Bon Jovi, October 11 at Staples

Bon Jovi's Slippery When Wet is one of the first albums I ever had, during my formative early-teenage years. (I had Thriller before that so that was my official first album but that seemed more like a novelty for the time and what everyone had anyway.) I got the Slippery cassette in 7th grade as a gift from a friend who lived next door, who seemed much cooler than me because he knew Bon Jovi and I barely knew them from MTV, but before they went super-nova a year later. Back then hair-metal was still coming up and it was the thing at the time anyway. (It might have been a golden age for "alternative" music but that was about as far away as could be for me at the time.) Tango in the Night and Invisible Touch were constants for me in 8th grade, every day after school while I did dishes and waited for Jem to come on, but I rarely ever put on Slippery, for fear that anyone would catch me during that time when the backlash had begun and my cool friends deemed him (not usually them, as a band) as -- quote, unquote -- gay. Typical middle school. After that I kept being a Bon Jovi fan, openly displaying my love for "Wanted Dead or Alive" and New Jersey in high school (with a different set of cool friends), even when that wasn't a good time to be a fan. I got those albums eventually on CD, and I even got the new ones for a while but they never had the charge, and certainly not the nostalgia, that those early ones had for me. Even though I had moved beyond hair-metal just as Bon Jovi had (though they could hardly be considered any version of "metal"), I had moved beyond them in any genre. I still played those early two albums, and kept their first greatest-hits, but that's as far as I ever went again. I would still admit, without irony, to being a fan, at least for those bygone years. In my adult life I could have made any effort to see them in concert, but I was already well past the time when it would have been the best to go (as if I actually could have in middle school or early high school). Just to do it I wouldn't have gone alone, though I would go if I had friends who were interested, but who did I know that would want to go to that show anyway? Well, Tom, as it turns out. He suggested getting tickets and I couldn't say no.  I didn't even have to go on a goof; we made an evening out of it with Carla and Tati, got dinner at Trader Vic's before, and might even have gotten there on time. There might have been times when Bon Jovi might have played bigger places than Staples Center but they wouldn't play a place smaller than that, even 20-odd years past their greatest peak. Few bands can keep up that kind of momentum for that long, and they might be the only band that survived that hair-metal era intact, though they had the advantage of being more of a pop-rock band and willing to shift to go along with trends (since they didn't have a lot of artistic integrity to sacrifice in the first place). Jon himself also didn't destroy himself with the excesses of the halcyon days, and he always seemed to have a good business sense to keep the music and the company that was the band going. That didn't make for the best art, and even their best moments were way too broadly accessible, but he kept the whole thing rolling strong. That same sense of business and pushing ahead comes out in the show, when they charge through the songs, with more routine than heart in the music, but professional enough that they could satisfy anyone who would consider themselves a fan. They started strong with a few early hits and ended and encored with more and what I could assume were their biggest post-'80s hits, but the middle was a long slog. There was probably enough for post-'90s fans and anyone who cared about stuff from their newest album, but there was barely anything I felt I needed to know. Tati and I had a regular conversation as we were waiting the songs out. That sequence only showed how they've moved through changing genres, for better or worse, but a countrified album or two at least means they can keep doing shows with the old songs (whether they want to or not -- sorry, there are still plenty of lapsed and casual fans that still want to hear your best stuff, even if it was from decades ago. The price you pay for keeping it going as an aging rock band). The biggest disappointment was the absence of Richie Sambora, who had quit part-way through the tour just a short while before this show. It was probably over money or ego, which are ridiculous reasons to stop a good thing from going, especially when all parties involved already have more of enough of each, but at least they didn't try to pass it off as anything regarding creativity. The band was still solid, and the scab guitar player might have been technically just as good, but there was always something about Sambora tempering the band with another creative head, that there was another talented musician around to make it an actual band and not a solo act, which would not have been as appealing (since it's easy to quickly get too much of Jon Bon Jovi). Inevitably Sambora will come back to the band and maybe he'll inject some heart and excitement back into it, and maybe the reunion would be celebration enough to get some interest in the L.A. date. But it would take a great night out with a good friend, and I can't count on anyone much in my life for that more than Tom. If only I could have taken my 8th-grade self. He may or may not have liked the later songs but at least he could have seen that it wasn't an issue if Jon Bon Jovi was gay or not.

Bon Jovi's set-list:
"That's What the Water Made Me"
"You Give Love a Bad Name"
"Raise Your Hands"
"Runaway"
"Lost Highway"
"Whole Lot of Leavin'"
"It's My Life"
"Because We Can"
"What About Now"
"We Got It Goin' On"
"Keep the Faith"
"Amen"
"Someday I'll Be Saturday Night" (acoustic)
"Thick As Thieves" (acoustic)
"(You Want to) Make a Memory"
"Born to Be My Baby"
"We Weren't Born to Follow"
"Who Says You Can't Go Home"
"I'll Sleep When I'm Dead", with "Rockin' All Over the World", "Jumpin' Jack Flash", and "Start Me Up" snippets
"Bad Medicine/"Shout"

"In These Arms"
"Wanted Dead or Alive"
"Have a Nice Day"
"Livin' on a Prayer"

"Always"