Bon Jovi @ Etihad Stadium, Melbourne (Sun 8 Dec 2013)

This was a very last minute gig.  A friend of Wifey’s saw that there were cheap tickets available to see Bon Jovi, so we figured- why not?  $35 for a night out of classic rock- who could ask for more?

The show itself was pretty damned good for the fans, although I’ll be completely honest saying that I only knew a small handful of the tracks played. The stage setup was a massive 50’s Chevy looking thing- looked pretty cool from our seats in the nosebleed section.

Interestingly, the video screens only showed Jon (of course), David Bryan (keys), Tico Torres (drums) and Phil X (guitar- filling in for Richie Sambora). What does that mean? It means that Hugh McDonald on bass ( who’s been filling on for Alec John Such since 1994 – that’s 20 years people!) and Bobby Bandiera on the other guitar were totally ignored. Even to the point that where the band went out on the catwalk to do Dead or Alive, those two stayed back in the shadows on the main stage. Bobby Bandiera didn’t actually get on camera until the solo in Have A Nice Day, which as you can see was well into the encore.

There’s an interesting read on Cracked about Bon Jovi’s bass player shame as well as Springsteen’s odd arrangement with the E-Street Band.

Either way, it was a fun night out, and it was pretty cool singing along to some of those hits for the first time since primary school. I had Livin’ On A Prayer in my head for about a week after the show.

Phil X did an awesome cover of You Shook Me All Night Long by AC/DC- it was probably the highlight of the set, truth be told. The band also covered Start Me Up by The Rolling Stones…. made me want to buy tickets to the Stones until I saw the cheap seats are about a million dollars.

Being the ever responsible people that we are, we all decided to go out and get completely rotten drunk after the show. Rolled back home around 3am on a Monday morning. Fuck yeah for pretending we’re 20. If Jon Bon can do it, why can’t we?