Bon Jovi – Crush Tour – 2000

August 23rd 2000 – Britannia Stadium, Stoke on Trent

Supported by: Starsailor and Toploader

It had been a few years since seeing Bon Jovi, they hadn’t played in the UK since The These Days Tour in 1995 where I saw them at Wembley and Sheffield.

The guys had “split up” but with the agreement of all to do their own thing for a while to refresh and come back fighting…this tour!

So now they were touring the new “Crush” album….ok, the single “It’s My Life” was excellent, but the album was a bit MOR (middle of the road). I was here to pay homage to the clssics and this would be me drawing a line under seeing Bon Jovi again (unless they decided to show up at a festival I went to).

Starsailor

Starsailor were an excellent indie band who hadn’t been around long and played a great set of swirling, indie Britpop type stuff.

They only played a few songs as the first act on, but went down really well.

Toploader

Not really my cup of tea and in my head neither band really fitted with a Bon Jovi show. In previous years I had raved about the high quality of Bon Jovi support line ups, but this one was not right…….maybe this was deliberate, but it was a shame.

They were ok, the catch Dancing in the Moonlight (not a Thin Lizzy cover unfortunately)

Set List

Something like……

• Just Hold On
• Achilles Heel
• Only for a While
• Dancing in the Moonlight
• Jack
• Breathe
• Just About Living

Bon Jovi

By now, Bon Jovi had been receiving great reviews from all of their concerts (and so had Van Halen). This tour was the full band back together and looking like they were ready to have fun again.

• Jon Bon Jovi – lead vocals, guitar
• Richie Sambora – guitar, backing vocals
• Hugh McDonald – bass, backing vocals
• Tico Torres – drums, percussion
• David Bryan– keyboards, piano, backing vocals

The set ebbed and flowed. It was a standard cracking start with “Livin’ on a Prayer” and”You Give Love a Bad Name”, then it was the frankly awful (IMO) “Captain Crash & the Beauty Queen From Mars” , then it felt like a few old, then new and then old again. As I wasn’t enjoying the new songs, the set never quite got going until the later set of hits and encore, even this was punctuated with the very weak “Next 100 Years”. At least it ends on a guitar jam!

The set finished with three classics though and all was forgiven again…..not the best Bon Jovi concert, but a good one.

I guess all bands have to move on a bit, but this was all a bit too ordinary for me, so happy to leave the guys for a while. It wouldn’t quite be the end of me and the boys……..

Set List

• Livin’ on a Prayer
• You Give Love a Bad Name
• Captain Crash & the Beauty Queen From Mars
• Say It Isn’t So
• One Wild Night
• Born to Be My Baby
• It’s My Life
• Two Story Town
• Bed of Roses
• Someday I’ll Be Saturday Night
• Wild in the Streets
• Just Older
• Lay Your Hands on Me
• I’ll Sleep When I’m Dead
• Bad Medicine
• Encore: Next 100 Years, Blood on Blood
• Encore 2: Wanted Dead or Alive, Keep the Faith