A JOVI-al Evening Had By All

I'm a believer.

What can I say? Any doubts that anybody has as to the beauty, talent and perfection of Jon Bon Jovi can be easily assuaged by the simple act of attending a Jovi concert and seeing the man in the flesh.

That said, let the record show that I have never, since the release of the album Slippery When Wet, faltered in my belief in the Jovi. I'm just saying that I have had to listen to a lot of riducule and naysaying over the past few months, as I revealed my plans to attend the Jovi show. The reactions of my friends and acquaintances ranged from excitement ("Wow! I love Bon Jovi!), to disgust, ("Jesus, haven't you forwarded your calendar pages since the 80's?"), to bemusement, ("How old are you, anyway?") You get the picture.

I often find myself having to defend my taste in music. Somehow, my music taste has lagged somewhat behind the times.

In all seriousness, though, let me tell any doubters out there that Bon Jovi is still very much alive and kicking!

Anyway, enough of my pontifications as to the merits of the Jovi. I'm not here to sell anybody on Jovi, but I am here to present a full report of my experiences at what can only be described as one of the very best live shows I have ever seen in my life.

My sister and I braved the Friday blizzard to get ourselves over to the Fleet Center/ Garden/ TD Bank North Arena....whatever the hell else the call the place. I will take my sister's advice and refer to the place as Lourdes. As she pointed out, getting to the show in that weather required such a heroic effort, that our trek there would best be described as a pilgrimmage. Add to that the fact that we were going to see our own "Personal Jesus" and you'll understand that this thing began to take on a religious significance to us.

Actually, let me not portray my sister and myself as the lone martyrs here. I have to send props to my brother-in-law, who got us over there. The poor bastard works just a stone's throw from his house. Normally, he has about a 15 minute commute to work, but in these severe weather conditions, his trip home became remeniscint of Shackleton's freakin' Arctic Adventure. He was released from work at around 2:00. The original plan was for him to drive home, relax for a couple of hours, and then he and my sister would pick me up to head into the show. I was expecting them at around 5:30.

At 5, my sister called me to tell me that her husband was still en route from the office. He hadn't even been home yet. I'm no Stephen Hawking, but according to my calculations, this put him in his car for nearly 3 hours. The plan was revised. He would pick me up, we would get my sister, and head straight into the show.

I live on a hill, the slope of which might call to mind the Tibetan face of Mt. Everest. Anyway, my brother-in-law couldn't even get up the thing, so I had to walk down to meet him. Because the residents of Somerville seem to have taken some kind of moral stand against the act of shoveling, I had to walk in the middle of the street. The drivers who had been foolish enough to attempt to take on the hill in the first place were now fishtailing wildly out of control and I can only liken my walk/glide down that hill to my being some kind of video game character whose main objective is to avoid objects hurtling through space at unspecified speeds. I performed some pretty cool Bionic Man style leaps over snow banks to avoid being hit.

Anyway, I finally made it to my brother-in-law's truck and was treated to his tirade against the idiotic drivers who had nearly cost him his life on multiple occasions during his arduous trip home.

We picked up my sister. It was not the traditional pick-up that you might imagine. She was so excited to go to the show, that she had been standing outside the house waiting for us since her husband called her at 2:00 to say that he was getting out of work early. She didn't really even see the need to make her husband come to a full stop. It was like one of those old movies where the ho-bo just jumps on the moving train. She just sort of hurled herself into the moving vehicle. Obviously, she didn't want to waste a precious second in getting to the Jovi show.

It took my brother-in-law another 40 minutes or so to get us to the show. Again, my sister subscribed to the philosophy that brakes were a completely unnecessary luxury in this matter, so she just basically thrusted herself into the street from the car. This move was made all the more impressive by the fact that she simultaneously released the child lock on my back seat and helped me land on my feet in the middle of the street-come-ice rink.

We walked/skated over to a bar where we had a pre-Jovi cocktail. At the bar we met a woman from Germany who came all the way to Boston to see the two Jovi shows.

I started to think that she might even be a bigger Jovi fan than my sister. She could barely speak English, but swore up and down that she knew every lyric to every Bon Jovi song. That obviously requires a little more effort for her than for my sister, a native English speaker. However, I am going to give my sister the benefit of the doubt here. I don't think anybody can really trump my sister's knowledge of the band.

We headed over to the Fleet and were treated to the opportunity to sit in the high end bar, called Legends. A friend who works at the Fleet managed to hook us up. Props to S.B. The opening band left me wishing that the windows in the bar could have been soundproofed, but that was not the case. I don't know their name, but after about three seconds of their opening "song", I decided to rename them, "Fingernails on the Chalkboard." I think that nicely summarized their sound.

What the hell is up with Jovi having this band open up. Maybe it is the "bridesmaid syndrome" of rock and roll. You know how they say brides always get their bridal attendants horrible dresses so that they look better themselves? Maybe bands track down the crappiest opening bands to make people thankful just to get them off the stage, and make the headliners sound better strictly by default.

Not that Jovi needs an ounce of help, mind you!

As curtain time for Bon Jovi neared, we made our way to our seats. A brief scan of the audience revealed about a 90% female crowd. The only men there appeared to be husbands who had been dragged there against their wills, and drunken 30 year-olds who decided to "come out of the closet" and reveal themselves as true Bon Jovi fans....friends and colleagues be damned!

Let me get back to the husbands there agains their wills. First of all, why would they even consent to go? Secondly, why would any woman want to ruin her evening out with Jon Bon Jovi (yes, I realize there are 20,000 other women there, but a girl can dream, right?), with some sour-puss jackass sitting there with his beefy arms folded across his beer gut?

Anyway, I have to let this issue go because really, what can I do about it? Some couples are just disfunctional like that, I guess.

Just the act of getting into our assigned seats was enough to make my sister's heartrate accelerate. She was experiencing a slight shortness of breath, too. She was so excited about seeing Jovi!

As the lights dimmed and the bandmembers started to appear on stage, I too, began to feel a sensation of excitement crawl over me. "Jesus," I thought, "I'm about to see Jon Bon Jovi in the flesh!"

All of a sudden, Jon's angelic voice started to fill the Fleet, and the lights shone on the stage. The strange thing, though, was that Jon Bon Jovi was not up there. So, where the hell was he? Instinctively, my sister and I split the task of trying to locate him. She looked to the left, and I to the right. As I turned my head to begin the search, my eyes fell on the most beautiful object they have ever been blessed enough to behold. There, about 15 feet in front of us, on a makeshift stage constructed just over the soundboard, stood our god, our hero, our savior, our saint....Jon Bon Jovi himself. Trying to form words would have been useless, so I basically took my hands to my sister's face to physically turn her head toward Jovi.

She was having kittens, naturally.

The really dorky thing is that I honestly and truely felt as if I was seeing and old friend. At the risk of being ridiculed by my sister, I told her that. She totally understood and agreed. I have not mentioned that between the two of us, we have been a minimum of 40 Bon Jovi shows. She counted this particular show as her 25th. I am giving a very conservative estimate when I say that I have seen them 15 times. I would be willing to bet that I've seen them many more times than that, but as I said, I'm just being conservative here.

I mention this to estabish the fact that we have been steadfast Jovi fans and faithful concert goers for years. It really did feel like I was catching up with an old pal when I saw Jon Bon Jovi up there. He always just seems so approachable, funny and warm. I don't know....

Silly, I know, but there you have it. True confessions from a crazed Jovi fan. I hope he isn't reading this now and sending the anti-stalking police my way. Jon, I swear, I've never been near your house. Feel free to invite me over, but otherwise...I'll admire you from afar.

Anyway, the show was freakin' great. It never dipped in momentum. Each song was more exciting than the last and each was performed with an unparalleled energy level. Nobody can out perform Bon Jovi.

The great thing about them is that they seem to honestly enjoy what they are doing up there. If there is any drudgery involved in this for this band, the spectator would never know it. If they are sick to death of performing "Wanted Dead or Alive, " "Run Away" "Living on a Prayer" or "You Give Love a Bad Name" they never show it. These old tunes have lots of mileage on them, but Jovi seems to get what not many bands have caught on to. When the fans come out to see a band, sure, find, its great if the band sings a few of the tunes from the new album being promoted on the tour, but honestly, we want to hear the "Wanted Dead or Alive" and the other old war horses. That is what defines this band. That is what earned this band its fan base and that is what keeps the fans coming back. (Well, that and Jon Bon Jovi's gorgeous ass...but we won't get into that right now.)

They always sing these songs, and (here's what impresses me most), they always seem to really enjoy hearing a massive crowd sing back their songs at full volume. It is as though, even after over 20 years of doing this stuff, they are still totally and completely humbled by the fact that thousands of people actually know the songs that they've written. I love seeing the humility and humanity of this band. That is what keeps me coming back. (Well, that and Jon Bon Jovi's gorgeous ass, but we won't get into that right now.)

Ok, so let me comment on the gorgeous ass. Let's just get into it. My sister, 20,000 other woman, and myself, were dying every single time the overhead camera took a closeup of Bon Jovi. And the thing is...the guy operating the camera is no moron. He appears to have put two and two together. Hmmm.....super rock star, movie actor, Versace model. I guess this guy is going to appeal to women and we should get a couple of extreme closeups going on. That camera guy definitely earned his pay up there that night, let me tell ya.

A couple of other funny things that happened....

At one point, the music slowed down a bit and the band seemed to be heading toward taking it to a more mellow place. Once again, Jon pulled his disappearing act, because once again, there was a disembodied voice floating above the crowd. It was my sister who spotted him this time....once again on a makeshift stage, but this time right IN the audience, right IN our row, but about 15 feet away. I was silently hoping that he didn't get too close to us because I'm pretty sure my sister would have injured a few people to get at him. I did not want to walk out of that place with a lawsuit pending.

Anyway, he behaved himself and stuck to his little stage.

I was standing closer to the stage, so I ceded my spot to my sister so that she could see him better. I was having a heart attack, as I thought she would be. In the middle of the song, she turned to me, pointed a few rows above the action and said, "Check out that guy's wig." What the hell was that? Here I thought she'd be all salivating about Jon Bon Jovi being close to us that I was thinking I should stop at CVS and buy an EPT test on the way home, and all she could do was look at some guy's wig. Was this how she was going to spend her "moment of a lifetime?"

I ignored the wig issue until Jon Bon Jovi was safely back on stage and things had calmed down and then I pursued the issue. "What wig are you talking about?" I asked. I couldn't even imagine some guy's wig being enough of a distraction as to invade her lifelong fantasy of being within touching distance of JBJ. I had to check it out on those grounds alone.

She pointed to a couple of fools up in the stands who were literally wearing WIGS. If you know Lauren and me, you know that we call everybody's hair a "wig." We have been for years. Her daughter (Ally from the Trashing Target piece) even refers to her own hair as a wig. I digress.

These people were completely decked out in the 80's acid wash jeans, skin tight jean jackets, leopard skin blouses and they topped off the whole ensemble with mullet wigs. One of them even went so far as to put the sweatband around the wig. I woudln't mind if these wigs looked good, but they were all flaxen and shit and they were all thinning out at the bottom.

It was enough to make me laugh out loud for the rest of the show. I'm almost happy that it was toward the end of the show that I noticed them, because they were such a distraction that I couldn't stop looking up there.

It was super classy when they got some beers and, in the process of pumping their fists in the air, spilled it on the family reunion of snotty women in front of them.

As for other fashion fatalities....as per usual at any rock show, there were those women whose outfits are just "WRONG" no matter how you slice it or dice it. You have people in low cut, lace bustiers who have no business in low cut, lace bustiers. I'm going to leave it at that.

Richie Sambora himself was completely resplendant in a glorified pimp outfit. Crushed purple knee length jacket, leopard skin top hat and this blouse with the big frills all over the place.

David Bryan was wearing a leftover wardrobe prop from the Sound Of Music curtain material outfit seen. Pretty sad. And somebody needs to get that brother some frizz-ease. But he's pretty cute.

Anyway, I'm getting tired of writing now. Time to close the curtain on this entry.

We had a great time. Jovi rocked our world anew and we'll be the first in line to get tickets next time!!!!