There are moments in our lives that define who we will become. These moments become forever etched in our memories as a pivotal point in our lives where something changed.
I have mentioned in previous blogs that I can remember the first time I heard Bon Jovi’s Living on a Prayer and how it made me a life long fan, well on Monday, 24 odd years after hearing it I finally got to see the band live. Without hyperbole it was well worth the wait.
It is not that I haven’t wanted to see them before now, far from it but something has always got in the way, so even as the day approached I suspected something would go wrong, but this time nothing did and my wife and I arrived at Aston Gate Stadium to take our place in the standing area in front of the stage. Now in fairness I haven’t been to a concert in about 10 years so the excitement and build up to the start of the gig was new to me again, it was a great feeling and reminded me just how awesome live music is.
At just after 7:30pm the band came on stage and launched straight into a set made up of old and new songs. Hits including a lot of my personal favorites like Bad Medicine, Captain Crash and the Beauty Queen from Mars, Keep the Faith, Raise your Hands and It’s my Life* to name a few. Mercifully there was very little from the latest album which even as a fan of the band I am not overly keen on.
The band themselves were on form, Jon Bon Jovi having the crowd in the palm of his hand and working the stage like a madman, dispite having his leg in a brace and wincing in pain from time to time**, Richie Sambora was his usual genuis self along with Tico Torres, who may have aged the most but now looks like a bit of a bad-ass. As for David Bryan i mas very impressed as he spent the whole concert playing two keyboards at a time in that 80’s rock band style.
The gig ended around 9:30 ish but of course the band came back for an encore, throughout all this time they had failed to play “Living on a Prayer” and i had my suspicions that it would be the last song , and i was right. Let me tell you now there is nothing as awesome as 25,000 people singing your favorite song along with the band who wrote it.
One final word on the band themselves, they clearly love their fans and it showed throughout the gig, so whatever else you may think of them you cannot say they are in it for the money alone.
So yeah I enjoyed this gig a hell of a lot, as did my wife who is now talking about replacing me with Bon Jovi himself. But if i’m honest if she is going to replace me then picking the only person in the world more awesome than me is not a bad way to do it.***
*Where the title of this blog comes from
**No idea what he had done but fair play for still doing the gig.
*** I’m kidding, I am more awesome than him.