I have never been a Bon Jovi fan. In fact, during their concert tonight, I think I recognized at most three or four songs. I recognized the songs, but not well enought to join the rest of the Verizon Center as they sang along. Bon Jovi must have been part of most of the audience’s youth, but it has never been part of my life. Still, I had a great time. I’ll tell you why.
When Bon Jovi first hit it big about twenty-five years ago, I was in college. At that time, I shunned popular radio and listened only to what is now considered alternative rock. I was a punk rocker who also listened to Jazz, Classical and modern Classical music, along a few other genres that were all lumped together in “international” until maybe the last ten years when they each earned their rightful distinct designations. I did not, as a rule, listen to popular music of any kind. As a result, I know almost nothing about the hair rock bands of the 1980’s.
Having said that, any band that survives twenty-seven years and can still fill the Verizon Center on a Monday night deserves some appreciation. So I sat, listened, and observed. I saw a band that still connected to its audience, which seems to have largely been the same audience it had 25 years ago. Some of those audience members brought their teenage kids. Almost everyone seemed to have a great time.
Most of the band’s most popular old songs fall into a category I call “songs of youth” because they express sentiments most of us have in our teens but grow out of as we have more experience in the world and gain responsibilities that cannot be ignored. The middle set in the show was full of these old favorites, and the crowd warmed up through the opening songs and, quite possibly, on a second or third beer, seemed to regain its lost youth, at least for an hour or two. The balding forty-something guys in front of us began to relax and pump their hands in the air, as they probably had done long ago.
Most interesting to me were the band’s more recent songs, which, dare I say it, seem very “age appropriate” for a rock band led by a forty-eight year old guy from New Jersey. Songs about work and life. Songs of experience and responsibility.
So, the party boys have grown up, but they still have some connections to their youth. And, for at least a few hours Monday night, so did thousands of Washingtonians. I sat in amused silence and enjoyed the moment.
