Bon Jovi at the o2 - anyone going?

A band that lives on past glories... no thanks.

Review in the Guardian from a day or two ago:

To what do we owe the pleasure of Bon Jovi's 12-night stand at one of Europe's largest indoor venues? It's 24 years since Slippery When Wet, yet here they are, performing to 276,000 people during their sold-out residency. Their audience is all ages, resolutely suburban, and, like Bon Jovi's career, impervious to fashion. The preponderance of parents with kids in tow confirms that what Bon Jovi deal in is cosy family entertainment, tricked out in the motley of rebellion.

"There goes the neighbourhood!" scream the T-shirts, advertising a band who pose about as much threat to the neighbourhood as a senior citizens' book group. There's no qualitative difference between 1988's Bad Medicine and last year's Love's the Only Rule: they can clearly churn out the air-punching anthems with the same practised ease that Jon Bon Jovi – his face eerily unlined at 48, his teeth shining like the Portland Bill lighthouse – works the crowd. "Sounds like church music to me, baby!" he cries when they sing along.

It's all deeply hokey, but hokey Bon Jovi is infinitely preferable to earnest Bon Jovi, of which there is a surprising amount. The frontman introduces When We Were Beautiful with a speech about "the events of late 2008", by which he presumably means the credit crunch, rather than the gripping semi-final tussle between JLS and Eoghan Quigg on The X Factor, and implores the audience to "listen to the lyrics". Listening to the lyrics makes you wonder if, the prospect of financial recovery notwithstanding, it might not be better to just pull the plug on humanity right now: "We're livin' in the shadows of the love we made."

A panicked call to NHS Direct reveals you can't actually die from exposure to their version of Hallelujah, it just feels as if you are while it's playing, not least when Jon Bon Jovi illustrates the line about Bathsheba bathing on the roof with the universally recognised hand gesture for "curvy woman". Obviously, it's now mandatory for all artists to perform this song – it can only be a matter of time before Buster Bloodvessel and Bad Manners weigh in with a novelty ska version – but Jon Bon Jovi recently averred that his is Leonard Cohen's favourite. If so, that may tell you more about the author's oft-overlooked sense of humour than it does about Bon Jovi's cover, which reinterprets the song in much the same way as Cohen's shamed former manager "reinterpreted" the Canadian bard's pension fund.

The audience don't care. Jon Bon Jovi moves among them, dispensing kisses to the ladies, high-fiving a portly man in a bandana, who becomes so excited that even the rocker looks momentarily taken aback. Then the Maglite smile returns and the show goes on.

[cite]Posted By: Swisdom[/cite]Can't say I'm a "fan" but it should be a good show. I'm treating the wife so it's all good brownie points

who cares if it's past glories - their old stuff is bloody great

Snap, going on 22 nd.

Went last night and it was superb!

Wasent the best Bon Jovi concert I have ever been to (41 times I think?) but it was deffo the longest!

It was even better as It was free!!!!!!

erm.........no.

Coming back from Teenage Fanclub at the Shepherds Bush Empire on Tuesday involved an 11.30pm arrival at North Greenwich. Some particularly horrible sights. Plenty of 50+ women with big hair and spandex.....

They were dishing out freebies all over the place as the tickets reportedly didn't sell very well.

Woman at work went on Tuesday and said it was probably half full.

When I looked the tickets were £200 each or £60 to look at their backs so I didn't bother.
Where did all the cheap tickets come from?

I dont think they would do 12 nights if they couldn't sell out night 1 and 2 lol .

I want to go again.

[cite]Posted By: kevtherev[/cite]Im sweating on tickets for the 19th purchased last year and not got yet. cant rememer who I bought from and reciept was on hard drive of previous lap top that died

Brought mine from ticketmaster, tickets sent a couple of months ago.

[cite]Posted By: kevtherev[/cite]Im sweating on tickets for the 19th purchased last year and not got yet. cant rememer who I bought from and reciept was on hard drive of previous lap top that died

I had mine for months too, sounds unlikely you will get them at this stage = sorry

good safe wholesome american music nothing wrong with that....