There is a moment when Jon Bon Jovi walks onto the stage with the rest of the men who now make up the band that bears his name. You expect them to begin with The Beatles’ “With a Little Help From My Friends”, as they have at most of the UK shows on this tour.
Instead, they play “Blood On Blood”.
Suddenly, I’m 13 again, when all that mattered was these songs, and JBJ being the “singer in a long haired rock n roll band.”
That is why this isn’t merely a gig. It feels more like a reckoning with the past. There are things in the set that I don’t know and others I don’t particularly like, but between 1986 and 1995, Bon Jovi were probably the most important thing in my life.
They might not have made a genuinely great album since 2000’s “Crush”. None of that means you can ever completely let go of what they once meant.
So I might not know “Beautiful Drug”, I might not particularly care for “We Weren’t Born To Follow”, and “Lost Highway” is merely okay. Then they knock out “You Give Love A Bad Name”, Jon ramps it up like it’s 1986 all over again and the intervening years wash away.
So does everything you might have thought about his voice.
“Born To Be My Baby” follows and, for my money, nobody has ever made an album with as many great songs as “New Jersey”. Perhaps nobody ever will.
“Legendary”, the only song aired from “Forever”, sees Jon racing around the stage. He is 64, has endured well-documented health problems and has fought his way back to this point, but suddenly he seems invigorated.
Things go up another level during “Who Says You Can’t Go Home”. He has the crowd exactly where he wants it, like always.
“Bed Of Roses” is accompanied by an extraordinary constellation of phone lights.
“Have A Nice Day” kicks things up again before the evening’s most emotional moment.
“This next song means a lot to me,” Jon says before “These Days”. He talks about the three nights Bon Jovi sold out at Wembley 31 years ago and the fact they have done it again now. I was there in 1995 with the best mate who had shared those songs with me when we were kids.
“All my heroes died,” Jon sings, and the line lands differently tonight. This man means more to me than most.
“This House Is Not For Sale” brings half of the band introductions and another declaration of his firm belief that tomorrow will be better. Before it, Jon speaks about how the values he learned in his house still matter. It feels like a reminder that he represents what you might call the good part of America, just like his hero Bruce Springsteen.
Never mind all that for a moment, though: Phil X’s solo is tremendous.
From there, Bon Jovi do what only a band of this vintage, armed with this many great songs and playing to a stadium full of people who know every word, can do.
“It’s My Life” is enormous.
Then comes “Livin’ On A Prayer”.
That one has its own deeply personal significance. It was my mum’s favourite song and it was played at her funeral. It is impossible not to feel emotional as Wembley sings it back to the band.
They follow it with a quite sensational version of “Raise Your Hands”, a song that still sends shivers down the spine. It is from “Slippery When Wet”, and between that and “New Jersey”, Bon Jovi made arguably two of the greatest hard rock albums ever recorded.
They have always enjoyed changing the set around, at least a little, and tonight produces some special surprises.
“Captain Crash And The Beauty Queen From Mars” is played for the first time on this tour and, apparently, for the first time since 2019.
Earlier, they return “Hey God” to the set, with Jon describing it as one of their favourite songs they ever wrote. Then he “puts another quarter in his personal jukebox” for “Love’s The Only Rule”, adding that this particular choice is for him. It is from “The Circle”, an album I’m not especially familiar with.
I am very familiar with “Keep The Faith”, though.
It ends the main set in the only way it can. The energy flowing between the band and the Wembley crowd is incredible.
The first encore begins with Jon and David Bryan alone for “I’ll Be There For You”. It starts intimately before the others join them, and then comes a simple question: “Do we have any cowboys in London town?”
“Wanted Dead Or Alive” soars around the stadium. Hands everywhere are in the air by now, before “Bad Medicine” underlines why it remains one of the benchmarks for hard rock songs.
This version of the band is obviously very different from the one I first loved. Phil X, Hugh McDonald, Everett Bradley and John Shanks now stand alongside the core of Jon, David Bryan and Tico Torres. Nobody can replace Richie Sambora, but this line-up has found its own way of bringing these songs to life.
For the second encore, they meet in the centre of the stage and agree to play one more.
It could only be “Always”.
As it rises into the Wembley night, perhaps for the final time in the UK and definitely for the final night of this tour —although Jon insists he’ll be back next year—you think about everything these songs mean to you.
You think about everything Bon Jovi have meant over the last 40 years. You think about how one record changed not only your own life, but the lives of so many people inside this stadium.
Bon Jovi might not be the same band they were. I’m certainly not the same person I was when I first heard them.
Yet they connect with people in a way very few bands ever have and with me like no band ever had before, or arguably since.
This concert proves that those songs will last Forever.
