"I ain't gonna live forever..." - or what ??? Determined and powerful as ever the New Jersey Band boiled down Anaheim's Honda Center. Audience: 5 - 100, more female, naturally, still seeing a grandpa with his 6 year old bouncing up and down their seats during Bon Jovi's impressive stage show was just priceless.
Richie, in much better shape then recently seen on TV, blasts "I'll be there for you" all by himself into the mic... (Jon: If you are nice, and don't drink yourself blind, I let you sing something all alone on stage). Better idea: Get him a girlfriend, that does not party and stone herself out 24/7... and drives, when he really had to much...

On stage, Rich does not need assistance. Strangling his instrument effectively visually whilst coercing it to sound like harp music at the same time is a well trained and impressive talent. Jon Bon on the other hand obviously took some dance-coaching lessons since we saw him last time (10 years ago?) and I could not suppress several loud and lasting laugh-attacks watching his (for me) newly trained super hype moves, obviously trying to show us, its 2008 and we have developed from an "across stage sprinter" in 1988 to an 2008 "stage-actor". His voice, better trained and less tortured by steroids than in the last century, holds up during the full set of ... how many hours ???

Bouncing up and down to hits like "We got it going on", "sleep when I'm dead", "It's my life", "Living on a Prayer" leaves me breathless and sweating, wishing for a slow song to finally rest my butt. But it is not only the acoustic, that keeps us flabbergasted... the Bands multidimensional stage show knocks out everything in high-tech I've seen so far. Multiple floating square video-screens that expand

into long rectangle of separate blinds, a moving pyramid-shaped video-screen wall, right behind the band, that can be adjusted in angle, what left Jon no other choice, he HAD to climb it. And this little cute stage in the middle of the crowd, where Jon sings his "Make a memory" to beaming Fans touching hands with their idol right then and there.

"Bad Medicine" shows dancers in nice underwear moving catwalky on the screens (see pic). The female violin player is a steady part of the band and had her front stage show-offs during some of the new country-influenced songs ("Lost Highway") And one statement I wont forget ever: Looking at Jon's face on the huge video-screen my girlfriend states matter of fact: "Look, he can't frown, he had Botox treatments !" Well, at least you can't get arrested for driving on Botox...

Susanne Lewis