Blueshadow's Bon Jovi Blog » Video

Mohegan Sun Behind the Scenes Video

admin — Tue, 10 May 2011 01:20:56 +0000

NBC has a behind the scenes video from one of Bon Jovi’s Mohegan Sun shows.

It’s from March though, so there’s no mention of Richie’s recent issues. But there are some really good shots of Richie’s guitar collection.

You know, I never really looked that hard at Richie’s guitars. I was always more interested in the sounds that man could extract from them than what they looked like.

But what makes this video so cool is that it gave me a really good look at some of his guitars, including the double-neck one that he uses for Wanted, which is actually quite beautiful.

Ozzy did a video of John Lennon’s ‘How?’

admin — Thu, 17 Mar 2011 02:30:13 +0000

It occurred to me today that I never did a post about this song and video. I’m not sure why I never did. I checked the blog posts from back when it was first released for Lennon’s birthday back in October, and I think I missed it during the excitement over the new Greatest Hits tracks from Bon Jovi.

I do remember actually seeing this video for the first time on TV back when it was released. I had left the TV tuned to VH1 Classic, and went into the kitchen to get breakfast. When I first heard it, I really wondered why it sounded like Ozzy–and then I realized what it was when I came back in and saw the TV, and saw the actual video.

Speaking as someone who is a fan of both Ozzy and John Lennon, I really liked this video. It really felt like a tribute to me. I really liked the way that Ozzy handled the song–he did it straight, but with real feeling behind it.

The video itself is one of the best music videos that I’ve seen in quite some time. The production is so simple, but yet it manages to tell a complete story. The song itself is a great tribute, but it’s not complete without the video. The images of the walk through New York City to Strawberry Fields in Central Park are what really makes the video for me.

I have to say, out of the many tributes to Lennon last year, this was one of the few that actually moved me.

Claymation Ozzy Commercial

admin — Sat, 08 Jan 2011 01:17:01 +0000

Lipton Brisk Iced Tea has a new commercial featuring a claymation Ozzy Osbourne..

If it weren’t wrong to refer to anything with the lead singer of one of the most influential metal bands of all time in it as ‘cute’, I think this video would qualify. For something so short, it’s remarkably funny.

One of my favorite things about Ozzy has always been that he’s not afraid of a a little humor.

The character that he voiced for Brutal Legend was a really good example of that. The game’s developers actually thought to take the shopkeeper interaction which is a staple of just about every adventure-type game and make it entertaining. But it was Ozzy’s delivery that really made the whole thing funny.

And the guy can still put out some pretty good metal.

Review: Live Webcast from the Best Buy Theater

admin — Fri, 12 Nov 2010 14:53:10 +0000

I’m doing good this week; I didn’t even need my phone to remember this one. And I’m glad I did; this show was totally worth tuning in for.

After listening to Lost Highway during this show, I was left kind of conflicted. I really don’t care for the song all that much–as the singles from Lost Highway go, I liked Make a Memory a whole lot better. However, the song seems to suit Jon’s voice well right now, and I like hearing Jon in fine vocal form, so I’m feeling a bit torn at this moment.

This show had a lot of good vocal performances from Jon. His performance of ‘Pretty Woman’ with Bobby Bandiera during the encore was particularly impressive.

Richie’s vocals on Wanted were awesome. We’ve been hearing more good performances from Richie on the vocals lately, and I love it. The juxtaposition of Richie’s voice with Jon’s is a lot of what I love about Wanted and songs like it.

And we got another great double-solo performance of ‘Keep the Faith’! I have to say that a good high-energy performance of this song is one of my favorite live experiences. What’s really impressive to me is how the energy of this song came through for me, even though I was watching over the Internet and wasn’t there. I got lost in the performance on that song. Now that’s a great performance.

I liked Jon’s outfit that he had for this show better than the one from the Late Show earlier this week. I’ve got a weakness for that rock star look, and I love that sleeveless leather shirt. Add to that his strutting during Bad Name, and I’m a happy Jonny girl.

Review: Bon Jovi on the Late Show

admin — Wed, 10 Nov 2010 14:14:20 +0000

I did manage to tune in for the webcast at 8 yesterday. This was not a show that I was going to miss. (I know my own brain; I programmed the alarm on my cell phone to go off to remind me.)

Aside from a brief accident where I clicked the Katy Perry link while trying to adjust my collection of open windows and missed the middle of ‘It’s My Life’, it was a great show.

I like ‘When We Were Beautiful’ a whole lot better as a live performance. It’s a pretty song on the album, but the album track has a lot of effects in it. The live performances like this one let you hear Jon and Richie’s vocals. I’ve also found that I have a similar reaction to live performances of ‘What Do You Got’ as well. I didn’t think much of that song when the video was released, but I’ve seen a couple of live performances of it online now, and I like it a lot better live.

‘Keep the Faith’ was another highlight in this show. I always love the solo in this song when it’s performed live, and this performance didn’t disappoint–with two solos, how could it? I won’t lie; Jon’s moves during those bits of the song are a big part of the appeal here. But it’s also Tico’s drumming that I love on this song.

Richie was wearing the same outfit that he wore on the Extra segment from a couple of weeks ago. I’m okay with that; like I said then, I like that outfit. It’s got some real rock star style to it, and it looks good on him. Plus, Richie was really doing some blistering solo work here. (I totally loved the one on ‘Wanted Dead or Alive’.) I think I’ve said it before, but I’ll say it again: Keep it up, Richie, and you might just steal me away from Jon.

What about Jon? Well, I have to say that even though it was Richie who was getting my attention on this performance, what Jon did with ‘Shout’ was fantastic. Now those are the kind of vocals that I love to hear from him. It was a treat.

‘What Do You Got’ Video Review

admin — Tue, 21 Sep 2010 01:54:58 +0000

The video for ‘What Do You Got’ is up on BonJovi.com now.

I actually like this one better than the last couple of videos that Bon Jovi has put out. It’s a definite improvement over the last major video that the band did; the video for ‘Superman Tonight’ really just didn’t work for me. I mean, I understand the point that Jon was trying to make, but I thought that it just kind of clashed with the song itself.

This time out, the video stayed on-topic and worked together with the song, and I think the effect was much better.

Ordinarily, I’m not a fan of the all-black look; I think I complained about that back when Bon Jovi performed at the Grammys. You tend to lose the band members, especially if the background is dark as well. However, they made good use of lighting effects here, which really kept the band from fading into the background.

Keeping the color palette muted during the segments that show the band puts the focus on the band members’ faces and on the segments of the video which actually tell the story. In this case, I think the all-black look really helps reinforce the narrative elements of the video, and it actually works very well.

This is probably the best video that Bon Jovi has released since ‘Make a Memory’.

The Music Video Exposed: Wayne Isham

admin — Wed, 17 Feb 2010 14:09:57 +0000

I caught an episode of The Music Video Exposed on VH1 Classic this weekend. That’s not one of the shows that I ordinarily go out of my way to watch. You can tell that I was still very young during the golden age of MTV–most music videos hold very little appeal to me, and they’re usually completely secondary to the song itself, as far as I’m concerned.

I caught the tail end of the episode dedicated to Wayne Isham. The name honestly meant nothing to me. I had conked out and was too tired to keep up with the game I had been playing on the Xbox, so I powered down and settled for watching VH1 Classic until the show I was waiting for came on.

As it turned out, I got lucky. Wayne Isham directed the video for Livin’ on a Prayer, and the Prayer video was one of the ones featured in his episode. There’s no profound insights here, but some interesting storytelling from Wayne Isham himself. I had always figured that the silhouette of the guy running through the curtain of sparks was deliberate–but that’s the director, abruptly realizing that he was parked in the middle of the shot. That may have been a complete accident, but I always thought that it worked.

As for the rest of it, there’s nothing really profound there, other than a few brief interview clips with Richie. He mostly talks about how Isham helped the band break big. Not sure when it was recorded. Judging by how Richie looked in the clips, it was probably fairly recent.

The other neat video included in the show was the video for Skid Row’s 18 and Life, another one of my favorite songs. Once again, nothing terribly profound, but at least on that one they got Sebastian Bach to show up. Bach’s comments were more interesting–he was remarking on how, even after all this time, he can watch the video for 18 and Life without getting embarrassed. He has a point–Isham did do a fantastic job on that video, and it really does stand the test of time better than many of the other videos from the same time period that tried to tell a story.

It was kind of neat, just tuning in randomly and getting the scoop (such as it was) on the videos to two of my favorite songs.

Superman Tonight Video

admin — Wed, 10 Feb 2010 13:29:11 +0000

I guess it’s about time that I get around to reviewing this…

I know it’s been out for some time, but it just didn’t seem to be a priority for me to get around to watching it. That’s actually kind of odd now that I think about it, since Superman Tonight was one of my favorite songs on The Circle.

I watched the version of the video over at bonjovi.com. I initially had some trouble with the video loading. However when I played it a second time it worked fine.

All told, I found it to be a rather unremarkable video. Most of the background imagery with the tunnel and the lens flares echo the cover art from the album.

The video explores the wealth of small-scale heroes in everyday life. Whoever came up with the concept of the video (and the person who directed it) did a nice job of paying tribute to all of the heroes of everyday life. I’m sure that the concept originator was most likely Jon–this seems like one of the many ongoing influences from his charitable work to carry over into the band’s music. It’s good to see at least some musicians drawing inspiration from positive sources rather than purely negative.

Jon’s hair on the other hand, not so good. It’s better than it had been, but I stand by my assessment from the Grammys–it’s starting to look like politician hair. Richie did look great though, keeping up the streak started with the video for ‘We Weren’t Born to Follow’. If Richie keeps it up, he might be able to steal me away from Jon completely…

Dokken vs. Chicken

admin — Mon, 28 Sep 2009 14:29:05 +0000

Norton Internet Security has released a series of ads featuring Dokken. While not the best ads that I’ve ever seen, these are pretty good. They manage to communicate why you need antivirus software in a humorous manner, and most importantly, do so without demeaning Dokken or the members of the band. I had a good laugh out of these.

Dokken seems to be having a bit of a revival lately. I hope it continues; I’ve always liked their work.

Midnight in Chelsea on MTV Newsroom

admin — Mon, 06 Jul 2009 17:23:09 +0000

Jon’s video of Midnight in Chelsea was featured as the Wake-Up Video on the MTV Newsroom.

Interestingly enough, the second paragraph of the article is quite complimentary, praising Jon’s ability to fit his music to what’s currently popular. I don’t think I’d call It’s My Life ‘computer rock’ though. It’s more of a pop/rock influenced song. (Now, One Wild Night 2001, on the other hand, is definitely dance or technica influenced–but that’s not the song that they referenced.)

Unfortunately, they blow it in the third paragraph. I’m not sure how they can claim that the video for Midnight in Chelsea is remotely relevant to the beginning of Jon’s career. Destination Anywhere isn’t anywhere close to the beginning of Jon’s career. It isn’t even his first solo album!

All that being said, it doesn’t detract from enjoying the video. If anyone still goes to MTV for music, this should introduce a few new people to what Jon can really do when given the chance.