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So my fiancee bought us tickets to go see Bon Jovi @ the new Prudential Center in Newark, NJ....She rocks 
They're doing 10 dates there to open the place and as a tune up for their tour.
Gretchen Wilson opened up. 90% of the audience was sleep walking through her set. It's very country, and every song is about either being a redneck, being in a bar, being a redneck in a bar, or being a redneck leaving a bar to go get into a pickup truck which, invariably, is parked out back.
She did do a cover of "Baracuda" which woke me up....the guitarist had the tone from the original on a Wolfgang, and Wilson sounded EXACTLY like Annie Wilson. Nailed it, note for note, and with power. She has some tremendous pipes, there is no question. Too bad Jersey doesn't roll with country.
Then Bon Jovi came on. I am a fan, mostly because I'm a Jersey guy & it's good time music. The intro was super-ridiculous. Some dude comes out on to the set, which was set up to look like a bar, carrying cases of beer, sits down at a lap steel guitar and starts playing, some girl comes out and starts playing the violin, very country western. Tico Torres comes out with the nameless bass guitarist, everyone goes nuts. Then David Bryan. Then Sambora, and finally, on the big screen, we see JBJ driving down a dusty highway (I guess the "Lost Highway") in a Chevy SS.
Then, though a backlit door, you see...gasp! His SHADOW! Crowd goes predictably nuts, then he walks through the door and just kind of stands there.
Thus begins my major complaint about the show. It was So. Very. Canned. They had cameras everywhere, which makes sense- if you have 10 dates in the same place, make a DVD. There was a tiny, tiny section of people very close to the stage, waaayyyy off on the left hand side that held perhaps 20 people. Everyone else was way far away. He'd walk alllll the way stage left and lean into this tiny "crowd", high-fiving them, and the camera would film it. If you saw the DVD, I am sure it seems as though he was 100% interacting with his fans. TOTALLY fake. Outside that frame of the shot, nobody was anywhere near the stage.
He did alot of crap that was just nonsense- some chick throws a shirt on the stage, and he goes, "LET ME READ THIS NOTE!" and it was some BS about it being her birthday and her husband said it was ok if she....he trailed off, something dirty, obviously, and he says, "WELL THAT WOULD BE A NICE BIRTHDAY PRESENT INDEED!".
I am sure he did the exact same thing the previous 4 shows and will do it for the next 5.
He bitched alot, too. "Yeah, this is night what, 5? Man. Long week!" When he wasn't bitching, he was kissing his own ass. "I remember grabbing the DJ and saying "This is what a rockstar sounds like!" and launched into "Runaway". Lots and lots and lots of that kind of crap, all night. It was a real turnoff. Turning around, shaking his ass, and seriously, just a constant stream of self-compliments. No thank you's to the fans to speak of.
OK- On to the show itself:
They sounded very good. Song intros were a little ragged and when Sambora launched the song it would sound out of tune for a second but then come back ok...- I guess uneven sound is unsurprising...it is a brand new place and I'm sure the sound guys are just getting used to it too.
Sambora is an absolute monster. I saw them live years ago and didn't pay too much attention, but the guy can play. And he played almost everything- 2 Les Pauls, a Strat, a double-necked tele, various accoustics, a snow white SG, and his "Sambora" guitar, which I had never seen before, but it was his major player throughout the night and it sounded GREAT. I believe it has a speedloader on it. No tuning pegs. He was squeezing artificial harmonics out of that thing like it was nothing....very, very nice sounding axe, overall the best sounding guitar I heard all night.
Sambora also did a song on his own...I guess "These Days"? Frankly, his voice is better than Bon Jovi's....Bon Jovi has a tendency to sound whiney and thin when he's really wringing it out. Sambora has a much more powerful voice.
So that's what I remember. Overall, worth going to see.
If I remember anything else I'll update.
Vass
They're doing 10 dates there to open the place and as a tune up for their tour.Gretchen Wilson opened up. 90% of the audience was sleep walking through her set. It's very country, and every song is about either being a redneck, being in a bar, being a redneck in a bar, or being a redneck leaving a bar to go get into a pickup truck which, invariably, is parked out back.
She did do a cover of "Baracuda" which woke me up....the guitarist had the tone from the original on a Wolfgang, and Wilson sounded EXACTLY like Annie Wilson. Nailed it, note for note, and with power. She has some tremendous pipes, there is no question. Too bad Jersey doesn't roll with country.
Then Bon Jovi came on. I am a fan, mostly because I'm a Jersey guy & it's good time music. The intro was super-ridiculous. Some dude comes out on to the set, which was set up to look like a bar, carrying cases of beer, sits down at a lap steel guitar and starts playing, some girl comes out and starts playing the violin, very country western. Tico Torres comes out with the nameless bass guitarist, everyone goes nuts. Then David Bryan. Then Sambora, and finally, on the big screen, we see JBJ driving down a dusty highway (I guess the "Lost Highway") in a Chevy SS.
Then, though a backlit door, you see...gasp! His SHADOW! Crowd goes predictably nuts, then he walks through the door and just kind of stands there.
Thus begins my major complaint about the show. It was So. Very. Canned. They had cameras everywhere, which makes sense- if you have 10 dates in the same place, make a DVD. There was a tiny, tiny section of people very close to the stage, waaayyyy off on the left hand side that held perhaps 20 people. Everyone else was way far away. He'd walk alllll the way stage left and lean into this tiny "crowd", high-fiving them, and the camera would film it. If you saw the DVD, I am sure it seems as though he was 100% interacting with his fans. TOTALLY fake. Outside that frame of the shot, nobody was anywhere near the stage.
He did alot of crap that was just nonsense- some chick throws a shirt on the stage, and he goes, "LET ME READ THIS NOTE!" and it was some BS about it being her birthday and her husband said it was ok if she....he trailed off, something dirty, obviously, and he says, "WELL THAT WOULD BE A NICE BIRTHDAY PRESENT INDEED!".
I am sure he did the exact same thing the previous 4 shows and will do it for the next 5.
He bitched alot, too. "Yeah, this is night what, 5? Man. Long week!" When he wasn't bitching, he was kissing his own ass. "I remember grabbing the DJ and saying "This is what a rockstar sounds like!" and launched into "Runaway". Lots and lots and lots of that kind of crap, all night. It was a real turnoff. Turning around, shaking his ass, and seriously, just a constant stream of self-compliments. No thank you's to the fans to speak of.
OK- On to the show itself:
They sounded very good. Song intros were a little ragged and when Sambora launched the song it would sound out of tune for a second but then come back ok...- I guess uneven sound is unsurprising...it is a brand new place and I'm sure the sound guys are just getting used to it too.
Sambora is an absolute monster. I saw them live years ago and didn't pay too much attention, but the guy can play. And he played almost everything- 2 Les Pauls, a Strat, a double-necked tele, various accoustics, a snow white SG, and his "Sambora" guitar, which I had never seen before, but it was his major player throughout the night and it sounded GREAT. I believe it has a speedloader on it. No tuning pegs. He was squeezing artificial harmonics out of that thing like it was nothing....very, very nice sounding axe, overall the best sounding guitar I heard all night.
Sambora also did a song on his own...I guess "These Days"? Frankly, his voice is better than Bon Jovi's....Bon Jovi has a tendency to sound whiney and thin when he's really wringing it out. Sambora has a much more powerful voice.
So that's what I remember. Overall, worth going to see.
If I remember anything else I'll update.
Vass
gets it. 
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