Supersonic's all mattering Bon Jovi in Milan review
 

Aloha !

Yes. Here it is. With a small delay. The all mattering review of one of the two only shows of this tour that actually mattered (Cologne being the other one). I’ve been asked several times, either by PM or on this board, about how I organize these trips I do to see Bon Jovi play in other countries. Often people seem to think they cost loads and loads of cash, while in most cases quite the opposite is true when looking at the amount of travelling and sightseeing I do. I’ll try to give a complete overview on how my latest trip came together this time around, the experience I’ve had and somewhere along the lines I’ll include the review for the Milan show. This is going to be a long read, so if you’re not interested, make your snarky comment and sod off. If you only care for the review, scroll down. Really, this isn't meant as a review. It's included somewhere, but it's merely a tutorial as to how to combine a Bon Jovi concert in a proper holiday, as opposed to just flying up and down. :)

If you have serious interest in doing multiple shows or have interest in travelling through Europe, read on. There’s plenty of tips in here no travelling agent will give you because it saves you money by sorting your business yourself as opposed to letting someone else do it.

This tour I’ve only done one show, though had close to finished plans for 5 shows; Stuttgart, Cologne, Lisbon, Madrid and Milan. Once Richie was out I cancelled all plans apart from the one for Milan, considering I’d already booked flights I just couldn’t cancel and I’d planned a few days in other cities as well that it made the trip worth it, would the show be disappointing. My advice is never to travel solely for a show anyway, but cancelling a trip for a show you might not like when you’ve got 4 additional days planned in a foreign country is a bit over the top.

Preparation
How to start? Google maps. Google maps has, ever since I started using it in 2009, been of the best help out of all the travelling websites there are. I’ve used it to plan an entire road trip through Canada, used it to see how much I could travel in the States, and used it for a road trip through Europe in 2011. The site has never, ever been wrong in regards to how long it takes to travel from A to B. If anything, it often takes shorter to get there, unless you don’t follow the route your GPS suggests and decide you know better. Obviously you need to use a bit of common sense. 100km often takes you 1 hour or less, unless you’re driving through the alps, then it’ll take you a bit more. You’re also not driving 1400km in 14 hours. You need bathroom breaks, just the occasional break to stretch your legs or an actual break for food. Sure, you can do it in 1 day, but you’d like to arrive well rested, right? Your holiday starts the next day, there’s no point in being completely ****ed the next day because you felt you could save time by doing the drive in one day. Besides, covering it in two days often gives you the chance to actually drive or stop in a cool city for the night, so why not make the drive more fun by stopping in a city you think is beautiful anyway? Therefore, look up what cities you’re passing, and then try to find out what you could be doing there. I remember driving from Newark to Washington, finding out Baltimore was pretty close and it had one of the biggest aquariums in the world. Not bad for a stop. Cities you think are worthless might surprise you.

So Bon Jovi plays a show in (insert city)? Look up what cities are close to said city. Chances are there’s an additional city not too far away worth visiting. Ever since I started looking into organizing trips like these I enjoy looking at Google maps, so I’ve build up some experience and knowledge in regards to how the world is put together, even up to the point that in 2011, when I was in a hotel room in Rome during a trip, I’d started planning a new trip for who were then my parents in law, and I’d already looked up information for how to travel around Italy. They claimed to love Italy, so why not look into how I could give them a few more days there without it costing me an arm and a leg? Unfortunately for them, their trip never happened, but the research I did back then came to great use now. Considering how this review is supposed to be about the holiday in Milan I’ll obviously focus on this one, and to clarify things a bit, this is where the insane amount of pictures come in.

So let’s have a look at Italy, and especially the era around Milan, and see what Google maps indicates as the bigger cities in the area. Don’t worry yet as to how to get there, just focus on what cities are close to Milan.

http://www.bonjovi-archives.com/Jovi..._Milaan/01.jpg

Why focus on these cities? Well, smaller city names might have a nice ring to them, but they are just that; small.

Now go check out what there is to see in every city. Some cities are bigger than others, but some have not much to offer while others have a very old city center which is nice to walk through. Go check for museums. Don’t think museums are boring, try to be surprised by what you might find. See if the zoo or something like it is fun to visit, the options are endless. This is a time consuming job, but gives you a pretty good idea if a city is worth visiting or worth avoiding. Italy is the country of the Roman empire, but not every city has a lot of buildings left from this Roman empire. There’s plenty of cathedrals spread all over Europe/Italy, but not every single one of them is worth visiting. Wikipedia travel is a good help, though usually if you just type “[name of city] + Sightseeing” you get a few websites. What I do is a put balloons in a city at every single sight I’d like to see, meaning Milan looked like this before I actually left Holland;

http://www.bonjovi-archives.com/Jovi..._Milaan/02.jpg

There’s no way you’ll be seeing all of it, but this way you get a good idea of what a city has to offer. If you can only fill a city with 5 of these balloons chances are you’ll be utterly bored, which again, is a waste of money. You can use those cities to travel through though, in case you’re passing them by on a journey to a next city. Drop off your luggage at a train station, walk through the city, have a bite to eat and then travel to your next destination. The downside of this is that you’re doing a lot of travelling on one day, as opposed to doing a lot of sightseeing.

Now apart from the bigger cities offering the most value for your money there’s another benefit. Pretty much all of them have their own airport, and thus more airlines will fly to these places. Don’t think “I’ve got to start in Milan”, think “Somewhere along this holiday I’ve got to end up in Milan”. It gives you plenty of options when looking at the amount of airports located around Milan and gives you more options in regards to when you’re flying in and flying out. Further on, don’t think you need to arrive and leave from the same airport, if you do this you always need to come back to a place you’ve been before, meaning you spend a day travelling to a place you’ve already seen, which is a waste of time.

So look up all your options. Check what flying in at Bologna, leaving in Milan costs. Check it the other way around. Check flying in Torino, leaving in Genova, check it the other way around. This is a lot of work, but can save you hundreds of Euro’s when done this way. Check different dates, leaving on a Sunday might save you a day off from work, but leaving on a Sunday often means a pricier ticket, so what you save from taking a day off could result into a more expensive ticket, thus not making up for saving on that vacation day. Some airlines like Ryan air or Easy Jet fly to airports located outside of the city for a lot less but realize that you will then need to take the train into the city, which costs time and money, often a lot more than you think because these airports know they can ask a lot more for their shuttle service. Once checking out flights, you’ll find out similarities between prices and airlines. Alitalia, KLM, Delta and Air France are all pretty much the same airline, so prices will be similar. Once you find an airline with the cheapest prices, check their own website. Chances are the airlines are advertising with actions not put on websites like orbitz.com or a similar site. Call them for an offer, they’re sometimes able to put you on a return flight arriving with Alitalia, leaving with KLM, another thing not possible when looking up schedules on websites.

For us, flying with KLM from Amsterdam to Torino and leaving from Milan was financially the most attractive. Actually, at first I’d booked a flight arriving in Milan, leaving from Torino, but a month after said booking, Alitalia no longer flew from Torino to Amsterdam and KLM rescheduled my flight to first landing in Rome and then have a connecting flight to Torino, meaning it would take us 8 hours from Amsterdam to Torino…No thanks. Can airlines do this? Sure, but once your flight chances you’re entitled to a refund, so I again looked into flights, and then changed it to flying in at Milan, leaving from Nice. A bit of a hassle, but it’d be really worth it in the end.

Now what’s next? Considering how you’ve already decided you will be landing at a different place, renting a car is not an option. The drop off fees in Europe are incredibly high when leaving a rental at a different location, and considering how the purpose of planning something so carefully is to keep the costs as low as possible, you’re now going to see what train connections there are. It’s not difficult, most train websites in Western Europe have a well working English version. Do check out if you’re on the actual site of the train company, and not some semi scalper site. Those sites ask more for train tickets because they offer the extra service of looking up your train journey, while this can easily be done by yourself. For example, a train ticket from Milan to Rome costs 30E on the official site, but 120E on a scalper site. It’s not just concert tickets that are being sold by “official” scalpers (Viagogo and the likes), they know many tourists from other continents have no ****ing clue what they’re getting into when flying to Europe.

When looking at the picture you see that the distance between the cities is roughly the same, thus this equals a train ride that’s of roughly the same duration as well. (Genova – Torino will be the same as Milano – Genova etc.) This means you don’t need to look up the times for every single train ride, once you know how long one train ride is, you can easily assume that most are of the same length, unless you’re covering mountains, which means climbing and tunnels. For information’s sake, most train journey’s take 2 hours, apart from the one to Genève and Nice as one of those goes through the Alps and the other follows the coastline.

When talking about train journeys, try to find out as to whether they’re actually any interesting. There’s more to sitting in a train and waiting to arrive. You’re in a foreign country after all, chances are the scenery is very different. When doing this, I found out the journey from Genova to Nice was one of the most beautiful train journeys of Europe, so although it costs more time, you’re actually sightseeing when on the train, which makes the journey a lot more interesting. It’s no longer a train ride, it’s part of your holiday. It’s once I started doing this I found out that the train ride from Genova to Nice was special, and thus the main reason why I decided we’d leave from Nice as opposed to travelling back to Milan.

Once flights were booked, it was time to take a look at the schedule. We’d land on a Friday and would leave on a Tuesday. I’d decided that we’d be travelling from Milan to Torino, then to Genova, and then head to Nice. Yes, that’s a lot of travelling spread out over just 5 days, but when planned well in advance it’s as much of a hassle as you might think. I’d already looked up how long the train journeys would be, and considering how all of these cities are relatively small you don’t need to spend a full day there in order to actually see them. When looking into train journeys and cities I found out Genova had a huge aquarium and Torino had the biggest car museum of Europe. Originally I intended to travel from Torino to Nice, but now it turned out the train would pretty much pass Genova, so why not make that stop there? It’d make the train ride a lot more fun, considering you’d still be in the train for 5 hours, but when you’re doing 2 hours in the morning and then 3 in the evening it doesn’t feel as long, and thus makes it a lot less boring.

The schedule was set, now it was time to look for hotels. I always use booking.com. They’re quite reliable, although out of all the bookings I’ve made 2 haven’t come through to said hotel. I once arrived in Paris and a booking I’d made for a hotel there never made it to the hotel, and I think I remember a similar thing having happened somewhere in America or London perhaps? I can’t remember. And sometimes your hotel can be utterly shit, which has happened to me twice now, once in Paris and once in Budapest. With a bit of haggling you can get a refund for that as well, and once you get a bit of experience you’ll be able to book a new hotel in a few hours.

Anyway, after making this booking , my advice is to contact the hotel a day or 2 later to check if they did receive the same confirmation you got. If you don’t do this and booking.com didn’t send their confirmation, chances are that once you arrive, the hotel is charging different prices than what you expected, or the hotel actually has no more room for you. You made a booking 4 months in advance for a certain period, but if this certain period is summer, the hotel will charge higher prices. It’s high season after all. I was fortunate that both times the hotel adjusted its prices to the one booking.com had put up, but a hotel is not obligated to do such thing. They do want their relationship with booking.com to stay well though, after all, the site offers them great publicity and a lot of costumers.
As to what’s a good price for a room it really depends on the country and city. I rarely take a hotel in the center of the city, they’re very expensive and you often wind up paying twice the amount of money for a similar hotel located on the outskirts of town. Most, if not all European cities, have great public transportation so why worry as to how to get to a center of a city? Besides, you can actually often walk from your hotel to the city center if your city is not too big. Experience with hotels comes once you travel a lot. I’ll never pay anything below 30E in France for a night anymore after having had rooms where I had to hold up the shower head myself, but would do it in a heartbeat in Spain or Italy as most hotels aren’t too expensive over there. Once hotels were booked we were ready to go.

Le trip.
Our holiday started on a Friday morning. I’d packed my bag that evening before, and then once I got in the car and was on the way to pick up the brother I realized I’d forgotten a few things. No worries, if you’ve got your passport you can always buy things on your holiday. I’m not returning back home for toothpaste or something similar. I was well on time (I think) because I kept myself to the speed limit like usual, and once the brother got in we drove to the train station. He soon shouted “STOP” because there was a speed bump on the road, but my incredible car doesn’t need to slow down for these things. Well, not for me, the brother thought differently once his head hit the roof, much to my amusement. Near the train station the speed bumps were a little higher though, so slowing down was required and for the first time since I bought my car I found out what those speed bumps are actually for. Imagine that! Parking was a great adventure as well with my brother telling me how much further I could go, and once he said stop I put the car in Park, it drove back a few centimeters and my towing hook hit the barrier. My car and the barrier survived the massive crash though, and once I got out it turned out I’d put the car that far back that there was actually no way we’d be able to get behind the car to get the bags out. No idea what mastermind thought putting the car this far back was a great idea, but anyway, you should’ve seen the brother struggle to actually open the booth while maneuvering his 210cm tall body on both a barrier and the ground. Wonderful.

This 210cm tall body was smart enough to check us in early so we had the seats with extra leg space. It’s a bitch sitting in these seats being as tall as I am but it’s pretty much impossible to sit there when you’re as tall as my brother is. Fortunately, no extra costs were needed so this cheap bastard had no problem getting a seat next to my wealthy brother. I demanded the seat next to the window, and what a window it was:

http://www.bonjovi-archives.com/Jovi..._Milaan/03.jpg

Exactly. Right next to the emergency doors. No view at all. Oh well, the extra leg space was nice though;

http://www.bonjovi-archives.com/Jovi..._Milaan/04.jpg

Yes, those are Nike Air Max Classics in the color of the A-team van. Best shoes ever. After having calmed down le brother because we were about to take off and he was pooping his pants, we actually did take off and then landed at Linate Airport 2 hours later. Once getting off the plane we found out that our bags were still in Amsterdam. We weren’t the only ones, they’d forgotten 2 containers with luggage, and a group of 20 people joined a queue of people all having the same problem. I soon found out why I dislike other tourists so much. You see, the whole purpose of reporting your lost luggage is to actually report your lost luggage. Not ask for train directions, schedules, where to shave your dog, where to find out where the nearest toilets are and the lot. This slowed down the process a lot. And then there’s the conversations you’re overhearing from people who are already ready to sue the ****ing shit out of the airline company if their bag is really lost. My brother saw my frustration grow, much to his amusement though. Once it was our turn it took us roughly 5 minutes to get our bags reported, and with the promise that our bags would be delivered to our hotel the next morning at roughly 10 we took off and headed to the train station heading to the center of Milan and then a connecting subway to our hotel.

Our hotel wasn’t too far from the center, pretty much like anything else in Milan isn’t located too far from the center. 3 stops from the center of the city and you’re pretty much on the outskirts of town. It takes you at least 15 when it comes to Paris. But we knew Milan isn’t Paris, so off we went. The brother had bought a book about Milan and insisted we took off right away, no time for relaxing as we’d already lost 3 hours at the airport after the entire luggage fiasco. So, off we went into the city, to our first stop;

Castello Sforzesco, a castle build in the 14th century, destroyed several times, partially restored and then renovated to its current state in the early 19th century. It now houses several museums which I did not bother to visit. It’s quite clear as to what parts were rebuild, and what parts were still original, or just older than most of the building. As you can see on the photo, the tower in the corner has a completely different color from the square tower in the middle.


http://www.bonjovi-archives.com/Jovi..._Milaan/05.jpg

(picture taken by Thunderstrucker)
After we left Milan, we went for a stroll through Parco Sempione which was a lot nicer than I expected. As can be seen on the pictures the weather was really nice, and we eventually wound up at the Arco della Pace, an arch build under order by Napoleon, which used to be the main entrance for Milan. It’s hard to imagine nowadays, but this is where people coming from Paris, used to enter Milan.

http://www.bonjovi-archives.com/Jovi..._Milaan/06.jpg

(picture taken by Thunderstrucker because I actually had my finger on the lens)
We left the park, headed east for a stroll through Milan, passed the Arena Civica which sadly wasn’t as impressive as I hoped it’d be (it’s a 200 year old arena), and headed for a walk through Milan with no real purpose but to see a bit of the city not part of the usual tourist attractions. We went for a bite to eat (Pizza obviously) and then headed back to our hotel as we’d planned quite a lot for the next day. Our bags had still not arrived, so we decided to watch a bit of a movie on le brother’s iPad, and after 5 minutes I decided to call it a night because, you know, a bed is made for sleeping, and sleep I did.

The next morning my brother decided his bladder needed emptying at 5, and there’s no way this man is capable of doing something without waking me up so obviously I woke up as well. Thank you very much. I went back to bed, only to find out he’d wake me up yet again at 7:30 to make the obligatory phone calls about our luggage. Yeah **** that shit I’m sleepy I thought, I put in my headphones, some Clapton (I think) and went back to sleep. Once I finally woke up (an hour later grmbl) because WE HAD SO MUCH TO DO GODDAMMIT GET OUTTA BED I went for a shower, put fresh clothes on…oh wait, I didn’t have any of that, and went for breakfast. YOU GOTTA EAT WELL THIS’LL BE A LONG DAY. Grmbl alright, alright. I had a proper breakfast but no appetite, and we headed to the subway, to get out at Duome, which was, you won’t believe it, located right in front of this:

http://www.bonjovi-archives.com/Jovi..._Milaan/07.jpg
Duomo di Milano

A really nice little church. Went inside and all of that, and it was quite beautiful really

http://www.bonjovi-archives.com/Jovi..._Milaan/08.jpg

My brother insisted on climbing the thing as well, for whatever reason he seems to think that you get A BEAUTIFUL VIEW ON EVERYTHING as long as you’re on top, but it’d turn out to be worth it. I’d read great things aboot it so decided it was probably worth it. And it was, so many details you got to see rather up close, it’s no wonder it took them 600 years to build this thing.

http://www.bonjovi-archives.com/Jovi..._Milaan/09.jpg

It’s no wonder this is the main attraction of Milan, and it’d turn out to be pretty much the only attraction of Milan. The Piazza del Duomo is really the only really, really nice place in Milan. Anything located outside of it is pretty much not interesting apart from several cathedrals located near the suburbs. After the Duomo di Milano we headed to Galleria Vittorio Emanuele II, probably one of the few shopping malls in the world actually worth visiting (the other one being the West Edmonton Mall with a rollercoaster in it that I never got to ride because I had to go to see a Bon Jovi show there ffs yada yada). This was actually more the building that mattered, not the shops.

http://www.bonjovi-archives.com/Jovi..._Milaan/10.jpg

With me driving a Mercedes I obviously had to go to the Mercedes Benz shop, but after seeing a leather training jacket of 450E and t-shirts costing 60E I decided to give it a pass. Though the building is huge, it doesn’t hold any shops that particularly interest me and it was obvious this was the pricier part of Milan, with Prada and Louis Vuitton stores in several streets.

http://www.bonjovi-archives.com/Jovi..._Milaan/11.jpg

I didn’t need no purse though, but went for a coke with chocolate pie, this only costing us 12E each. Quite the bargain compared to the Champs Elysees in Paris where I paid 8E for a coke last time I was there. We continued our journey and the weather picked up as well, and with the brother insisting on getting up early and having bought that book with walking routes I decided it was time for him to walk. After all, I had my A-team Nikes on so nothing would harm me but I pitied the fool (see what I did there? No? You suck) who wasn’t prepared for what was about to come. He quickly realized most of these routes were just passing by one shopping street after the next so he started to bitch yet again (What a woman) but I convinced him, or should I say I tried to convince him, we had plenty of time for everything, and we continued our walk. Fortunately for him we lost direction several times due to my perfect navigation when looking on the map that left out several streets, so he saw even more of Milan than he ever dreamed off. I had printed my own Google maps map with all of its balloons on it so I kind of knew where we were, keywords here being “kind off”. Eventually we did find our way to the balloons of which I will now highlight several, because you’re clearly not ready for the review of the Bon Jovi show.
One of them was San Vittore al Corpo, a church that didn’t look particularly interesting from the outside;


http://www.bonjovi-archives.com/Jovi..._Milaan/12.jpg

But was quite something from the inside. This is why you put balloons in Google maps and do research beforehand. There’s no way I’d have bothered to go inside would I not have known this;

http://www.bonjovi-archives.com/Jovi..._Milaan/13.jpg

I’ve seen plenty of churches and cathedrals and after a while you start to pick up on the little design differences here and there, or the attention to detail. Cathedrals and churches in Italy have a lot less grey in them and more color than those in the northern or western parts of Europe.

This was pretty much the only remarkable thing of Milan left. Yeah, there’s still plenty of fancy streets, but Milan is small and rather uninteresting. Oh yeah, I saw one of these, and was quite surprised I saw so few of them driving around. The last time I was in Italy I saw plenty of these, but I reckon the crisis has been the rich a bit harder than I thought.

http://www.bonjovi-archives.com/Jovi..._Milaan/14.jpg

After I had jizzed my pants over this beautiful piece of design we went back to the hotel to get changed, only to find out our bags had still not been delivered. But who cared, at this point we’d gotten used to each other’s odor and after a quick powernap (remember the getting up early thing? Completely useless) we went for a bite to eat where le brother found out the Italians often eat their meat a bit colder than usual. The waiter took his meat and came back with it all warmed up and he swallowed it with pride (see what I did there ho hum ho hum). We headed to the stadium, and whaddayaknow we still managed to accidentally walk into Thierry and his girlfriend. We bitched and complained a bit, especially his girlfriend, considering how she had zero excitement about the show, or like I said, was just as excited about the entire thing like I was.

And now comes...

Supersonic's all mattering review on Bon Jovi in Milan. ®

Yeah, it was alright.

A lot has been said about the whole Richie fiasco and the entire set list debacle so I will not repeat everything I’ve said in other threads. It might not have been obvious to many on here who dedicate half their post count on telling others to move on, but I have actually moved on quite a bit after the entire thing turned into such a cluster****, much like I moved on in 2005 after the HAND tour became so boring. Like with The Circle, I’ve felt no need to continuously repeat myself in regards to how I feel, especially when the majority of Jovitalk actually agrees with most of what I say (imagine that!) so there’s no need for me trying to convince others of my never ending wisdom in regards to Bon Jovi. I’m not a man of many words…just kidding, I’m on page 16 in Word now, so I will say this;

I went into this show with the lowest expectations I ever had for any Bon Jovi show, which kind of made the main set bearable. True, for a casual or just a normal fan the main set is pleasing, but for someone who’s seen the band several times the past few tours it’s just flat out boring, especially with not a single song being extended or turned into something different, bar Keep The Faith. Which gets completely ruined by Bobby Bandiera near the end. The noise he makes on his guitar just makes no sense. He’s pulling those faces, pretending to be a proper rocker, but it doesn’t correspond with what you’re actually hearing. Another factor that made it rather sad was that the sound was so bad. I’ve read reports of other shows having a shit sound as well, and from where we stood we could barely hear anything but vocals, drums, bass and keys. Bobby was louder in the mix than Phil was as well, so for those thinking that the sound was terrible at their show due to the venue having terrible acoustics; chances are it’s the sound engineer as the same problem occurred in East Rutherford a month later. I’ve heard they’ve got a different team of people mixing this tour, which probably explains all the bad reports everywhere.

But the biggest problem with this show was that I’d seen it all before. Now that’s hardly a surprise after seeing as many shows like I have. But I’ve seen it before, and better. Much better in fact. The crowd made the show special for me with all their choreography, but once Jon started his “You’re making a grown up man cry” it became such a predictable act, as if the adoration he just received from the crowd wasn’t enough and he still needed more applause. It never felt real, and it’s a feeling I had all throughout the main set. He seemed to rush himself through it, and quickly went back to autopilot during most of the main set.
Now most of the crowd didn’t notice as they were too busy partying to “their” band, but the fact that with an audience like this Jon should’ve kicked the show into high gear as soon as this crowd actually did show their loyalty and appreciation for the band. This was a crowd that knew their stuff, and songs like Capt. Crash or We Got It Goin’ On weren’t needed to actually get the crowd going. Save that for the knitting Yanks (just kidding). Instead, Jon zoned out and stayed that way for the first 2 hours, and 45 minutes into the show I was flat out bored. I know, I know, I was one of the few, but the fact is, I’m a die-hard who has seen an incredible amount of shows. I’ve taken breaks from this band before due to seeing too many shows, but even if this had been one of my first show in a few years I’d still have been bored to death. Jon’s vocals? Way worse than before. Guitar work? Despite Phil X being good, he’s just not capable of delivering a Bon Jovi sound, doesn’t seem to “get” the fills Richie adds to the songs, and before anyone starts on how difficult they are; they’re not. They used to be, but Richie’s been very easy to imitate the past 10 years, with the odd exception here and there. There’s no way I am as good as Phil X is, but I can add flair to the stuff when playing the songs, and flair was seriously missing all throughout the show. He’s a great guitarist and on Bon Jovi songs of the last 10 years you won’t notice the difference. But anything older than that? Richie’s needed.

I’ve said I’ve stopped posting on Jovitalk, but that doesn’t mean I’ve stopped reading. I read so many replies from the same few people saying a certain thing was awesome despite a majority thinking it wasn’t, and I kind of pity them. They’ll never see the show through my eyes, will never pick up on all the details and I really feel you’re missing out. Sure, the magic is lost on me (I just don’t fall for this “you’re making me cry” nonsense anymore) but once it’s actually there, you know it’s actually there, and not an act. I recognize auto pilot from a mile away, and this show was just that. Autopilot. No matter what anyone on here will say, I know I am right, and anyone who disagrees with this observation is just blatantly wrong and clueless in regards to what autopilot actually looks like. It’s why I don’t give a shit about certain reviews on here from people saying a certain show was brilliant and all of that. Chances are would I have been at the same show and have stood next to them I’d have been able to point out certain things they’d never seen before.

But if any show shouldn’t have been on autopilot, it should have been this one. Before anyone jumps on me and says no show should be on autopilot, I agree. But considering the reaction from the crowd towards pretty much every song that was played, this was an audience that deserved more. This crowd showed more passion for the music than Jon did for the audience. This was a crowd as good, or better as Amsterdam 2008 and Barcelona 2011. And Jon? Jon zoned out. He just wasn’t there, and with the main set being so static for pretty much 4 years now it really says a lot about how much of an artist Jon is nowadays. You see, as much as Jon talks about Dylan, Cohen and Jagger and how much he respects them and thinks they’re true artists, you’d think he’d want to be like them, as much as every pop star used to want to be like Michael Jackson. But Jon is anything but. The Jon Bon Jovi on this tour hasn’t been showing much dedication towards his own work, and just rushes himself through the set. It’s no surprise that the only time the band is actually jamming, is when Jon is offstage. It’s as if they all come to live, being freed from the dictatorship that tells them what is and what isn’t allowed. It were those 2 minutes in the main set that actually showed Bon Jovi somewhere. Until Bobby started his solo, that is. He just ruins it and just can’t play a decent solo for shit. It’s not because he has a different style, it’s because he has absolutely no style or feeling whenever he plays, but we’ve covered Bobby before so I’ll just leave it to that.

So was it all shit then? No, not really. Because after that boring main set…THAT encore followed.

Considering how I don’t particularly care for The Circle I didn’t really get too excited about the returns of Happy Now and later on Love’s The Only Rule as well. And with the latter being one of the favorite songs I connect to my ex I wasn’t particularly thrilled to hear this one again as it’d bring back a few memories I’ve tried to find peace with the past year or so. With the knowledge of Richie not being there I was still hoping for Dry County despite having heard it several times now and it having lost its novelty for me. And with Bon Jovi logic, getting Dry County would mean Jon dropping the other rare song of the night. I’d seen the set list already when the camera skipped over David’s keyboard and had seen Love’s The Only Rule being on there, so yeah, when Dry County opened the encore I was glad. Jon didn’t murder it either, and so far so good then. I got excited about Sat. Night as well after having heard the dull acoustic rendition so many times since 2005 but with the lame guitar solo and outro it didn’t really build up any excitement this time around, Jon rushed himself through it again. I knew “I” was in trouble when David started setting up his keyboard tones differently and Love’s The Only Rule followed. And what a rendition it was.

This was the first time I saw Jon actually getting into the song. I’ve seen the song performed multiple times; a few times in America and one time in Europe as well. I never quite got why Americans were raving about this song when it was performed in arena’s over there, but they kept trying to convince me that Jon was always trying to sell the song a lot more than the times I saw it being performed. I never quite got to see that, until I saw him sing the song in Milan, putting more passion and excitement into it than any of the new songs, and this indicating right away why the new songs go over like a lead balloon. But not Love’s The Only Rule. If Jon had been capable of selling every song of the night like he tried to sell this one, it’d have easily been one of the best Bon Jovi shows I’ve ever seen, but he didn’t, which was exactly the problem. He turned Love’s The Only Rule into a highlight for me, despite me thinking it’s an average song. He brought new life to it with the multiple build ups and belted out the chorus like a true singer should. The song did bring back the memories of times that seem like as if they belong to a former life as I was reminded of a time when we both believed in each other, and as cheesy as it may sound, when love truly was the only rule for us. When there was nothing that could stop us, and the dedication and conviction we had for each other was captured in that one performance in Milan. During that performance, everything fell into place, and for the first time that night it felt like crowd and band were one. It showed that when the front man of Bon Jovi is on fire, you just don’t need an average Richie Sambora to keep this band alive, a thing I didn’t expect to happen either. Love’s The Only Rule was truly one of the highlights of the show, and was a good reminder of what this band, but especially Jon, is capable off when willing to show off what he’s got, as opposed to resting on his laurels and thinking just singing the hits is good enough. Alright, enough Kuba talk there. :p

The obligatory Wanted Dead Or Alive followed, I don’t particularly care for this song anymore, but don’t get all worked up about Richie not being there either. I’m having none of this sentimental “Richie needs to be there for this one because of the brotherhood OMG!!11one” bullshit. I pretty much zone out whenever Wanted gets played until the electric guitar solo kicks in, because that’s where technicians to this day still manage to mess up. It was a solid rendition, nothing more nothing less.
But there was another surprise, one I absolutely didn’t expect. It was obviously planned in advance, though Jon likes to pretend he plays requests from banners (we can’t have anything spontaneous in the show, right?), but I was surprised to see him give this particular song an outing. There was some nonsense story about the venue reminding him of the Twin Towers, and I’m not particularly sure how an American from the New York area would’ve felt about that comment as it felt a bit like using the tragedy to sell the song to this audience, but maybe that’s just me? I did get very excited hearing this one live again though, the last time I heard it was 2003 so it was a welcome surprise. Unfortunately, it wasn’t that great a performance. The song has been played too slow ever since it was incorporated in the American set lists of 2003, and has always lacked the punch the album version has, much like tonight. On top of that, the brother and I were interrupted by 2 guys in the crowd who really wanted to have their picture taken with us because we are so tall. I kid you not, we were asked to pose with complete strangers. I missed the guitar solo because of this, but after checking youTube it turned out there wasn’t one to begin with. So yeah, Undivided was a nice surprise but it lacked the drive and punch Love’s The Only Rule had.

A rousing rendition of Have A Nice Day followed though it’s become another one of those where I zone out because it’s become another one of those new songs that’s played live exactly like the album version. Whatever happened to changing new songs in a live environment in order to make them differ from the static album versions of the past 10 years? It’s another reason why the set lists have become so boring. Anything pre-2000 would be turned into a different beast when played live. Will we ever get to hear an It’s My Life with extended talk box solo? A Capt. Crash spiced up with a few covers? The band seems to come to life whenever a chance is made or a cover song is added to a song, yet we are being offered the same renditions of the same songs over and over again. Changing the arrangements slightly can breathe new life into an otherwise rather overplayed song. This goes for the renditions of Bad Name and Prayer as well, the latter one finally being changed a bit with it having the acoustic intro. But why repeat the first verse? Sure enough, once Prayer was started no one seems to mind as this is an all-time classic and that Italian crowd was loud! But for a fan who has seen every tour in the past 20 years, or even 10 years, it gets rather predictable. Now before you start the “You’re in the minority” talk, yes, I’m well aware of that. But it goes back to the same excuse of not willing to change things up. Don’t get me wrong, I still like Prayer live despite Jon sounding like a strangled cat for the most parts (Thammyusedtawahkondadahks) but it’s had the same arrangement for years now. Play an acoustic verse + chorus and kick right into the song, as opposed to once again starting the keyboard intro. It killed the momentum quite a bit. That said, hearing Jon play it on an acoustic like this did feel a bit like a treat, and for the first time in years I felt he managed to make a stadium show intimate.

A second encore was kind of expected considering how well this first encore went down. Once Jon came back with his acoustic I feared for I Love This Town but fortunately it was the small snippet of Never Say Goodbye, a thing of which I don’t understand why he’s not just playing the full rendition. It’s not as if it goes down poorly on the crowd, many people know this over here as it was released on Cross Road (America’s version of Cross Road lacked this one), so chances are everyone has heard it, despite the latest Greatest Hits lacking this one. But no, we got a verse and a chorus, and the band kicked into Always. I expected Jon to murder this one, but he got away with it better than I expected. As a matter of fact, I realized by now that his vocals were so, so much better during the encore than they’d been for the entire main set. I’d have loved to hear a good outro solo by Phil X because he seems to be nailing this one as of lately, but alas this was not the case due to the shitty sound that had been bothering me for the entire show. We could barely hear him still while you’d think they’d have solved it by the end of the show. Bon Jovi has never had a good sound compared to other stadium acts but this was just really, really bad. Always wasn’t though, I enjoyed it. And once Jon got back his acoustic I once again thought we’d get I Love This Town, but nope. These Days followed, much to the delight of the brother. Now I know I’m going to upset a few people here, but I don’t particularly care for These Days anymore. Yes, it’s a good song, but the way Jon sings it makes it lose all its power. Besides, the guitar solo’s supposed to rip into it after the bridge, and such a thing rarely happens anymore as its lost most of its punch since 2008. I don’t really understand why Jon keeps playing this song of the These Days album as I feel Hey God or Damned are better songs, but again, that might be just me. And I’m not complaining about getting this one instead of ****ing I Love This Town.

What followed now was one of the most awesome Bon Jovi moments in the past 10 years. Jon teasing the crowd with one more song, then whistling back the band who looked genuinely surprised to be called back, and then letting the crowd decide what song would be getting played. The approving roar of the crowd after Jon mentioned Bed Of Roses really surprised me, there was no way of getting this crowd tired of the show. We all know by now how the choices went down, but the lack of roar for I Love This Town was satisfying enough for me that I knew we at least wouldn’t be getting THAT song. I was surprised Living In Sin was met with slightly the same noise I’ll Be There For You received, but when Jon mentioned This Ain’t A Love Song me and the brother screamed like 2 crazy 16 year old fan boys and then apologized to the people behind us who got a kick out of seeing these two lunatics scream their hearts out. Despite the appreciation for both Bed Of Roses and I’ll Be There For You being much bigger Jon did opt to play This Ain’t A Love Song, making it kind of obvious he was just testing the waters to see if enough people would actually cheer for the song. This moment, with the performance of This Ain’t A Love Song was as good as the “**** it, let’s play” moment in Hyde Park 2003, “This one’s for the die hards” in Dusseldorf 2006 or “These guys wanna hear I Believe” in Lisbon 2011. Although I’d enjoyed the encore thus far this was the icing on the cake and really saved the show from lacking any genuine crowd interaction.

So what’s the verdict then? Well, it feels like I watched two bands play this night. One played a 2 hour, lackluster main set, and then Jon turned it up a notch during the encore and proved why I’m still a Bon Jovi fan despite having seen so many average or just ok shows. But the truth is, 1 hour and 10 minutes of fun don’t make up for 2 hours of boredom. And I’m perfectly aware I was probably one of the few who’s verdict about this show was as harsh as this, but that’s because I’m a die-hard who travels to see the band, and those are in the minority anyway. Therefore, my judgment and verdict about this show is exactly coming from that perspective. Someone who’s seen every show since 2000 or even before that will see too many similarities, and I can’t blame them because it really is more of the same. Especially when the main set is so similar to the one a tour before yet lacks the acoustic set and “surprising” covers. Would I have known what the main set was like, there’s no way I’d have even bothered going in before the encore started, which again shows what the problem is with these shows. Autopilot all the way with the few exceptions here and there. Considering what the band has offered in America after the European leg had ended, I doubt I’d have stayed for the encore and would have walked out of the show again, just like I did the last time they played at the MetLife Stadium. Bon Jovi showed signs of willing to please the die-hard fan base, but there is little proof of that left now, which makes Bon Jovi a fan for the average Joe, and Springsteen (yes, there he is again), the true hero from Jersey. And as much as this upsets Jon to this day, there’s only one person to blame and that’s Jon himself.

So the verdict?

Rating on the Supersonics’ all mattering Bon Jovi review index:
***** The ****ing bollocks!!!
**** Top show.
*** Yeah, well that was alright...
** Piss poor performance. Zzzzz…
* Back to the drawing board.

And now? The way back to the hotel when it was dark! Always an adventure when you can barely remember where you came from, so like proper sheep we just followed the masses, expecting them to head to the same subway station we came from. Aaaaand…that turned out not to be the case. After asking for directions “djust go-a straight on-ah!” we found our way back. Genius brother had lost his subway ticket so had to buy a new one, and what do you know, he wasn’t the only one! What surprised me was there were actually people walking around there assisting everyone. I’ve never, ever seen that anywhere, who knew the world could learn something from the Italians when it comes to organizing a concert (Pay attention Dzjermans!). We found our way back to the hotel, no bags still so we went back to bed.

The next morning 7:30, barely awake, the brother was wide awake trying to locate our bags. “YEAH NOT NOW MAYBE LATER” and I went back to sleep. This ritual followed 3 times up until the point that he got slightly frustrated with my lack of engagement to finding our bags. I got dressed and went downstairs to the lobby to ask the receptionist to make a phone call for us in Italian. And what do you know? They picked up the phone within a minute, and after a 5 minute phone call he received the number of the courier, he made another call, and the bags would be here in just an hour. I went back to the hotel room to bring the news to the brother who jumped up for joy, then jumped in the shower, and we resorted to getting ready as we had to check out by now. After waiting in the lobby for 30 minutes our luggage finally arrived and we freshened ourselves up, and within 45 minutes we raced ourselves to Milan Central Station to get on the train to Torino. Well done, only a 3 hour delay after our bags had been delivered a whopping 48 hours later than planned. More on the compensation later.

Torino’s a relatively small city, half a day’s work walking around a bit and you’re done. There is one major attraction if you like you’re a petrol head like me though; it houses the Museo dell'Automobile, one of the worlds oldest car musea, and, according to The Times, one of the 50 best musea in the world. What not many people know, is that Turin has been of great importance to car history. Fiat originates from Turin, but also Lancia and Bertone and Pininfarina, the latter two being design houses who have designed cars for Lamborghini and Ferrari. The museum obviously showcases a lot of Italian cars which have been of great importance to the history of the car…according to the Italians, while the truth is that Italian cars to this day represent both speed, but mostly unreliability, despite quality being much better than it was in the eighties and early nineties. It’s pointless to point out all the highlights located here but the museum indeed is beautiful. Not a car buff? That shouldn’t stop you from visiting, my brother doesn’t give a shit about cars but he enjoyed it nearly as much as I did. What was remarkable to see was the difference between the American and European car industry. Where Europeans kept trying to find a way to make cars lighter and faster, the Americans kept making cars heavy and slow. A thing that, a few years ago, has meant the end of the American car industry as American cars are hard to sell over here, while European and Japanese cars are much wanted over there now that gas prices are going up this much. To illustrate this, I’ll post two cars from roughly the same area, yet the differences are obvious nonetheless. Whether one is more beautiful is up to you though…

A Mercedes-Benz 500 K from Europe. Smaller engine, bigger weight, higher top speed…

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And a Packard Super-Eight 1501 from America. Bigger engine, lower weight, lower top speed…

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The museum took about 2 hours and we then walked past the river Po back to the city center. The weather was absolutely gorgeous so we both got our tan on again. First thing was the Polytechnic University of Turin, one of the most important engineering universities in the world. It’s no surprise many Italian car factories originate from Turin with an engineering university located in the same city; no shortage of employees. The building on the photo houses the architecture division of the university. And to be fair, it’s not too shabby looking for a university either;

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With us being later in Turin than planned and it being a Sunday most restaurants and shops were closed by the time we were getting to the city center. The plus side of this was it not being so crowded. The downside was, well, the hunger really. After a quick bite to eat at a nice little restaurant located in a small street we continued our stroll. Turin is a beautiful city to just walk through. There’s not many interesting sights here, but the general atmosphere in the city was great, and I in fact liked it more than Milan, probably due to most tourists always going to Milan, another reason why visiting other cities pays off.

Onwards to Piazza Castello, which as it turned out really is the only piazza worth visiting in Turin. And you won’t believe it, but Piazza Castello is named after…the castle in the middle of the piazza. It wasn’t particularly interesting, the rearside of the castle houses the museum of ancient art. Didn’t bother with this one, but the building looked nice enough for a picture.

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And located on the left is this:

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The Royal Palace of Turin. I don’t think anyone would complain if I’d turn up the volume of my amp a bit too much. After this we headed back to the ho2el as it was getting late already and we were supposed to get on the train to Genova the next morning. Like I said, Turin doesn’t offer many sights but is a nice city to walk through;

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The next morning was the first morning we actually woke up refreshed, able to put on clean clothes, shave and all of that. Had proper breakfast and then headed off to the train station to catch the train to Genova. This was the first train ride of which I was told was beautiful. With the sun out early in the morning we got a nice view of the Italian landscape. This is getting closer to Genova, once we’d cross these mountains we’d enter Genova. This train ride was great, seeing all the little villages located near the train tracks with its origins dating back to hundreds of years ago. The differences in architecture were also quite obvious if you took notice, there’s a lot to see if you don’t just stare out of the window but actually look at what’s passing you by.

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After arriving in Genova we dropped off the bags at the station for the rest of the day and headed into the city. It had gotten warmer outside by now but because of it being located near the Mediterranean Sea it wasn’t something we couldn’t handle. First thing we saw was Stazioni Marittime S.p.A., the station for cruises coming in and going out of Genova. Quite the building, and if you pay attention you notice the subtle differences between this and the buildings in Turin. This one’s got a lot more fancy details, more rounded off and not as static.

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Right from the moment we walked past the docks it became obvious the city has grown too big for all its inhabitants. There’s no room for roads or housing anymore so the entire coastline and harbor is ruined by a large highway overpass build on top of it. We headed to Acquario di Genova, Europe’s second biggest aquarium (I visited the biggest one in Lisbon last tour ) and once again not many tourists around there because it wasn’t high season. So plenty of possibilities to take pictures without kids crowding up to the glass:

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Picture taken by Thunderstrucker

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Picture taken by me ho ho ho.

This is Genoa’s biggest attraction, well worth visiting. I’d have loved to visit the Botanic Gardens as well, buuuut le brother left the tickets on the toilet so we skipped that one and then proceeded to find all the dots located on the map I printed. First was Palazzo San Giorgio, a palace decorated with a lot of Fresco’s. The dark thing on the right of the picture is the overpass I stood under when taking the picture. It runs past the entire coast of Genova and thus ruins everyone’s view. I don’t really understand why they didn’t build it behind the city, but never bothered to ask either. Can anyone on here answer this?

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We left the coastline for what it was and headed into Genoa. And what do you know? A second hand CD Market. For those wanting to get the b-sides on CD (there used to be a time people actually cared for this) these things are great. First thing I found?

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Yep, mint condition with sticker. I already had my copy though, but this is why it’s always interesting as a die-hard to browse through these stands. Continuing, the great thing about Europe is that there’s small cathedrals and churches everywhere, you sometimes just need to know where to look. Entering a small street we found the Chiesa di San Pietro in Banchi, and this picture kind of shows how Genoa is setup:

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And no matter how small, chances are it’s beautiful inside. Another testament why you shouldn’t write something off for looking uninteresting from the outside:

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A few hundred meters further we stumbled upon the Cathedral of San Lorenzo, which really jumped out of it. Notice how different it looks from regular cathedrals. I wasn’t able to come up with a landscape photo so my brother send me his.

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Hi hi hi get it? He rotated his. Pa dum tish. But anyway, you get the idea. Inside the cathedral the design structures continued, giving it kind of a bit of a South African look due to the references to a Zebra.

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Getting hungry now, so we stopped for a typical Italian Lunch. Seriously though, after 3 days you do get tired of Pizza, Spaghetti and what else.

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Following our treck through the city we stumbled upon more cathedrals, and then eventually got lost for a bit, only to find a church they build once they ran out of funding. So no fancy pillars and statues on the outside. Solution? WE PAINT IT ON THE BUILDING. You think I’m making this up? Nope, it really happened this way.

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