had forgot our banners. Nnngg!!!



Bon Jovi started at 8 o clock exactly, and this crowd was ready for it. I’m pretty sure lot of fans were still packed in the traffic jam outside which really was a bitch. It wasn’t sold out, but it was almost packed. When they came on, Jon didn’t really look that happy to be honest, more like “I’m going to blow the ****ing roof of this place and no one’s going to stop me”. Lost Highway worked as an opener again and we went through the first 3 songs without any problems apart from the sound being so terribly bad that we’ve heard this show 3 times for the price of one. Summertime included We Will Rock You again, but again the crowd didn’t really eat it and when Summertime followed the crowd was just dead again. Just Older followed but didn’t live up things like it did in Gelsenkirchen and things didn’t look too good at that time. It was all so so but obviously Crash was there to save the day. At this time me and Thierry were just hoping for something like Hamburg. Shit first half of the show, amazing second half of the show. The tides turned a bit earlier though, Sleep was the ****ing bollocks tonight. I had been wanting to hear Jumpin’ Jack Flash ever since they introduced it in 1995 and tonight finally one of Seb’s wishes was granted. The crowd liked it a lot, but loved it when Mercy was started. When Jon started singing it, the crowd loved it. I’m not a fan of them doing it but seeing Jon and the band having so much fun on stage was a true delight, and eventually it rocked. You could hear Jon loving it as well, and the reprise in the end of Sleep made it Sleep again one of the (many!) highlights of the show.

Jumpin’ Jack Flash + Mercy and the reprise:
Blood Money was the first real surprise of the night though. Most of the crowd didn’t know the song and I think that in fact many people in the pit didn’t know the song either. The first song with brilliant vocals from Jon, but the real surprise for me was Blaze Of Glory. Not the song, but the vocal performance. Richie ****ed up a few times in the intro though, but it was Jon who delivered the goods on this song. This was the best vocal performance of the song since 1995. I’m absolutely sure about that, and it was the first time he did every single scream in the end on this tour. Yes, even the final higher one that he ignored so far. At this point it was fun being with Thierry. Me and him are both bootleg collectors and know the parts Jon sings or doesn’t sing, so when Jon finally did deliver during a certain song we both looked each other with that look like “See, Jon can sing”. Nice, nice, nice.

Blood Money:
Whole Lot Of Leavin’ worked better tonight than it did in Gelsenkirchen and after the song Jon kept holding his guitar so we wondered what would be next. David started the intro of Bed Of Roses though and Jon was surprised. I think he was ready for Can’t Help Falling In Love, and David started to early so Jon gave his guitar away. I’ve been pretty clear about me not liking this song but the performance was very good, although still a bit too slow. Again, Richie ****ed up a bit on the song but Jon nailed the chorus, a lot, lot better than the version in Abi Dhabi and although he did not do the scream in the end, he did manage to make something special of the final chorus. Very good. I’m still not a fan of the song but could appreciate it during this show.

Bed Of Roses:
In These Arms was good too, but Jon didn’t go for it and let the crowd do the scream. Didn’t really matter though, it was merely him giving the crowd something than not being capable of doing it himself. It was another good performance, and we just knew that Jon and the band were going to deliver tonight.

Before We Got It Goin’ On Jon apologized for the sound "And this building sounds like shit. I'm sorry about that, I hope it sounds better out there than it does here on stage" which was nice and an opinion that was shared by most people in the crowd I think. The sound was just everywhere. It’s My Life followed, people loved it, followed by Faith. At this time I noticed that we were surrounded by lots of boobies.