Bon Jovi in Cardiff - Review

Wednesday the 12th of June 2013 was shaping up to be a good day. Work wasn't grating on me like usual, I was happy to the point of annoynance to my colleagues AND I had a very tasty lasagne for lunch. However, that was all just an added bonus to the already planned events for the evening. Wednesday was my last day of work prior to my four days holiday and to start off this fantastic four days off we'd be road trippin' (we were fully loaded with snacks and supplies as well) to Cardiff to see Bon Jovi on their latest tour dubbed 'Because We Can Tour'.

Strangely, they were playing the Cardiff City Stadium...NOT the Millennium Stadium as I, luckily, found out a few days before. I found this to be strange considering that the Millennium Stadium is larger,  and in my opinion, a much more popular and better organised venue. It took us about 2 hours to make the drive from the good ol' Shire. When we got there we drove past the stadium looking, naively, for parking at the next door ASDA. Alas, finding parking was proving to be futile. We caved and decided to plump for the park and ride (that we had already visited but decided that WE would be lucky enough to find parking right by the stadium). Side note: At the park and ride they were filming Holby City/Casualty/Don't really know because I don't watch that crap.

We made our way to the stadium on the bus. Once we got to the ASDA drop off point, certain members of our group decided they needed to pee. I made the most of this unnecessary stop and decided to pre-empt a full bladder and had a piss as well. With the delays of finding parking and pissing about (literally) we finally got into the stadium just as Bon Jovi were half way through ' Shot Through The Heart'.

Upon first entering the stadium and the pitch (we were standing) I was struck by how small the venue was. I hadn't been this surprised by a stadium's size since U2 at the Don Valley Stadium on the 360 tour. It's a strange stadium/arena type size. I may be making this seem like a bad thing but it really isn't. It helps make it the gig more intimate than the larger stadiums. Once we found our spot on the pitch, I then paid brief attention to the stage. What a stage! Even know I'm not sure if I liked it or found it to be cheesier than Bon's songs. See the below photo (taken by me!) for reference:

As you can see it, its the front of an old American muscle car (not the back like first thought).

Once we got settled in, I could finally start paying attention to the actual concert. This was the 4th time I was seeing Bon Jovi live. The first one was in Hyde Park in '02 and is memorable because it was my first ever rock concert (and possibly the largest), the second was for the "Lost Highway' tour in '08 at Twickenham and was, until Bruce in NY, the best concert I had ever been to. The third was at the 02 when they did a few dates to fill in for Jacko. That was OK. Back to Cardiff though. I'm not sure if it was because of the general rush we were in, the arriving late, the smaller venue, the welsh or, hell, it was a weekday, but there Cardiff effort really seemed to miss the mark. There was too much unknown crap for my liking (lets be honest, if you're going to see Bon live, you're going to hear the classics not his new piss-poor efforts).

It was an odd experience. Much like looking a Jon's brilliant white horse chompers he's got on them. Seriously, they were insane!

They didn't play for very long either. Only 2 hours at the most. They finished off, naturally, with Livin' On A Prayer. I thought they were going to come out and do another encore but they did not. No Bed Of Roses. No Always. No more cheesy 80's rock :( To be fair, Jon didn't seem like he could be THAT bothered. After all, it was only Wales....who can be bothered!?

PS: Only joking, I love the welsh. Especially their cakes.