A very blah New York Times Review
 

Music Review | Bon Jovi
A Brand-New Arena and a Not-So-New Rock Star

The band fronted by Jon Bon Jovi, above, is the first act to headline at the new Prudential Center in Newark. The band began a 10-night stand on Thursday.


By KELEFA SANNEH
Published: October 27, 2007
NEWARK, Oct. 25 — The night was almost over and Jon Bon Jovi had a serious request: “Will you please rise for the playing of our national anthem?” And if you didn’t know what he meant, Richie Sambora’s 12-string guitar probably made it clear. O say does that snug-trousered cowboy still ride? Indeed, and on a steel horse, too. Thousands of New Jersey patriots helped Mr. Bon Jovi finish the chorus: “Wanted — wanted! — dead or alive.”

As you might have guessed from the red carpet outside and the omnipresent police officers, this was a special occasion: opening night at the Prudential Center, the gleaming new arena in downtown Newark. No N.B.A. franchise calls it home, so the building’s flagship team is the New Jersey Devils, who play a sport known as ice hockey. (Apparently it’s like curling mixed with lacrosse.) And to celebrate the grand opening, the center — which may or may not come to be known by its publicist-approved nickname, the Rock — booked New Jersey’s most indefatigable rock band, Bon Jovi, to play a 10-night stand.

Certainly Mr. Bon Jovi was pleased to play the dual role of gracious host and proud native son. “I’m the Jersey Devil, and this is my new house,” he said. And for more than two hours, his band played on (and on!). By 11:07, when the time finally came for the aforementioned “Wanted Dead or Alive,” it seemed that the people onstage (and maybe some of those in the well-padded seats, emblazoned with the Devils logo) had gone from excitement to weariness and back again.

It’s hard not to marvel at this band’s career. “Slippery When Wet,” Bon Jovi’s third album, from 1986, was a career-making blockbuster, spawning three songs that helped define an era: “Wanted Dead or Alive,” “Livin’ on a Prayer” and “You Give Love a Bad Name.” Then, having lit the fire, the members of Bon Jovi merely needed to stoke it with a new album every few years, and the occasional hit single.

One need not be a record executive (though it probably helps) to admire Bon Jovi’s unabashedly practical approach. At the turn of the century, when teen-pop was ascendant, the band collaborated with the teen-pop mastermind Max Martin on a bubblegum rock song, “It’s My Life,” that soon became a worldwide favorite. And when “Who Says You Can’t Go Home,” a Bon Jovi song that was rerecorded as a duet with Sugarland’s Jennifer Nettles, unexpectedly topped the country chart, the band members merely shrugged and got to work on “Lost Highway” (Island), a Nashville-influenced album released in June.

“Lost Highway” hasn’t (yet) given the band another country-radio favorite, but for now the members are part-heartedly embracing country-rock. Thursday’s set included “Summertime,” a song from the new album that bears a faint resemblance to a 2005 country song by Kenny Chesney. (Perhaps you remember it? It was called, um, “Summertime.”) And the extended band included a violinist and a pedal steel guitarist, who spent part of the night nudging Bon Jovi away from the synth-rock sound that made it famous.

To underscore the notion that this 10-night stand is something special, the band booked five different opening acts, each scheduled to play two nights apiece. In that sense, Bon Jovi was actually the second band to play the Prudential Center; the first, about an hour earlier, was My Chemical Romance. That band, which rose from the New Jersey emo scene, played a typically great set full of theatrical tantrums and neo-goth love songs, ending on an audacious note with the piano ballad “Cancer.” Later, Mr. Bon Jovi called My Chemical Romance “the next generation of Jersey band,” and for the encore he emerged in a My Chemical Romance T-shirt. (The other opening acts are Gretchen Wilson, Big & Rich, Daughtry and All-American Rejects.)

Halfway through the concert, Mr. Bon Jovi announced that this extended run was the start of a world tour. “After these shows sold out, we decided that it was time to hit the road,” he said, although perhaps he was overstating the case slightly. As of Friday afternoon, tickets to eight of the remaining nine concerts were still available from Ticketmaster.

Still, no one can deny that Mr. Bon Jovi remains an A-list rock star, in New Jersey and far beyond. He has some of what Bono has: likable self-regard, an infectious belief that his rightful place is onstage, with thousands of fans singing along. What he doesn’t have, of course, is U2. While Bono sings grand, important-sounding choruses about nameless streets and beautiful days, Mr. Bon Jovi’s solemn confessions are more along the lines of “Your love is like bad medicine.” To elaborate on this point: “Bad medicine is what I need.” Furthermore: “Oh-oh-oh.”

When he strains for gravitas — or, maybe, for Springsteenishness — the results can be ludicrous. Exhibit A: an overlong rendition of “Blaze of Glory,” Mr. Bon Jovi’s half-twangy solo hit from 1990, which came lumbering back to life just when it seemed to have finally expired. But most of the hits work as well as ever, thanks partly to his breathy, still-boyish voice, which always seems to be delivering the same two messages: “We’re gonna make it” and “C’mere.”

For that matter, the building put on a pretty good show, too. The sound was great, for an arena, and the nearby train station is now the site of a continuing science experiment. What happens when you cram a PATH train full of unabstemious revelers and shut the doors? Preliminary results on Thursday night were intriguing but inconclusive; expect better data by the end of hockey season.

And what can concertgoers expect from the Prudential Center? After Bon Jovi, the arena’s schedule includes lots of hockey and college basketball, some mixed martial-arts fights, and shows by the tween-pop star Miley Cyrus (also known as Hannah Montana) and the reunited Spice Girls.

But the presence of Bon Jovi on opening night only underscored the fact that there aren’t many young bands that can reliably play rooms this big. And all night long it was possible to marvel at the contrast between the sleek new building and the un-sleek, decidedly un-new band onstage. Good news for developers, bad news for promoters, mixed news for Newark: it seems arenas have outlived arena rock.

Bon Jovi is playing at the Prudential Center, Lafayette and Mulberry Streets, Newark, through Nov. 10; (201) 507-8900 or prucenter.com.

These reviews get right on my nerves. Still we get the Springsteen comparisons and now bloody U2.:mad:

Another poor night 1 review
 

JON'S BAD MEDICINE
By DAN AQUILANTE
Jon Bon Jovi serenades Newark. October 27, 2007 -- YOU'D think a serving of Bon Jovi on the Jersey side would be guaranteed goodness. Sadly, this wasn't the case at the band's opening performance of a 10-show series at the shiny new Prudential Center in Newark.

With a set of songs that often dragged and the band just punching the clock (with the exception of drummer Tico Torres), the show revved and sputtered in a concert that was desperately seeking momentum.

Blame the songs that appear on the band's new country-influenced record, "Lost Highway." The tunes are such easy listening that it makes them hard to handle in concert.

Also blame singer Jon Bon Jovi, who has played better shows. By the encore rendition of "Livin' on a Prayer," his a capella introduction was ragged - and for once the audience sing-along was welcome.

Jonny B. Bad wasn't even his usual charming self. As an artist, he's always acted as if it was the band's job to make the crowd scream. At this show, though, he repeatedly requested more response from the house.

Cheers are like kisses - if ya gotta ask, they don't count.

And blame this $340 million arena. There was a fantastic opportunity here to make a 20,000-seat auditorium that could serve as a sporting arena and an acoustically perfect concert hall. As a music palace, it failed sonically. Rather than projecting warm, crisp omni-directional acoustics that filled the room, the sound was delivered with old-fashioned sledgehammer force.

The gig wasn't entirely void of good. JBJ and the boys found their groove on two oldies ("You Give Love a Bad Name" and "Bad Medicine," which segued into "Shout") and the new "I Love This Town."

You could argue that "Raise Your Hands" and the aforementioned "Livin' on a Prayer" had power, but in comparison to past performances, they were just OK. And the Prudential Center is hardly a hole. It's clean, it's larger than the Garden (but that just means more opportunity for a bad seat), and they make a very good $4 hot dog and an almost-cold $7 beer.

Word to the wise: Don't buy the burger-fries combo. The fries were cold, the meat seemed to whinny, and mysteriously the bun was stale. How is that possible when you consider this was the very first event at the arena?

Bon Jovi continues their 10-show run at the Prudential Center (through Nov. 10) with a performance tomorrow.

I agree to a point - but night 1 was not their best show at all. I'm not sure what the best one will be but night 2 was far superior in my opinion.

On the other hand - these guys just never get a break - never :(

One thing I get from watching some of the clips on You Tube is that it no longer seems like a rock concert from Bon Jovi.
57 people on the stage making it look very cluttered and a bloody violin spoling some of my favourite songs like Blaze of Glory.
There seems to be no room for the sweat and energy on the stage from Jon.

It no longer seems to be the band that most of us no and love when it comes to the live experience.:(

Aloha !

Erm, don't these reviewers actually have a point about Jon still singing Bad Medicine after all these years, meaning that even though they've written better things, they yet still decide to play every big song from the 80's? If Bon Jovi would've focussed more on the songs written in the nineties, or the songs with better lyrics than "Bad Name (boom boom) Bad Medicine (boom boom boom), they'd gain a lot more respect, both from critics and from fans.

They need to play the big songs from the eighties, I agree with that. Yet they don't have to play every big song from the eighties. A 40 year old singer singing about needing Bad Medicine does, at times, come across as pathetic, and is exactly why Bon Jovi will not be taken seriously by the critics and general audiences.

Salaam Aleikum,
Sebastiaan

Totally agree !
No longer a rock band ! And **** that violin that sometimes even steal some guitar solos !!

Extra people on stage= Extra wages to pay= Higher ticket prices.

A.Has BOn Jovi ever cared about critics?
B.No fans should care about critics.
C.Unfortunately (or fortunately) Bon Jovi has done something that very few bands have done. They've written MANY absolute must do's in concert. I critique Jon's choice on the setlists as much as anyone, but one thing I get:

Bad Name
Prayer
Wanted
Medicine
It's My Life

Those are 5 BJ songs that will always show up. I don't agree that songs like Who Says..., and I'll Sleep... need to still be there, but that's another story.

Personally, I'm perfectly content with Bon Jovi not having all those ass-kissing Bono dick sucking critics on their side. U2 has, in my opinion, released maybe 2 or 3 good songs in the past 15 years.

Aloha !

Yes. They say they don't, yet they've mentioned many times that reviewers aren't that often on their side. If they wouldn't care, they wouldn't mention it.

I partly agree with this. Although no one should let his/her opinion be influenced by what a critic says, however, a good reviewer often, but not always, writes down what the masses thought about the show, which in the case of Bon Jovi, would mean that 15.000 people that night would feel this way. I'm not saying this particular reviewer is right, but when it comes to the subject of Bon Jovi playing Bad Medicine and the likes, this reviewer just has a point.

There are no must do's in concert. If Bon Jovi would be capable of playing lesser known songs just as good as the hits, the crowd wouldn't need the hits. Also, Bon Jovi have had more than those 5 hits. Your list shows their biggest hits, yet Always isn't included. If they're able to drop Always, why can't they be able to drop Bad Medicine?

Salaam Aleikum,
Sebastiaan