Originally Posted by Tictoc (Post 1256216)

fenomenal?! [emoji848]





https://youtu.be/dhZUsNJ-LQU

Originally Posted by Walleris (Post 1256209)

Maybe it's too late for this, but in case anyone cares I was at this show and here's what I think. The show was in the middle of one of the busiest weeks in my life and only now I finally had some time to reflect on it. For this reason, I missed the Manic Street Preachers set, which is unfortunate, I consider them a pretty good band.

This was my first Bon Jovi concert in eight years and fourth overall. Previous times were 2010 (O2 night 11), 2010 (O2 night 12) and 2011 (Vienna) and I thought each one was gradually better than the previous one. As expected, this one broke the pattern.

Full disclosure - I haven't been following any setlists or watched videos since this show was announced and I decided to stop following the tour. The element of surprise is very important to me. I wasn't expecting much in that department, but if there were any, I wanted to find out in person. I had very little insight into what the Japanese, Australian or previous European shows were like.



Some of you may know me as quite a critical fan. I complain about modern Bon Jovi a lot. So in my book, this show had two possible outcomes - the terrible band that I grew up idolizing will be put out of its misery (in my head) or they will overcome the odds stacked against them and my fan-band relationship will improve to where I can enjoy the today's incarnation. I cannot give a definite answer, but in such scale, it went more to the second direction.

Overall, it was really good. Jon the singer is obviously long dead now, but Jon the frontman is still very much alive. As much as we discuss other members and want them to get more credit in the eyes of the general public ("Bon Jovi is not a singer, it's a band god damn it!"), they're complimentary pieces - the show starts and ends with Jon. He was in great spirits all night and I felt he delivered. In fact, I felt this was his best effort in terms of showmanship, better than the 2010-11 shows I saw. Between the movements, banter, smiles, he is a master of his craft. It's not about doing those things, it's HOW you do it and if it engages the crowd. This is a part of the show that doesn't translate on YouTube, you can only feel it live. The only frontmen I saw who I thought had a bigger stage presence were Liam Gallagher and Robbie Williams. That's an elite company if you ask me. And I have seen many greats Mick Jagger, Bono, Axl Rose, Roger Daltrey, Bryan Adams, Steven Tyler, Joe Elliot, David Coverdale, Bruce Springsteen, as well some modern ones like Adam Levine, Chris Martin, Bruno Mars, etc.

Unlike showmanship, bad vocals are the part that translates between YouTube and in-person. I am quite surprised to see people that went to the same show say otherwise, but for me, I felt like I heard every bum note he made. But then again, I try to go to at least one concert each month and perhaps my ear is more trained now. He sounded quite painful on at least half of the songs. I felt like I had to sing louder myself so I could drown his terrible singing with mine, which did the trick at the small price of ruining some videos of the people around me.

Gimmicks in songs are important and effective. I mean things like time machine intro in Runaway and false starts by David, the pause in 'do we got it anymore' in WLOL, crowd sing-alongs in LYHOM, hand waving in Crash, etc. I once remember making a comment in 2017 than in this the part of the show that Jon should exploit more because they don't require vocal ability and play to his current strengths. That's how you overcome (or at least minimize) the damage of bad singing. And I feel like he improved in that department greatly since the start of the THINFS tour, which was the last time when I watched a lot of YouTube videos of live performances. For this reason, I think Saturday Night should be played at every show because the mid-song adlibs achieve the same purpose. The cover medleys in Bad Medicine and/or Sleep should return as well.

The main set was more enjoyable than I expected. It was one of my main concerns and it wasn't perfect by any means, but it wasn't that bad. I liked the decision to move the songs (HAND & Blood On Blood) we are used to having in an encore to the main set.

THINFS had great crowd participation, which surprised me. I felt the crowd around me (GC area) was not too diehard (e.g. they didn't sing some of the songs I'd expect them to). Perhaps it's normal for an opener, but I felt it got a better reaction than some of the smaller hits, e.g. Sleep or Runaway.

Amen serves no purpose. If the purpose is to give Tico a break, play another song or an acoustic version of any song. It was the only momentum killer and only give a pass to new songs for that. It also doesn't put Jon in the most favourable position, because in his current range, it's still a challenging one for him to sing and with such minimal instrument arrangement, he gets exposed more than most other songs.

Another drawback was Captain Crash and Sleep When I'm Dead back-to-back - simply brutal. There will be a time when I'm long gone, my children will have their own children, every car will be driverless, Miley Cyrus will be POTUS and the corpse of Jon will still be doing these two songs at every show. It killed what was a great 5-7 song stretch before. I guess I cannot complain too much, because the crowd participation in both of them was great, I would probably take any songs over them, old or new.

We Don't Run rocks live. It wasn't a major highlight, but it surprised me. The production is very digital, but live it's a beast of a song, I found myself singing and headbanging way harder than I thought I would.

I am perhaps the only member of JT for whom not getting Who Says is a drawback. I always liked the song and they haven't had a bigger hit since, so it should be played at every show.

The break between the main set and encore was one of the longest ones I've seen in any concert. This had me wondering if the reason was Jon resting his voice to all out on Always, which is what happened. I consider Always to be my favourite song of all time (probably of any band) and I didn't get it in my first two shows (only in the third one) so needless to say, I was very pleased to hear it. The vocal delivery was what you can expect from today's Jon, but he went absolute all out in the outro and the ending sounded great. Him being so spent only added to the emotion. For this reason, I actually liked that he didn't do the acapella intro for Prayer, because from such emotional moment of Always outro, the transitioning into the slow build intro of Prayer was tremendous. This was just the perfect encore - THE BALLAD & THE HIT. I know people complained that we didn't get more special songs, but in a vacuum, it was just perfection. Sure, getting These Days or I'll Be There For You would have pleased me as well, but I think they'd be better added to the main set. We are so trained by Jon for many years now to only expect the surprises in the encore, but to me, it should be a climax and this one absolutely was.

tl;dr - not perfect, but a damn good show, a solid four out of five.

Originally Posted by weekend (Post 1256239)

For those who attended the concert, I’d be interested to hear about Always. From watching YouTube clips it seemed everyone at Wembley was singing along and it was a very emotional moment. This concert seemed very special and I so much wish I was there.


Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk

Originally Posted by weekend (Post 1256239)

For those who attended the concert, I’d be interested to hear about Always. From watching YouTube clips it seemed everyone at Wembley was singing along and it was a very emotional moment. This concert seemed very special and I so much wish I was there.


Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk

Originally Posted by weekend (Post 1256239)

For those who attended the concert, I’d be interested to hear about Always. From watching YouTube clips it seemed everyone at Wembley was singing along and it was a very emotional moment. This concert seemed very special and I so much wish I was there.


Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk