Review: Bon Jovi, San Jose SAP Center, 3/1/17

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Bon Jovi Lays it Down 

in San Jose

Over 30 years of Rock n' Roll in One Sweet Night

What a night at SAP!  You knew it was going to be a solid show, but really, nowadays, let's face it, some of our longtime favorite rock bands just go through the motions, churning out the hits uninspired. Not so, with Bon Jovi. With vitality, vigor and crowd pleasing swagger, Jon Bon Jovi and company made us all feel like family in the Church of Rock n' Roll. With a set of 24 songs and over 2 hours on stage, there was something for every fan, even with the curious omission of Runaway, the song that first put them on the map back in '84.

Even though I personally miss guitarist Richie Sambora, Phil X (his replacement since 2013) delivered as did the rest of the band...they owned the crowd. San Jose rock audiences are known for their enthusiasm, and yeah, we ate it all up!  Fun to see a wide range of ages at the show... the touch of modern mixed with nostalgia revealed itself when the cell phone flashlights lit up replacing the bic lighters of years gone by. 

One final thought...I love Jon Bon Jovi. Yeah, we all know he's sexy as hell, but truly, his sincerity and humility is endearing. He expressed profound gratitude and appreciation for his fans several times throughout the show ~ you just couldn't help feelin' the love. As a life long fan, I'm also a great admirer of his work to combat hunger and homelessness throughout the United States with his foundation:  JBJ Soul Foundation.  The guy walks the talk and rocks the house!

Gotta love his rock n' roll heart and soul~he's a Rock Star through and through.

Set List:

1.This House Is Not for Sale

2.Knockout

3.You Give Love a Bad Name

4.Lost Highway

5.Whole Lot of Leavin'

6.Roller Coaster

7.We Weren't Born to Follow

8.I'll Sleep When I'm Dead

9.We Got It Goin' On

10.Who Says You Can't Go Home

11.It's My Life

12.We Don't Run

13.God Bless This Mess

14.Scars on This Guitar

15.The Devil's in the Temple

16.Lay Your Hands on Me

17.Born to Be My Baby

18.Have a Nice Day

19.Bad Medicine

20.Keep the Faith

Encore:

21.Living with the Ghost

22.Because We Can

23.Wanted Dead or Alive

24.Livin' on a Prayer

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Father-Daughter Dance...

Jon Bon Jovi Dances with Daughter 

Stephanie During Performance 

of Song He Wrote for Her

Jon Bon Jovi‘s daughter Stephanie Rose Bongiovi was around 7 years old when she first joined her dad on stage to dance along with him for a performance of the track he wrote for her, “I’ve Got the Girl.”

Since then, Bon Jovi has often backed up performances of the tune with home video of their frontman’s little girl — giving fans a peek into their loving relationship.

But on Saturday, the rocker surprised the audience at Bon Jovi’s Las Vegas show with an appearance by a now 23-year-old Stephanie — who joined her dad on stage for another dance, 16 years later.

“Everybody’s got a little girl in their life,” Bon Jovi, 54, said halfway through the song. “Their daughter, their girlfriend, their wife, their mamma — it all goes by so fast. And they start out as little bitty babies and their future’s looking bright. And I wrote this song for that little baby, who’s now not such a little baby anymore.” He then invited Stephanie out, to the cheers and awws of the audience.

The two danced together throughout the remainder of the song, with Bon Jovi occasionally stopping to strum the guitar.

“The truth is someday / Somebody is gonna take her (you see) / But the queen of hearts will always be / A five-year-old princess to me,” he sang in the song.

At the end of the set, they signaled the end of the song together with a jump before he embraced his daughter — giving her kiss after kiss on both cheeks.

“They’re a very close-knit family,” a source told PEOPLE of their bond. “It’s beautiful to see how much they enjoy being together.”

The band hit the road earlier this month on their This House Is Not For Sale tour — named after their recently released album, which debuted at No. 1 on the Billboard charts.


They’ll next play the Los Angeles Forum for a show on March 8.

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Review: Bon Jovi, T-Mobile Arena, Las Vegas 2/25/17

Bon Jovi brings down the ‘House’ at T-Mobile Arena

Jazz hands incarnate, Jon Bon Jovi shook a pair of maracas and his butt with equal vehemence.

“Lawd, you gotta keep faith,” he bawled over a Santana-worthy percussive slink and wah-wah guitar suggestive of ’70s skin flick soundtracks.

Oh, that faith was kept, clutched hard by a packed house of true believers reciting the gospel according to a 54-year-old New Jerseyite zipped into a black leather jacket.

“We’re going to church!” he informed his flock earlier in the evening, all of them gathered to celebrate the twin sacraments of Budweiser and Bon Jovi.

 

And with that, the band broke into sexed-up sermon “Lay Your Hands On Me.”

“I’m a fighter, I’m a poet, I’m a preacher,” Bon Jovi sang on the song in question. “I’ve been to school and, baby, I’ve been the teacher.”

So, what lessons were learned at a sold-out T-Mobile Arena on this evening?

Well, there is no fountain of youth — but there’s beer.

There are no time machines — but there’s Bon Jovi.

And so while the band on stage and the crowd that stood before it have all gotten up there in years, in each other’s presence, they’re both freed from acting like it — at least for nearly 2½ hours on a Saturday night.

This is no small thing, which is a main reason why Bon Jovi still attracts such big crowds, far more than any of its peers who first came to prominence in the Aquanet-abetted ’80s hard rock ranks.

Like many acts of that era, Bon Jovi was all about the larger-than-life in terms of presentation, with ostentatious, high-watt stage shows, an unhealthy preoccupation with cheetah-print fabrics and hair teased to heights capable of imperiling low-flying aircraft.

The difference with this bunch was that, lyrically speaking, they were all about the down-to-the-earth, real life, at least a working-class approximation of as much, their look glammy look contrasted with gritty narratives of 9-to-5ers struggling to make ends meet.

 

And yet, the characters in their songs always seemed to make it in the end somehow, mainly by sticking to their convictions. “When life is a bitter pill to swallow / You gotta hold on to what you believe,” Bon Jovi instructed on “We Weren’t Born To Follow,” one of numerous self-assured anthems of inclusiveness (“We Don’t Run,” “We Got It Goin’ On,” etc.), where Bon Jovi served as the impeccably coiffed life coach perched on your shoulder, delivering arena rock pep talks about kicking life square in the groin.

These are songs for underdogs — self-anointed as they may be — something Bon Jovi has once again positioned itself as on its latest record, “This House Is Not For Sale.” The album, which the band played from liberally, is the group’s first without longtime guitarist Richie Sambora, whose absence Bon Jovi compensated for himself at times Saturday, ripping the lead to “I’ll Sleep When I’m Dead,” an R&B-tinged, triple-guitar fusillade.

It’s also Bon Jovi’s first release since the band’s departure from longtime label Mercury Records, both acrimonious splits palpable in the heightened intensity of the hard-driving “House.”

During new cut “God Bless This Mess,” newspaper headlines questioning whether the band had lost its mojo were projected on screens behind the stage, providing a visual component to the chippiness the song conveyed. A similar sentiment powered tunes such as the title cut to “House” and the free-swinging “Knockout,” during which Bon Jovi literally threw uppercuts as he sang, in case you missed the point somehow.

“I got some blood under my nails, I got some mud on my face,” Bon Jovi sang on “Mess.” “My voice is shot, I’m going gray, these muscles all ache.”

This was a relatable sentiment, considering the demographic he was performing in front of.

But wait, there was more.

“Don’t cry for me,” he added. “I’m the life of the party.”

True to his command, there wasn’t a beer in the house salty with tears.

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