Date: June 13, 2010 Venue: O2 Arena Town: London, U.K.

[voto: 4]

London is always worth a visit, even more when Bon Jovi play there. Needless to conceal that I’m talking about one of the bands I love most, but I believe I am impartial saying that a show of this New Jersey band fully pay back the cost of the ticket.
Of course, if you are also that lucky to meet Jon Bon Jovi, Hugh McDonald and Bobby Bandiera in the city, it adds that extra value that allowed me to keep myself calm when I heard the announcement that the return flight would have suffered a three hours delay.

The O2 Arena, completed in 2007, is a perfect venue for concerts, it’s got nothing to do with Italian venues: it is a real business park with dozens of restaurants, bars and even the British Music Experience, a museum dedicated to the history of music in the United Kingdom. Unfortunately there is no time to visit it, then I head to the arena soon. The seats are not the best, in the first row of the fourth level, but are perfect for me to assess the magnitude of the place, so that I needed a few minutes to get used to the height.

The special guest, which started playing some thirty minutes earlier, is a London based band with one album released in 2009. They are called New Device and play a hard rock with a good strong dose of melody. They are really good live and special mention goes to the singer's voice, Daniel Leigh, who has not lost a single note. In their half an hour New Device rocked the crowd and performed the best songs from their CD "Takin 'Over", including the title track, "In The Fading Light" and "Seven Nights, Seven Bodies".

After the break, at 8 PM the lights go down and so also Bon Jovi, inexplicably, start playing thirty minutes early, thus some friends (and several other people) that were stuck in London’s traffic jam lost the first four songs.
The opening of the fifth (out of twelve) evening as O2 "residency artist" is not the best: "Last Man Standing" is a song I really like but it has never satisfied me live, I find that it lacks of power.
With the next "We Were not Born To Follow", the six musicians make up immediately, properly warming the audience that finally explodes with the classic "You Give Love A Bad Name" belt out by about twenty thousand spectators.
The line-up on stage is atypical today, in fact keyboardist David Bryan is not present: just good news for him that had to flew to New York to pick up four Tony Awards won with his musical "Memphis". His substitute is the excellent Jeff Kazee, keyboardist for Southside Johnny & The Asbury Jukes and former member of the "Have A Nice Day" Bon Jovi tour.
Moreover, for the second consecutive tour Bobby Bandiera (also from Southside Johnny band) is on the second guitar.
The setlist does not satisfy everybody in the crowd but Bon Jovi have written so many hit songs that is hard to please everyone, but the absence of songs like "Have A Nice Day", "I'll Be There For You," "Just Older" or "Runaway" is felt.
Sure, compared to what they stated before the beginning of "The Circle" tour (that they would have performed many songs long time out of the set-list), there were any big surprise.
The set runs through hits both old and new, keeping the audience warm and enraptured and when it’s the turn of the classic "Bad Medicine", there is the first moment of glory for Bobby Bandiera who is called to center stage to perform "Oh, Pretty Woman" which takes the place of the historic "Shout" but that does not withstand the comparison because it is totally unrelated to the Bon Jovi hit. I wonder why they should necessarily play it mixed with another song!
Richie Sambora finally takes the spotlight for the next "Lay Your Hands On Me", sung with his bluesy voice to give Jon a few minutes of breathing. When he returns to the stage, goes to a smaller stage central to the pit to sing "(You Want To) Make A Memory" and "Bed Of Roses". Then, joined by Richie, Tico and Jeff, shows a more intimate and acoustic side of the band with "Something For The Pain" and "Someday I'll Be Saturday Night".

From then on the show back to "normality" with Jon overacting and towering on stage, proving he is one of the best frontmen in years.
"Keep The Faith" concludes the regular part of the show and after a very few minutes the band took the stage to perform an explosive three songs: "In These Arms" (with guitar solo by Bobby), "Wanted Dead Or Alive "and" Livin 'On A Prayer ". The perfect ending to make us lose our voices!
Bon Jovi is in a good shape and Jon has performed well and cleaned, it seems that the more the years pass the more he’s able to sing good on stage.
My hope, you know, it never dies, is that next year they will extend the tour in Europe and, why not, in Italy, where the last two concerts, Padua 2001 and Imola 2003, left a bitter taste to several fans.

Bon Jovi setlist:

01. Last Man Standing
02. We Weren't Born To Follow
03. You Give Love A Bad Name
04. Whole Lot Of Leavin'
05. Born To Be My Baby
06. Lost Highway
07. Superman Tonight
08. When We Were Beautiful
09. Captain Crash & The Beauty Queen From Mars
10. We Got It Going On
11. Bad Medicine / Oh, Pretty Woman
12. Lay Your Hands On Me (lead vocals by Richie Sambora)
13. (You Want To) Make A Memory
14. Bed Of Roses
15. Something For The Pain
16. Someday I'll Be Saturday Night
17. I'll Sleep When I'm Dead
18. It's My Life
19. Work For The Working Man
20. Who Says You Can't Go Home
21. Keep The Faith
ENCORE:
22. In These Arms
23. Wanted Dead Or Alive
24. Livin' On A Prayer