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Mijoton Admin


Nombre de messages: 5391 Localisation: France Date d'inscription: 24/09/2007
 | Sujet: Anaheim (04-04-2008) photos + review Sam 5 Avr - 23:48 | |
| [Vous devez être inscrit et connecté pour voir ce lien][Vous devez être inscrit et connecté pour voir ce lien][Vous devez être inscrit et connecté pour voir ce lien][Vous devez être inscrit et connecté pour voir ce lien][Vous devez être inscrit et connecté pour voir ce lien][Vous devez être inscrit et connecté pour voir ce lien][Vous devez être inscrit et connecté pour voir ce lien]| Citation: | Bon Jovi leaves 'em happy and cheering in Anaheim Review: Hit-packed and crowd-rousing, the Jersey gang's Honda Center opener reminds how dumb it is to refuse rock's simpler pleasures. By BEN WENER The Orange County Register
As is also the case when encountering Nickelback or Kid Rock, it's wise for a critic to leave off his thinking cap should Bon Jovi come to town. Overanalyzing will only lead to resentful disappointment – and more hate mail than usual.
Over the years I've learned it's much better to approach these Jersey boys as one would escapist Hollywood summer fare – turn off your mind, relax and float downstream to that populist place where all that matters are hearty whoa-ooh-whoa choruses even toddlers can chant, led by a singer possessing more than his fair share of movie-star hunkiness. (Anyone else think Jon Bon Jovi and Kevin Bacon are beginning to look eerily similar, by the way?)
Sure, I could be a pompous jerk about the crowd-delighting meat-and-potatoes performance the band served up Friday night at Honda Center, the first of two shows at the Anaheim arena this weekend, with a Staples Center replay set for Wednesday. When presented with a guy whose every third tune restates his gotta-live-my-life theme, or a guitarist whose recent riffs blatantly recycle his older ones, or a whole group quick to cash in on unexpected country-crossover success (and why not?) – well, potshots come naturally. Hitting the side of a barn with a football from 10 yards out would be harder than pointing out a dozen examples of Bon Jovi's vapidity.
But chiding this bunch for what they aren't – for what they've never really been, really – is as blockheaded as comparing Bon Jovi to Bruce Springsteen, Jon's Jersey forebear who arrives at this same venue Monday.
True, they both maintain workingman appeal, no matter how titanic their reputations become; even when they're at their most glam, Jon and right-hand man Richie Sambora still come off like down-to-earth dudes happy to let you buy them a beer. (Yeah, there's a joke to be made at Sambora's expense here, what with his recent DUI arrest in Laguna Beach. But Jon beat me to it: "We used to spend a lot of time down this way," he told the crowd. Then, with an "ahem" in his voice: "Some of us still do.")
Note, though, that his aside came just after his earliest hit, "Runaway," and before "I Love This Town," a rote bit of pandering worthy of Jimmy Buffett or Toby Keith – from that alone you gain all the perspective required to understand Bon Jovi's lasting, critic-confounding appeal. Whereas Springsteen aims to move your mind as much as your heart or soul, Bon Jovi is plenty content to just get people out of their seats, smiling and cheering. Good times in the sum-sum-summertime, even if it's still spring – that's the goal.
And what's wrong with that?
Who but a Scrooge would complain about a band that gives its fans hit ("It's My Life") after hit ("I'll Be There for You") after hit ("Who Says You Can't Go Home"), without reserving them all for the encore? Who would be so stiff-necked as to refuse the obvious glee of hearing the Stones' "Jumpin' Jack Flash" in the midst of "I'll Sleep When I'm Dead," or the Isley Brothers' "Shout" in the thick of "Bad Medicine," or the surprise of leading into "Blaze of Glory" with Dylan's "Knockin' on Heaven's Door," then having opening act Chris Daughtry emerge to belt half the verses?
Especially now, when these guys are putting on a more convincing display than at any other time in their career together – when Jon's voice is more robust, Richie's solos more searing and their "Lost Highway" filler far more palatable – grumbling about shallow shortcomings seems particularly narrow-minded. As if all pop pleasures should be profound.
Frankly, it's profound enough that a quarter-century later Bon Jovi is as popular (if not as many times multiplatinum) as the band ever was during its "Slippery When Wet"/"New Jersey" heyday. It's certainly much more beloved now, and not only by women of every age who squeal when Jon bares his chest and hops in place, or when he and Richie embrace fans after strumming a few ballads atop a platform set up several sections into the crowd.
They do what they do exceptionally well, and much better now than on their last few tours. That doesn't leave them immune to criticism. But it does make bellyaching seem rather pointless. Really, if you can't give a grin to "Livin' on a Prayer," maybe this whole rock 'n' roll thing just ain't your bag.
Daughtry, the "American Idol" castoff who has subsequently become one of hard-rock's biggest success stories lately, fared well with his same-named band in such a large setting, his big voice compensating for his inability to seem charismatic from a distance. If you thought people might have turned out for him as much as the headliner, however, you might have checked a decibel reading every time Chris uttered the words "Bon Jovi."
"Who is this again?" the dad behind me asked his shrieking daughters. Once Daughtry's 45 minutes were up, however – once he had finished by bookending "I'm Going Home" with Mötley Crüe's "Home Sweet Home" and Filter's "Hey Man Nice Shot" – the bald one had won over even more doubters. How much longer till he headlines Honda, I wonder? Five years? Someone say two? |
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|  | | @babycrush Admin


Nombre de messages: 1362 Localisation: Nantes -France Date d'inscription: 10/09/2007
 | Sujet: Re: Anaheim (04-04-2008) photos + review Dim 6 Avr - 10:37 | |
| Wow! MERCI MERCI MERCI !!!  |
|  | | ladymarmelade2008 These Days


Nombre de messages: 590 Age: 33 Localisation: saint-étienne (France) Date d'inscription: 24/09/2007
 | Sujet: Re: Anaheim (04-04-2008) photos + review Dim 6 Avr - 11:57 | |
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|  | | Mijoton Admin


Nombre de messages: 5391 Localisation: France Date d'inscription: 24/09/2007
 | Sujet: Re: Anaheim (04-04-2008) photos + review Dim 6 Avr - 23:19 | |
| Toujours la rengaine Sprinsgsteen :P !!! [Vous devez être inscrit et connecté pour voir ce lien]| Citation: | [Vous devez être inscrit et connecté pour voir cette image][Vous devez être inscrit et connecté pour voir ce lien] border="0" alt="" />
The band shows it can still rock after 25 years and will play Staples Center on Wednesday. By Mikael Wood, Special to The Times April 7, 2008 Friday night at the Honda Center in Anaheim, an aging rocker from small-town New Jersey took the stage and sang for more than two hours about the necessity of faith, the endurance of romance and the modest majesty of small-town New Jersey.
Bruce Springsteen, perhaps?
Nope. Springsteen isn't scheduled to play the Honda Center until tonight.
Friday, the rocker was Jon Bon Jovi, playing the first of three Southland shows with the 25-year-old band that bears his name. (Bon Jovi will play Staples Center Wednesday.)
There are differences, of course, between the Boss and Bon Jovi: It's unlikely, for starters, that Springsteen would ever write a song called "We Got It Going On," as Bon Jovi did for its latest album, last year's "Lost Highway." "Is there anybody out there looking for a party?" Jon Bon Jovi asks in the tune. "Shake your moneymaker, baby, smoke it if you got it."
And though Springsteen certainly has sung about the pleasures of sex (whether or not it's accompanied by romance), it's hard to imagine him singing about it, as Bon Jovi did during "Bad Medicine," in front of four enormous video screens on gyrating-babe duty.
Still, at the Honda Center the similarities were more evident than the differences. As demonstrated on the country-inflected "Lost Highway," Bon Jovi's sound has deepened and warmed since the band's chrome-and-aerosol pop-metal days. On Friday, Richie Sambora, clad in what might best be described as a purple-snakeskin nightgown, played as many acoustic guitars as electric ones, and the group was joined by a violinist who made a credible claim on being called a fiddler instead.
At one point, the frontman and the guitarist sang three songs from a makeshift stage in the middle of the arena's floor; cellphone-camera flashes notwithstanding, the moment had some "Nebraska" to it.
Throughout the show, Bon Jovi strained to connect its crowd-pleasing hits to music taken more seriously by the rock establishment. The band threw a bit of the Rolling Stones' "Jumpin' Jack Flash" into the middle of "I'll Sleep When I'm Dead," and before it played "Blaze of Glory," Jon Bon Jovi's solo hit from the "Young Guns II" soundtrack, the singer sang a few bars from "Knockin' on Heaven's Door."
Bon Jovi was joined for "Blaze of Glory" by Chris Daughtry, the "American Idol" runner-up whose band opened Friday's concert with a set of meat-and-potatoes hard rock. (Daughtry has learned a few things from his mentors, as he beefed up his own "Home" with a verse from Mötley Crüe's "Home Sweet Home.")
Yet Bon Jovi didn't really need the Stones' (or Springsteen's) help -- it's taken plenty seriously by its fans, whom Jon Bon Jovi thanked for sticking with the band as its fortunes went "up, down and up again." For an encore, the frontman asked the crowd to "please rise for the playing of our national anthem."
"The Star-Spangled Banner," perhaps?
Nope. That one doesn't have a sweet Sambora solo. Instead, the band kicked out a thoroughly decent version of "Wanted Dead or Alive."
Turns out these old guns still shoot pretty straight. |
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