Review: Bon Jovi Talking Stick Arena, Phoenix AZ 3/4/17
Monday, March 6, 2017
Review: Jon Bon Jovi led his bandmates and a sold-out crowd in a night of reflection and hits (mostly hits)
On more than one occasion, he referenced the 34 years it's been since “Runaway,” his first Top 40 single with the band that bears his name. He didn’t play that single, but he talked about returning to that very studio – or “the same place where I was a coffee boy,” as he noted -- to make “This House is Not for Sale,” Bon Jovi's fourth consecutive release to top the Billboard album charts. And he reflected on the hard times surrounding the 2013 departure of Richie Sambora for “personal reasons” as part of a heartfelt speech about carrying on.
"For those of you who know," Bon Jovi noted, "2013, it ended tumultuously. And in 2014, I was in a fog. I was in a daze. And it wasn't particularly positive. And I'd stare at that guitar and I'd sort of just give it the finger. And to tell you the truth, I think it gave me the finger back. But by 2015, I started to tell that same guitar stories and it started to sing to me. And when we went in the studio together, the same place where I used to be a coffee boy, back in 1980, where I was the gopher, where I wrote, or certainly recorded "Runaway," where we in 1983, did our first album."
And that location clearly got to him.
"To go back to that same room," he continued, "having lived all this life, to cut this record, after all we'd been through, the ups, the downs and the ups again, I was reminded why you end up writing songs to begin with. You want to get together with friends. You want to create something. You want to have the joy of camaraderie and teamwork. And you want to walk out of there and call the people you collaborated with your friends. When we made this record, it was a great reminder of what great friends we all are."
Then, after “Devil’s in the Temple,” he promised us “nothing but hits, more hits and all the hits from here on out.” And that’s exactly what we got, including three songs from Bon Jovi’s other multi-platinum ‘80s hit machine, “New Jersey,” before they closed the set with “Keep the Faith,” the lead singer shaking maracas as he sang.
He let the audience handle the high parts on the encore-closing celebration that was “Livin’ on a Prayer,” and there were other moments were he may have backed down from a note or two, but his voice sounded great and his bandmates’ wall of harmonies offered flawless support.
This was Bon Jovi’s second Valley show without Sambora, who left the tour a few weeks prior to their 2013 appearance in Glendale. The guitarist who stepped in, allowing Bon Jovi to finish the tour, Phil X, is still on board, and great as he sounded in Glendale, recreating Sambora’s more memorable solos note-for-note enough to have captured their essence, he’s really grown into the role, allowing his own style to shine through.
Toward the end of the night, Bon Jovi thanked the fans "for being on this incredible journey with us for these 34 years now. And I want to thank you for coming and spending your Saturday night with us. It has been a real treat." And with that, he asked if there were "any cowboys out there," effectively tipping his hat to Arizona while introducing a crowd-pleasing version of "Wanted Dead or Alive."
Bon Jovi setlist
This House Is Not for Sale
Knockout
You Give Love a Bad Name
Lost Highway
Whole Lot of Leavin’
We Weren’t Born to Follow
Roller Coaster
I’ll Sleep When I’m Dead (with Jumpin’ Jack Flash)
We Got It Goin’ On
Who Says You Can’t Go Home
It’s My Life
We Don’t Run
God Bless This Mess
Scars on This Guitar
The Devil’s in the Temple
Lay Your Hands on Me
Born to Be My Baby
Have a Nice Day
Bad Medicine
Keep the Faith
Encore
Because We Can
Blood on Blood
Wanted Dead or Alive
Livin’ on a Prayer
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