With this week’s an nouncement that the New Meadowlands Stadium would host the 2014 Super Bowl, Jon Bon Jovi knew he had to put on a powerful show not to be upstaged.
At the first performance of the sold-out four-concert series last night, the forever-young singer and his band of Jersey pop giants christened the shiny new stadium with a rollicking extravaganza of light, sound and performance energy.
The band’s effort made everyone forget football until Bon Jovi expressed his gridiron desire, saying, “I wouldn’t mind seeing the Jets play the Giants in the Super Bowl here, either.”
Daydreams aside, the band was in top form and made the 55,000-strong crowd roar. There was enthusiasm in the seats and on the stage at nearly every turn in the two-hour-plus show — even wrongheaded cheers when the audio glitched out for a couple of minutes during the mid-concert rendition of “Runaway.”
Bon Jovi is expert at generating fan/band synergy, especially when he’s on home turf in Jersey, but last night, he fanned the simpatico fires by repeatedly asking, “Are you with me?”
They were with him, partly because the acoustics in the new stadium are excellent for a big bowl. In fact, they are markedly superior to those at the old digs. There’s less sonic bounce, so the echo has been mostly eliminated, and it seems the volume doesn’t have to be cranked quite as hard to reach the back wall and the upper decks.
The stadium also has a state-of-the-art video system that actually wraps around the bowl, but Bon Jovi didn’t take advantage of that amenity — instead employing his own video behind the field-wide stage that was set up in the end zone.
That circus of behind-the-stage images was a perfect marriage to propulsive rock songs like the new “Work for the Working Man,” as well as time-tested hits like “You Give Love A Bad Name” and the encore, “Wanted Dead or Alive.”
During this series-opening show, Jon’s vocals sounded slightly gruffer than usual.
Chalk it up to over-rehearsing, or maybe even allergies, but the added deepness in his voice worked to his advantage on “We Got It Going On.” That quality also fit well with “Bad Medicine,” which drifted into a credible cover of The Doors’ “Roadhouse Blues.” The vocal deepness lent those tunes classic hard rock muscle.
Guitarist Richie Sambora also was in good form and was flashy during his many solos.
He was brash on older material, such as the finale, “Livin’ on a Prayer,” and he also was able to play with surprising finesse during an acoustic mini set.
All in all, Bon Jovi played a slick, let-the-good-times-roll concert that, judging by Jon’s wide, toothy smile, pleased him as much as it delighted the fans.