Supersonic's all mattering Bon Jovi in Frankfurt review.
 

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.

http://www.bonjovi-archives.com/Scarydog.jpg

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!!!!!

http://www.bonjovi-archives.com/Whoah.jpg

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!!!

http://www.bonjovi-archives.com/VIEW.jpg

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.

There was even a girl dancing beside me that danced like she was a ****ing pole dancer or something. A little over the top, to be honest but such a sight to see.

http://www.bonjovi-archives.com/Lovely.jpg
Just in case someone starts to moan about how I shouldn’t take pictures of women like that, this was incidentally shot when I made a picture of Thierry, but while typing this I’m sure no one believes me. Oh well.

Faith was immense. Richie just ripped the **** out of his guitar during the different guitar solo, and Jon was on fire during the chorusses. When Tico started doing the jungle drums, me and Thierry were happy, and when Jon pointed at Hugh and heard him playing the bass line for Sympathy we three did our little dance. No jungle screams were done tonight, if Jon would’ve done those it would’ve been the best version I ever heard. Still, this was Richie’s song, he just tore the song to pieces and again the playing in front of the video screens was cool as ****.

Sympathy For The Devil:
After Faith, Richie followed with I’ll Be There For You and although many of you want Richie to change it for another song, I’d rather hear him singing this than his version of These Days. The crowd loved it and we loved it too. After Richie’s song, me and Thierry knew that this was the spot for a rare song and hoped for Hey God but got Lay Your Hands On Me instead to the delight of Seem who had been wanting this song for a very long time. So yeah, at least someone was happy there. At this point we knew that Hey God would not be played tonight, and Jon and co. ****ed up the intro of Lay Your Hands On Me. It was done with the drum intro, but only for a short while before the band broke down into the electric version. When this tour started, Jon struggled with the vocals for this song, but not tonight baby, oh no. Again, the band and Jon nailed the song, and after the song we were off to Have A Nice Day, followed by Who Says You Can’t Go Home. I think it’s safe to assume that what bothers me about Crash is what bothers Thierry about Who Says. Keep in mind that he’s heard the song about 50 more times than me because he actually did do lots of shows on the HAND tour, and the look on his face was just priceless when Jon did the reprise for the first time this tour. I made a picture of it, but am not allowed to share it unless the same big titted girls I mentioned in the start of my review blow him too, so if any of you wants to see the picture you know what you need to do.

Bad Medicine followed to the delight of Seem, who hates the song, but I have to admit that Jon was on fire during the performance. Prayer followed, Jon nailed the song, well, almost and they were off. And this was the part of me and Thierry where we started to speculate what would show up. The fun about this European leg is that you actually don’t have any idea of what will show up in the encore, which is a lot, lot more fun than knowing that it’s I Love This Town and Wanted. Anyway, band came back, started Any Other Day and again Seem was happy because she had been wanting to hear the song right from the start of the tour. It was a solid performance but there’s something about the song that doesn’t work live. The crowd didn’t know the song either and I think they should’ve started the encore with a big hit. After the zillion solo’s in the end Richie started the riff of Damned right away, just 2 notes but Jon said stop. I think close to no one in the audience knew what was coming up apart from me and Thierry. Again, finally it was fun again to collect bootlegs when a band surprises it’s audience because we recognized the riff. We did our little dance again, told Seem Damned would show up, and I texted Emil while Jon was still doing his a capella intro (which could barely be heard due to the terrible acoustics) so he got the message when the song hadn’t even started. Damned was the ****ing bollocks. Yes, I didn’t get Hey God, but who cares when you get Damned instead? This song had been done live only one time this tour, and a few times on past tours but again it didn’t sound as brilliant as tonight. This one pissed all over any performance since 2000. Best version since 1996, easily. No flat vocals, no moody Jon, none of that. This was Jon the ****ing rock star who showed the audience and die hards how it’s done.

After Damned, Jon grabbed his acoustic and started strumming a few E chords of Sat. Night. He asked the crowd “what do you want to hear” and teased the audience with the intro of These Days. Again, it was fun being with Thierry, we knew what was coming up, did our little dance, and while Jon pointed to Dave to start the piano intro we three were a happy bunch because we knew it’d be Jon who’d be singing the song. During the song Jon nailed it. I’ve never heard Jon sing These Days so well since 1996. Yes, 1996 had better performances of the song but again it pissed all over any post 2000 performance. Before the guitar solo, Jon pointed at Poncho to do the guitar solo, Richie pointed at Poncho but Poncho pointed at Richie to do the guitar solo. Me and Thierry saw it happening, and, well, you guessed it, did our little dance, and Richie played a proper guitar solo. I’m absolutely positive that the encore was supposed to be Sat. Night and Wanted, so they mixed it up quite a lot.

This encore was brilliant. Wanted followed, crowd sang the first verse and the show was done. It felt like the band didn’t want to leave but had to because of their schedule. This show in Frankfurt was how it’s supposed to be done. This is the band that we three fell in love with. This was how a show was supposed to be, and how you were supposed to leave a Bon Jovi show. Soaking wet because of the sweat, a bit of a sore throat and just happy. Very happy. We also wondered what Twickenham would bring if this show would be this good. That said, they often do one of their best shows of the tour in Germany, and according to Thierry Milton Keynes 2006 weren’t the best shows of the tour either. Who cares though, this night, the band tore the ****ing roof of the place, and we were ****ing there.

When we were driving away from the venue I gave everyone a private concert out of sheer excitement which was a lot of fun to do. Thierry looked the other way though, he hung his head in shame he said, but laughed his ass off. While Jon was so in key, I was so out if that night. This was certainly the most fun I’ve ever had before, during and after a Bon Jovi show, thanks to my friends. When I woke up at Thierry’s place he told me my hair looked like Toad from Mario, just to give you an idea of what Seb looks like when he wakes up, and I think it’s safe to assume that, besides my brother, Seem and Thierry are the only 2 persons who can own Seb. (poor me).

Cheers to you 2. It was absolutely brilliant.

Rating on the Supersonic’s all mattering Bon Jovi review index:
***** The ****ing bollocks!!!
**** Top show.
*** Yeah, well that was alright...
** Piss poor performance. Nnngg!!!
* Jon you cunt I hope you go bald within 1 day!

Pictures were made by me, video's have been recorded by Semigiovi. :)

Salaam Aleikum,
Sebastiaan

Great review Seb

Thanks

Great review Seb. Glad to hear you enjoyed the show that much.

What's that little dance of yours?

Nice review :-) I have the same experience with recognising songs from Munich. I always knew what it is but the people around me needed minutes!

And yes, you could have given telling us about the existing bootleg a miss. It's clear to me that you wanted us all envy..

Offcourse your review is briljant!
And I love doing the concert with you and Thierry :cool:

It was the night off my live and I'm begging Jon for mercy!

Thank you BJ, Seb and Thierry for this wonderfull oppertunity!

Thanks Seb, I really enjoyed that. :)

Thanks Seb, glad you enjoyed it! Hope I get a similar show for my first concert in Twickenham on June 27th :)

Brilliant review :D thanks