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Forty-three years after forming in New Jersey, Jon Bon Jovi and his band deliver a stadium-ready performance at Electric Picnic, with Livin' on a Prayer and Bad Medicine leading the singalong highlights even as the singer adjusts his vocal approach post-surgery.
Forty-three years after gathering together a crew of like-minded musicians in Sayreville, New Jersey, the 64-year-old frontman Jon Bon Jovi and his band are on their Forever tour, named for their 2024 album but perhaps also a nod and a wink to their legacy and how precarious it might have seemed in recent years.
There has been extra attention on the frontman and his voice since his vocal cord surgery in 2022, and the Forever tour, their first since his recovery, also had a somewhat inauspicious beginning at their Madison Square Garden residency last month when the plug was pulled early on one performance due to a sinus infection. Tonight, at least, there is no sign of any major vocal issues, although his singing is perhaps not as effortless as it once was.
Bon Jovi hits all the notes required of him from the set opener, a louche cover of The Beatles' With a Little Help from My Friends via Joe Cocker's bluesy retelling. The use of an autocue for lyrics is noted on stage, and there have been concessions to the rocker's vocal readjustments made on the keys of several songs, and perhaps to the shape of the set list too.
In These Arms and closing track Always are performed in a lower register, and admittedly don't pack quite the same punch without the thrust of their singer's idiosyncratic holler. Still, while the set list may be slow to kindle and prone to lulls every few songs, when the hits make an appearance they arrive with the subtlety of a sledgehammer.
You Give Love a Bad Name still packs a mighty punch, Bed of Roses soars into the dwindling twilight, and It's My Life and Livin' on a Prayer are the most effective one-two punch of the evening, the latter a glorious singalong with extra cheese and air-guitaring. The swaggering Bad Medicine and Wanted Dead or Alive are faultless, while on Keep the Faith, Bon Jovi's voice seems stretched to its limit yet manages to hold steady with a little help from his friends, namely 80,000 devoted disciples urging him on.
Between the anthems, the band are given a chance to shine on songs like the jaunty country-infused Whole Lot of Leavin' and the stealthy This House is Not for Sale, while the frontman seems genuinely moved while performing clear-voiced power ballad I'll Be There for You. Even the threatened deluge that fans had been expecting failed to appear, although the Jersey boy notes how he expects nothing less than a little rain in Dublin, and rolls out the line about how previous weather-marred gigs were due to angels crying because they couldn't get a ticket to a sold-out Bon Jovi show.
It could rain all night, but I ain't going nowhere, he promises. The corny patter about beautiful Dublin is abundant, but despite the set's somewhat inconsistent flow, it's impossible to dislike the rock veteran and his hundred-watt smile. At one point he takes a Tricolour from a fan and ties it around his neck, superhero-style, and it takes less than ten seconds for the first chorus of Ole Ole to kick off.
The poodle perms and leather trousers are a thing of the past, but the thunderous choruses, made to be heard in stadiums, are proof that you can't keep a good song down. Forever is overrated, anyway. Tonight was good enough
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