Bon Jovi - Helsinki 2011 Review

BON  JOVI, Olympiastadion – Helsinki (17.6.2011)

For those who were expecting a bureaucratic gig: SORRY…

On the 17th of June, 40 thousand Bon Jovi fans were pleased by an over two-hour-gig that brought  in big style a great amount of the best  the band has produced along these 25 years.

I was not expecting a gig longer than one and a half hour specially because it rained quite much during the entire concert, and the stage was not entirely protected.  Jon Bon Jovi and Richie Sambora played literally under rain and did a great job moving all over not caring at all about the fact.

Jon even made a joke: “It´s great to be here tonight taking a shower together with my 40 thousand friends.”

And it was really great. They entered the stage playing Raise Your Hands,  the audience was excited but a little shy, people in the grandstand were still sat so before starting the second song,  Jon sent the message: “Hey guys, this is not a TV show, this is a rock concert and you gotta get up, I don´t wanna see anybody sitting please, everybody stand up!”

The Finns obeyed and then we could all start to have real fun: You Give Love a Bad Name, followed by Born to be My Babe, We Weren´t Born to Follow, In these Arms, Lost Highway and It´s my Life, that seems to be one of the favorite songs around here. Jon was very talkative, always telling a story or making fun on the Finnish summer (the temperature was around 15 degrees Celsius).

Richie Sambora didn´t speak but was all the time kind to the audience, smiling and moving a lot. The sound was really good, clean and not too loud, we could listen to every instrument and the drum sound was excellent, we could feel every drumkick.

David Bryan seems to have re-arranged some of the songs, the keyboards are much more present and the arrangements show  more notes than chords, there are more pianos and electric pianos and less strings, I would say it was a big plus. After a few years in the “darkness”, playing without much love, bureaucratically and doing just for doing, after Richie Sambora´s recovery from the alcohol and drugs problems, with a David Bryan having one of his best career moments, since now he is a music director at Broadway, on this gig I could feel a renovated band, playing old songs that we all love as if they had been made a couple of years ago. They were really having fun and were really there for us.

Runaway, We Got it Going On, Captain Crash and the Beauty Queen from Mars and… a little accident. During Bad Medicine we could see that Jon, although he was trying not to show it, was in real pain. The reason we knew one day later on the news: while he was running from a side to other of the stage, he twisted his knee causing a rupture in the ligament. But he didn´t let the rhythm of the concert go down and the set list was not shortened either. Interesting moment in Bad Medicine were the incidental songs: The Doors Roadhouse Blues and Shout, from The Isley Brothers.

One more speech talking about how important love is and how much we should care about it, specially nowadays, and the song Love is the Only Rule, opening the love songs part of the set.

When We were Beautiful, Bed of Roses and I´ll be there For you, sang together with Richie Sambora, one of the nicest moments of the show but also funny to realize that ok, we could hear a 40 thousand people choir singing along but with one detail: a female voice choir.

Who says you can go home, No Apologies, Have a Nice Day and Keep the Faith closed the set, letting us wait for the encore. The chosen ones for this moment: Thorn in My side, Wanted Dead or Alive, Wild is the Wind and Living on a Prayer, closing this great gig that lasted 2 hours and 20 minutes.

Great gig showing one more time that of course, 100 million fans can´t be wrong…

Review: Maila-Kaarina Riippa