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Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada
My Review
This was my second Bon Jovi concert and it was scheduled as part of Halifax's Natal Day celebration. The concert had a multi-band lineup with Bon Jovi headlining.
The sun was still shining when Bon Jovi hit the stage, but lots happened before that, so I'll start at the beginning...
Morning Of The Concert
It isn't every day that Bon Jovi comes to town, in fact this was only their second visit to Halifax, so I was already excited when I woke up. And my excitement only intensified when I opened up the newspaper and discovered that the guys were indeed in town.
According to the paper, they had arrived in Halifax from Gander, Newfoundland at 5:30 a.m. the day before. After sleeping most of the day, that night the promoters had rented out a theatre at Park Lane Cinemas, where the guys watched "Die Hard with a Vengeance", which had been shipped in specially for them along with the trailer for "Moonlight & Valentino". After the movie they went to the Argyle Bar and Grill for a private party.
Although the tickets were general admission, I must confess that I didn't camp out the night before hoping to get near the stage, however lots of other fans did. In fact, when my sister and I drove downtown around 10:30 a.m. to check things out, there were thousands of people lined around the block waiting to be let onto the grounds.
On The Way To The Concert
Bon Jovi were scheduled to come onstage at 5:00 p.m., so my sister, her boyfriend and I headed downtown around 3 o'clock. While we were looking for a parking space, we drove past the hotel where we thought the band would be staying. As we had already driven past earlier that morning, and seen nothing interesting, we were surprised to see 2 Budget Rent A Car vans parked in front of the Prince George Hotel.
My sister's boyfriend, who always teased us about our Bon Jovi obsession, snarkily remarked, "they don't even have limos". Then he added, kinda nonchalantly, "there they are now". We ignored him, assuming it was just more annoying teasing, then suddenly we realized that, for once, he was serious!
Jon had just come out of the hotel!
My sister and I watched breathlessly as Jon slowly walked forward and got into one of the vans. He was wearing a blue sleeveless shirt, and had his head tipped down slightly but he wasn't wearing sunglasses and there was no mistaking who it was.
There are some events that happen in your life that you remember forever and I'm quite certain that those few seconds will be one of mine. It was so incredible! A few seconds either way and we would not have seen him. Unfortunately, there was no time to scramble for cameras, however, even though we were still pre-concert, I knew that would be the highlight of the day.
The Concert
After finally parking the car, we arrived at Citadel Hill around 3:15 p.m. Some of the acts had already been onstage and were finished. A Canadian band, Barney Bentall was the next to perform, and though he was pretty good and the crowd was very responsive, he wasn't the reason we had come, so we took that opportunity to visit the souvenir booth.
After Barney Bentall left the stage we found ourselves a nice little spot to the right of the stage. It was on the fringe of the crowd but still pretty close.
And at exactly 4:55 pm Bon Jovi came onstage. Jon was wearing a brown vest and blue jeans. His hair was a perfect shade of blonde. He wore his sunglasses at first, but took them off after the first few songs.
The set opener was Rockin' All Over the World, followed by Livin' On A Prayer. They sang
quite a few songs from "Slippery When Wet" plus a couple from both "New Jersey" and "Keep The Faith",
as well as "Always" and "Someday I'll Be Saturday Night" from "Crossroad". Although it was the These Days tour, surprisinging, "Hey God" was the only song from that album. It was the extended version, with Jon doing the long preacher routine, and that song alone makes me wish that someone, somewhere had a bootleg of the concert. Anyone?
Typically the hottest days of the year in Halifax fall during the first week in August, and this year was no exception. The mercury that afternoon crept up to nearly 30 degrees celsuis, which (for the Metric-Impaired) is about 90 degrees Fahrenheit.
However, despite the heat and high humidity, Jon was continuously jumping around, shaking his butt and waving his arms. And with binoculars I was able to see his smiles, grins, smirks, squints.
I would have liked to have been closer, and at the beginning of the show we did venture a little further into the crowd, and a little closer to the stage, however, heads got in the way and it actually became harder to see. Plus with the pressing crowd it got pretty hot and somewhat uncomfortable, so we eventually drifted back to our less crowded space. We later heard on the news that the paramedics helped a lot of people away from the front of the stage who were suffering from heat stroke.
I also wish I had taken a decent camera, instead of my disposable one, because as you can see by the one colour photo, my pictures didn't turn out so well.
During the weeks before the concert, the internet was buzzing with rumours that Jon had taken up smoking while on the set of Moonlight & Valentino. Well the rumours seemed to be confirmed in Halifax, as I noticed after one song, Jon came from the back of the stage and exhaled a puff of smoke.
This was my first general admission, outside concert, and I must say I was not impressed. I much prefer the intimate feeling in an arena setting. Ok, maybe intimate isn't the right word, but at least in an arena you have your own seat and space. Plus, it was strange seeing a concert during daylight hours. Very distracting, actually. In fact, a few times, I caught myself people watching when I should have been Jovi watching!
Anyway, after almost 2 hours and 1 encore, the guys left the stage and my second Bon Jovi concert was over.
The Setlist
No matter how much you tell yourself ahead of time that you will remember the songs performed, unless you actually write them down, you won't. I think this is all the songs, and I know for sure that the first 5 and last 4 are in the correct order.
Rockin' All Over the World
Livin' On a Prayer
You Give Love a Bad Name
Wild in the Streets
Keep the FaithI'd Die For You
Hey God
With a Litttle Help from My Friends
Shout
Jumpin' Jack Flash
Midnight Rider
Na Na Na Na (the good-bye song)
Blood on Blood
Blaze of Glory
Lay Your Hands on Me
I'll Sleep When I'm Dead
Runaway
Bad Medicine
Encore:
Always
Wanted Dead or Alive
Someday I'll be Saturday Night
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Bon Jovi outdoor bash amounts to hill of teens by Greg Guy Chronicle-Herald/Mail-Star The beach crowd turned out on Citadel Hill on a hot Monday afternoon, but they didn't hear the sound of the waves. Instead, 20,000 people combed the hill and found veteran American rockers Bon Jovi. The hill was covered with bikiniclad gals and bare-chested muscle guys, mostly in their teens and mid-20s, bouncin' to the pop-rock lyrics of Jon Bon Jovi and spraying one another with bottled water available from the concessions. The empty bottles were also the object of choice for throwing at the stage. 
The Jersey-based musicians built a huge following in the late '80s with top-selling
albums Slippery When Wet and New Jersey. Last year, after 12 years in the biz, they
released a collection of their greatest hits called Cross Roads.The Summer Blast '95 show included an almost two-hour package of these hits, including Livin' On A Prayer, Keep the Faith, Runaway, Lay Your Hands on Me, Bad Medicine and You Give Love A Bad Name. They also delved into selections from their latest release These Days. Unless you have been locked in a room without a radio for the past decade, you can probably sing at least a few lyrics from one of these songs. Bon Jovi are not known as deep lyricists, with cliche after cliche. Their success rides heavily with the pop-rock style, repetition, repetition, repetition. You know: ``wooooooo, bad medicine, bad medicine is all I need, wooooooo, bad medicine, bad medicine is all I need.'' Catchy lyrics, easy to repeat and sing along to. That's why it works, especially in a show of this size. The Natal Day bash was Bon Jovi's second visit to the city. The band played the Halifax Metro Centre on Dec. 14, 1993. In both shows, Jon Bon Jovi constantly jumped, moved, air-punched, swayed and ran in a two-hour aerobic rock-and-roll workout. His voice seemed slower to get pumped up than his body, especially when he got the audience to help him out on Livin' On A Prayer, particularly the higher parts. What also works for these guys is a solid foundation of musical talent, with the likes of guitarist Richie Sambora, keyboardist David Bryan and drummer Tico Torres. Bryan's piano and synth nuances blended cleverly with Torres's percussion on the show's opening number, Rockin' All Over the World. The outdoor show also featured giant inflatables: a topless Barbie sporting a G-string and a chicken head reminiscent of a Spinal Tap joke gone bad and a giant Elvis devil doll. The inflatable idea has been done before more successfully by rockers like the Rolling Stones. Speaking of the Stones, while the inflatables were dancing to the music, the band broke into a segment of Jumpin' Jack Flash. The audience also swayed to covers of the Beatles' With A Little Help From My Friends and a crowdmover Shout. Ontario's Rainbow Butt Monkeys gave the sound system a test, making the most of their 30-minute opening set with raunchy guitar rock. Vancouver rocker Barney Bentall followed with a rockin' eightsong set, opening with a rock version of Stan Rogers' Barrett's Privateers. He followed with two new songs Do Ya and I'm Shattered from his latest album, Gin Palace. Weather hotter than band on Hill by David Rodenhiser Daily News Even Jon Bon Jovi himself said it. You couldn't have asked for a better day for Summer Blast '95, yesterday's sun-drenched Natal Day concert on Citadel Hill. 
Shorts, bikini tops, bare skin and sunscreen were the dress code as the temperature topped
27 C and 20,000 fans greeted Bon Jovi, Barney Bentall and the Rainbow Butt Monkeys. Bon Jovi
and his band took the stage at 4:55 p.m., playing a list of hits from their albums dating back
to the band's self-titled 1984 debut. Livin' on a Prayer, You Give Love a Bad Name,
Bad Medicine -- they were all there, and the crowd was on its feet, singing along.However, the band seemed uninspired, as if they were just going through the motions. Maybe they were. Over the past three months, Bon Jovi has played to about 1.5 million fans in 33 countries. Or maybe it was just the heat. Late into the band's 80-minute main set, two gargantuan balloon figures were inflated on either side of the stage. To the right was a demon-faced Elvis, complete with guitar. On the left, a topless woman wearing a G-string, long gloves and stockings. The woman had the head of a parrot -- or perhaps a peacock. As Bon Jovi wound down their set, demon-Elvis played along on his guitar, and bird-lady danced and caressed her thighs. Then, at 6:17 p.m., the band left the stage. The King and the dancer deflated. But guess what? Three minutes later, Jon and crew returned for a half-hour encore, beginning with the saccharine ballad, Always. It was still too bright out to wave cigarette lighters. The band ended with Someday I'll Be Saturday Night, following a speech by Jon Bon Jovi. The New Jersey singer urged audience members to chase their dreams. Earlier, the Rainbow Butt Monkeys opened the show as late-comers searched for a good vantage point, and a small plane circled overhead, towing a banner that read: Rock On, Boycott Ultramar. Their half-hour set ranged in style from grungified Red Hot Chili Peppers to straight-out thrash metal. Some spectators plugged their ears. Fanatics at the stagefront, some of whom camped out overnight waiting to get in, moshed and crowdsurfed. Barney Bentall -- without his longtime backup band, the Legendary Hearts -kicked off his 45-minute set with a few verses of Barrett's Privateers. The Vancouver native stuck mainly to songs off his new album, Gin Palace. The heat and the crush was too much for some fans, who had to be treated by St. John Ambulance workers. Some left by ambulance. Also notable were the exorbitant concession prices: $3 for a tiny slice of Pizza Hut pizza and $2 for pop or bottled water. Advance tickets were $35.50. |
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