Rockin'Like A Politician

Posted October 27, 200717 yr

Rockin' like a politician

Bon Jovi proves perfect kickoff act for Prudential Center

Jon Bon Jovi is like a politician -- a carefully coiffed package, driven, upbeat, on message. Late Thursday, during the first of his band's 10 shows opening the Prudential Center, the singer even thanked his fellow New Jerseyeans "for the privilege of representing you" over Bon Jovi's quarter-century together.

Bon Jovi's message, as ever, was sleek populist entertainment -- as sleekly accomplished as the Newark arena the band is christening over the next two weeks, nothing less, nothing more. But one didn't have to be a dyed-in-the-wool member of Jon Bon Jovi's constituency to see that there are few acts so well-suited to a big ribbon-cutting.

From virtually the first note to the last, Bon Jovi convened a two-hour singalong for the crowd of 16,132, a full house for this stage setup. The best part of this show is realizing how the band from Sayreville has found a way to grow up in rock'n'roll. Of all the '80s hair-metal bands, Bon Jovi is the only one to still command a vast audience, long ago retooling its muse to mainstream rock and, lately, to pop with a slight country accent.

"I'm a Jersey devil, and this is my new house," drawled Jon Bon Jovi, beating the New Jersey Devils hockey team to its claim on the Prudential Center as home. Bon Jovi recorded much of its new album, "Lost Highway," in Nashville, and it seems that the voices down there have stuck with the singer. The stage was set like a honky-tonk, and pedal-steel guitar player Kurt Johnson even brought a case of beer as he came on.

Johnson, who has an easygoing baritone voice, broke into the Hank Williams classic "Lost Highway," joined by rhythm guitarist Bobby Bandiera and mini-skirted fiddler Lorenza Ponce. Bon Jovi proper came on one by one, and the full band kicked into its own song "Lost Highway." After so many contemporary country acts have crossed over into pop and rock, it's only right that a rock band takes on the New South sound. "Lost Highway" is one of Bon Jovi's best tunes in years, with a top-down, big-sky melody that fans cheered as if it were a classic.

In painted-on jeans and a leather jacket that he soon shucked, Jon Bon Jovi looked movie-star fit; moreover, his vocal cords are in just as good shape, with none of the songs, new or old, having notes that he couldn't reach and hold. Deep meaning has never been Bon Jovi's bailiwick, with the band's lyrics as subtle as semaphore. But the touching quality of another new number, "(You Want to) Make a Memory," stood out; it's an adult love song of the quality that doesn't often make today's country charts.

A bad influence from south of the Mason-Dixon Line came with the would-be party anthem "We Got It Going On," which is about as enticing as flat beer. Of course, Bon Jovi alternated new songs with the hits -- "You Give Love a Bad Name," "It's My Life," "In These Arms," "Bad Medicine." The songs could hit a dead spot whenever guitarist Richie Sambora played his hackneyed solos, and his recovery ballad "These Days" was a maudlin lull. But the hits kept coming, including an open-hearted, roof-raising "Who Says You Can't Go Home."

Next-generation New Jersey band My Chemical Romance opened the show, playing a hot set that veered from Stonesy swagger to Queen-like grandiosity. Singer Gerard Way -- dressed in black-on-black, a shock of raven hair over his pale, chiseled features -- seems born to rivet big venues, the Belleville native's melodramatic gestures fueling tunes from the band's hit third album, the rock-operatic "Welcome to the Black Parade." If the middle-aged men were baffled, the young girls understood, with Way's every move eliciting squeals of adoration.

Although it's hard to imagine Jon Bon Jovi freely listening to My Chemical Romance's gothic glam-punk, the singer came back for his band's encores outfitted in a My Chemical Romance T-shirt. Way had talked about one of those encores, "Living on a Prayer," being his longtime "Bon Jovi karaoke jam," and Jon Bon Jovi's sartorial tribute returned the favor, as well as shrewdly made him look cool in younger eyes. Don't be surprised if he runs for governor some day.

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