Back from my 4th and last show of this tour - their concert at TW CLASSIC, Werchter, Belgium.

Bon Jovi and Belgium, it has never been a winning combination. From 2000 on, every show in Belgium was either short(er), weird or did have reasons why I could never stand out in a good way.

Yesterday was no different and this show will go down as a concert that isn't worthy to remember in this tour. Was it that bad? Hell no. Was it good? Neither. There simply wasn't any chemistry between the band and the crowd

Let's look at the pro's and the cons of their Belgian show.

The crowd was there. 55.000 people is the largest crowd they've ever had in Belgium. But, this is mainly thanx to the fact that they headlined a festival. TW Classic has a good reputation and many people come every year to have a good time. Nonetheless, it was clear that most people were there for Bon Jovi.

About the show itself - it was their standard setlist minus the ballad in the middle and the ballad in the end. No Bed of Roses / Amen in the spot you'd expected it. No Always / I'll be there for you in the encore. As a result, this show was the shortest in the tour so far. A few guesses why this happened?

- Jon's voice was bad. Bad in comparison to their show in Tallinn or Nijmegen. So the ballads BOR / ALWAYS / stayed in the closet.
Jon's voice was drowned in the mix - as I said before : this isn't by accident or due to bad sound technicians. On the contrary, this is done to mask the shaky state of his voice.

Humo, a famous magazine in belgium even wrote : Bon Jovi took the stage with a delay of 15 minutes, probably because Jon Bon Jovi was backstage, looking for a lost vocal chord. Also during the show, he clearly didn't found his lost vocal chord.

As another newspaper wrote - Bon Jovi's songs and their trademark sound are built upon Jon's strong voice and that was exactly what was lacking during the show. Jon Bon Jovi clearly was the weakest link within his band.
The band, the performance and the show ( production / visuals ) were praised.

Other reasons why the show was cut short? The crowd. I am a Belgian myself, but the crowd at TW classic is often super lame. Why? As I said - a good portion comes to experience the festival and will be less familiar with Bon Jovi. Sure they know the Bon Jovi hits, but when Jovi pulls out We don't Run ( excellent song and the song that works amazing in live setting ) they won't know it. Same for Born to follow and even Raise your hands or Born to be my baby. These folks come to hear BOR/ALWAYS etc... Those hits could have won them over but as I said - a few big big hits were kept in the fridge.

Another problem - the amount of VIPS. TW Classic has big sponsors and so the golden circle fills up with 50% of GC ticket buyers and 50% of VIP's. Folks that do not care whether it's Bon Jovi playing or Bryan Adams.


This combination of lame crowd with a band that does not play their hits (probably because Jon's voice was not in shape ) will prevent any chemistry from happening. We all know that Jon and the band are fueled by the audience reaction and vice versa.

Finally - remember how Jon always jokes that the only band he wouldn't have as a support act are the scorpions because they'd still kick Jovi's ass? Well, ... it was John Fogerty who played a 80 minute show before Bon Jovi. He played a steaming hits packed set that rocked every damn minute he was on stage. Excellent playing, excellent singing. He set the bar extremely high. Too high for BJ ? Not for BJ up till 2013.


My conclusion - Jon will have to work hard on his vocals to see if improvement is still possible. If so, they will be able to play most of their catalogue and kick all other band's asses. If not, their options will remain limited. Either not playing their famous (demanding) hits or continuing by playing bad sounding shows where they'll have to drown Jon's poor vocals so deep in the mix that you'll barely won't be able to hear Jon sing.

A positive note though - the sound at Werchter was the best so far ( with Nijmegen). Well balanced, crisp.