I did make it to the show at the Wachovia Center in Philly last night. I didn’t get to post a review last night, mostly because I didn’t make it back to the house until 1:30 in the morning or so, and I pretty much fell straight into bed.
I had something of an incident when getting tickets–or rather, the person who bought them did. They had one of those fancy credit cards that is supposed to have a service to assist in purchasing tickets. Somehow, something went pear-shaped, and either the credit card company was slow on the draw when the tickets went on sale, or there was a mis-communication somewhere. Either way, we would up in the second row of the second tier, way up in the nosebleed seats. However, it turned out fine; the view from there was actually better than a lot of the seats down below. (And it wound up being much easier on the budget.)
I personally could have done without Dashboard Confessional. I’d like to know why it is that bands think that volume makes up for quality. My mother put earplugs in for their set, and I honestly considered bailing out and hanging out in the hallway or getting myself a T-shirt until they were done. Really, if performing a cover of a Bryan Adams song improves the net quality of your set, you’re doing something wrong. (Their cover of ‘Summer of ’69 was the only song where I could make out the lyrics in their whole set.) I said before that the choice of Dashboard Confessional was a bad decision, and that was reinforced by last night’s experience.
At any rate, things got better when Bon Jovi started their set. ‘Blood on Blood’ was a great choice for an opener; high energy, and a song that I, at least, hadn’t gotten to hear live before. Most of the songs from The Circle held up pretty well live; ‘Superman Tonight’, especially, was a treat to hear Jon sing in person. ‘
The acoustic set was awesome. I really do love every song from These Days, and I got to hear ‘Something for the Pain’ live last night, which pretty much made my day. I enjoyed Jon’s performance of ‘Hallelujah’ as well–not only is it a beautiful song, I’ve always thought that Jon brings something special to it. I suspect the secret is that Jon enjoys performing it.
My only real peeve in the entire show was how long Jon dragged out Who Says. Honestly, I’m not that fond of the song to start with, and somewhere around the twentieth “It’s alright!” it really, really started to get annoying.
I really think that ‘Love’s The Only Rule’ was a really bad choice to end the regular show. It was well-performed, and it was pretty, but it just killed the energy in the audience–ending with a song like ‘Brokenpromiseland’ would have had the audience on their feet and chanting right away.
Unfortunately, I didn’t get to hear any of the songs that I really, really wanted, like ‘Dry County’, ‘Living in Sin’, or ‘I Believe’. Honestly, much as I enjoy hearing Jon perform ‘Hallelujah’, I’d have traded it in a heartbeat for ‘Dry County’.
Richie was looking really, really hot last night. That man does the whole rock star look really well. And when he ditched the jacket to play ‘I’ll Be There for You’ and the arms came out–well, it was hot. Really, really hot. Especially with the tight pants.
I was just grateful when Jon stripped down to the T-shirt and showed off his arms as well. Much as I might enjoy eyeing up Richie’s gorgeousness, I’m really a Jon girl at heart, and it’s Jon’s muscles that I really want to see. That being said, Jon was rockin’ the tight pants too, and he looked good.