Bon Jovi - Live At Madison Square Garden
Performance
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Bon Jovi - Live At Madison Square Garden
Performance
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A few words of advice for the Bon Jovi clan. Richie, quit trying to be Stevie Ray Vaughan. Your good enough, your smart enough, and doggone it, people like you. So enough already. Tico, quit smoking in front of the kids so much. David, get a damn haircut already. And Jon, you ain't no Garth Brooks my man. I knew Garth Brooks and.......ah, never mind. So what the hell am I talking about? I'm talking about the fact that the kings of arena pop-rock have gone and turned themselves into goddamn cowboys - and on steel horses they ride. Riding on the success of the countrified remake of their 2006 single, "Who Says You Can't Go Home", a duet with Jennifer Nettles that reached #1 on the U.S. country music chart that same year, Bon Jovi done picked up and moved to Nashville to record an entire album worth of countrified tunes. And as it turned out, this was exactly what the world had been waiting for. Lost Highway debuted at #1 on the Billboard 200 album chart, and it was the band's first album to do so. The following year they recorded and released the accompanying concert DVD, Bon Jovi Lost Highway: The Concert, where they performed the new album in its entirety. And now we have another new Bon Jovi concert DVD, and a proper one at that, recorded on July 14th and 15th, 2008 at Madison Square Garden, in front of a sell out crowd who witnessed a career spanning set of hits, new songs, and even a deep cut or two. Live At Madison Square Garden was directed by Anthony Bongiovi (Jon's brother) and Brian Lockwood, and was only recently released in the U.S. and Canada on May 11th, 2010. The rest of the world was able to pick it up last November. The concert begins in a rather lackluster fashion with Jon being filmed from behind as he walks out on stage just as the stage lights heat up, and he and the band break into "Lost Highway." Not that it's a bad song, it's just a poor choice to open the show with. I always hate it when a band opens a concert with a ballad, or a song that is not one of their old classics. From there, Jon and the boys take you on a career spanning trip down memory lane, while throwing in a few curveballs along the way. They travel as far back as to their 1984, self-titled, debut album with "Runaway," still a big guilty pleasure, and also play three cuts from the Lost Highway album. In between, they cover most of the essentials like "Wanted Dead Or Alive," "Livin' On A Prayer," "Keep The Faith," and "It's My Life," while also throwing in some lesser known fan favorites like "Blood on Blood," and a tour-de-force performance of "Dry County." Halfway into the set Jon leaves the stage to take a break and hands the reigns over to Richie Sambora who turns in a wonderfully soulful performance of "I'll Be There For You." Sambora's background and harmony vocals have always been an essential element of the Bon Jovi sound, but here he proves that he is a decent lead vocalist in his own right. When Jon returns for the second half of the set, he takes a casual stroll through the audience, smacking hands with all of the nearly orgasmic woman along the way, as he belts out "Blood On Blood." Damn that guy still looks incredible for his age. I'm not gay or anything, my wife just told me so about 50 times while we watched the DVD together. Before they close out the show with a couple of conquering Slippery When Wet anthems, "Wanted Dead Or Alive," and "Livin' On A Prayer," Jon first shows off his vocal prowess with a poignant rendition of the Leonard Cohen masterpiece, "Hallelujah." He didn't exactly blow me away like when I first saw Jeff Buckley perform the song, but I was still pleasantly surprised by Jon's performance. His vocals were spot on throughout the whole concert too. Live At Madison Square Garden was shot with 23 high definition cameras and although the picture and audio quality were both very good, they are not likely to make you say "wow" like some of the best concert DVDs out there do. The Dolby Digital 5.1 Surround and 2.0 stereo tracks were mixed fairly well, but they sounded more like studio releases than a live show, so some of that live dynamic was missing for me. Particularly impressive was Bongiovi's excellent camera direction, as he avoided the quick cuts that are so prevalent on most concert DVDs today, and really let you breath in the performance with plenty of lingering shots of the entire stage. Unlike the Blu-ray edition, which also includes the excellent "When We Were Beautiful" documentary, the DVD edition does not include any bonus features. Oh, that's right, "You Give Love A Bad Name," "Runaway," and "Bed of Roses" where relegated to the bonus features section instead of being part of the main feature. They still had 5.1 surround audio mixes attached, so I would really love to know the brilliant reasoning behind that decision. The packaging is also very misleading, as it lists all of the songs together as one set, including "Bad Medicine," which is only played over the ending credits, and is not a live performance. WTF? With all of it's flaws aside, Live At Madison Square Garden is probably still overall the best Bon Jovi concert DVD to date, and should satisfy most fans. You can pick up this DVD at your local Walmart for only $9.99 - so now you have no excuse. Reviewed by Paul M. Roy - August 2010 |
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Running Time: 125 Minutes |
DVD Release Date - May 2010 |