Bon Jovi: Sydney Review... OUCH

Not a positive review.  But the author doesn't explain why the middle was so drawn out.  This guy is a casual fan who stopped buying Bon Jovi CD's after New Jersey and just wanted to here the same 5 hits over and over again.

Bon Jovi

George Palathingal

December 20, 2010

Captive audience . . . Jon Bon Jovi on the first date of a three-night stint in Sydney. Photo: Sasha Woolley

Genre Rock Performer Bon Jovi

BON JOVI

Sydney Football Stadium,

December 17

IF THERE is an art to the seduction of a full stadium, Jon Bon Jovi is up there with contemporary masters such as Bono and Robbie Williams. Of course, it helps if you're as handsome and well-preserved as this particular 48-year-old and have an enormous screen or three through which to smile, smoulder and gyrate at those who want your babies.

But it's still no mean feat when you have to play three stadium shows, likely to many of the same attendees, on consecutive nights.

The issue with such a mini-residency, however, is that the set list has to change nightly, so song omissions are inevitable. This is fine if you're a hardcore fan with up to $500 per gig to spare on tickets and it's your highest priority on the last weekend before Christmas.

It's not such good news if you saw the hugely entertaining 2008 Bon Jovi show and came along for one memorable night of wall-to-wall anthems. Of the opening 10 songs performed on this first night, only three - the preposterous but irresistible You Give Love a Bad Name and its less impressive cousins In These Arms and It's My Life - properly fit that description.

There's a fun section in the middle, with I'll Sleep When I'm Dead and Bad Medicine each segueing into covers of jukebox classics (the Rolling Stones' Start Me Up, complete with comedy Jagger dancing, and Bob Seger's Old Time Rock and Roll respectively). But after that it's another long haul to the big finale - for anyone other than the faithful.

Even when the encore arrives, you get the feeling during Wanted Dead or Alive that Jon Bon Jovi is either knackered from dancing to Keep the Faith or saving something for the next song (or show) - he wastes the opportunity to milk Wanted's chorus and one of the expected highlights falls flat. At least the batteries are recharged for Livin' on a Prayer, which doesn't disappoint.

The rest of the set, though, has too many obscurities, forays into countryish territory and too many unintentionally hilarious moments, from lame video accompaniments to the faux-blue-collar rock of Work for the Working Man - the irony being that, after three nights of this, the average working man could be having a pretty quiet Christmas.