Transmission from MGM Grand: This is your dad’s Bon Jovi

By John Katsilometes

Monday, March 21, 2011 | 1:42 p.m.

After singing the 1983 hit “Runaway” with great power while deftly avoiding the high note at the end that would have burst the eardrums of 13,000 wailing fans, Jon Bon Jovi placed the song in its proper perspective.

“That song is so old, it’s been married,” he laughed. “It’s so old, it’s got kids! College-aged kids!”

OK, stop there, Jon. Cool it with the age references.

As it was, Saturday was a giant class reunion at MGM Grand Garden High School. Pick the year, any year, after 1983. There were fans in attendance whose salt-and-pepper hair might have predated even Salt-N-Pepa. Several of the more mature devotees (what do we call them? Bon Jovians?) attempted to stand for the entirety of the nearly three-hour rock spectacle and, finally, said, “Screw it,” and swayed while seated.

If the show had lasted another 30 minutes, the green-jacketed MGM Grand ushers would have been ordered to fetch the amyl sulfate.

As noted before, I’d not seen this band since “Runaway” was a song relentlessly played on an audio forum once known as “FM radio.” It would have been a preposterous notion to suggest that one day, nearly three decades later, this band would be the voice of a generation. Or, at least, one of those voices. But if you’d asked the crew who saw Bon Jovi perform in 1984 which bands would be viewed as the (music writer word coming up) seminal rock act of that era, Bon Jovi would not have been mentioned. Journey. Foreigner. Def Leppard. Men at Work, maybe. Duran-squared.

But they deserve that status, I say unexpectedly, and this was made apparent the moment Jon Bon Jovi walked onstage wearing an open-necked leather vest and matching trou. Bon Jovi is 49 years old. Leather vest, leather pants, nearly 50. And the crowd -- women, especially -- went crazy when he took the stage to “Livin’ on a Prayer.” When he announced, “We’re in Vegas on a Saturday night!” the crowd’s booming response made it seem as if they were wholly unaware of the night and location of the show until Bon Jovi himself informed them of it.

That moment led me to consider what requirements a rock band needs to meet to be considered one of the all-time greats, “seminal” if you will, and how their concerts play out like religious revivals. And, yes, today’s Bon Jovi qualifies. The “why” of it all:

You must have an anthem: No problem here. All of Bon Jovi’s hits are anthems, in one manner or another. While they might not have a “Pride (In the Name of Love)” or “Born in the USA” in the catalog, “You Give Love a Bad Name” is a song behind which you can whip up some real emotion.

When you push the mic toward the crowd, the crowd knows what to do: Audiences at Bruce Springsteen and Tom Petty shows, among many others, have sung entire verses of songs at the direction of the men paid to sing the song themselves. “It’s My Life” and “Bad Medicine” are songs the audience seems apt to sing in their entirety, all too happy to take part in the interactive experience.

There must be some lead singer/lead guitarist interplay: The Jagger-Richards Effect. The vocalist needs someone to lean on during a guitar solo, someone to drape an arm around during particularly tight harmonies, and Richie Sambora is that guy. Bon Jovi himself is a great showman, but Sambora gives him some additional stage cred, the Kenickie to his Danny Zuko.

The band should be from a single place: Boston, Liverpool, Memphis, Seattle, San Francisco, New York, Detroit -- a place to reference when saying, “When we were kids in (fill in the municipality).” It just doesn’t work when you say, “When we first got together, as a result of an international talent search conducted by a recording-industry executive …” Bon Jovi’s place is New Jersey, of course, and even for those of us who have never enjoyed the finer trapping of the Garden State, you do feel a sense of kinship because of the band’s strong link to its place of origin. One guy dancing the night away in the row in front of me wore a shirt reading, “Made in New Jersey 1983.” A genuine stamp of approval, that.

You must pay tribute to those who inspired you: U2 is great at this, having taken the stage to “Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band,” and even the Stones have played video montages of the great artists -- James Brown and John Lee Hooker among them -- who inspired their rise to fame. Bon Jovi, in an unexpected move, performed a credible impression of Mick Jagger during a quick sample of “Start Me Up.” The band also played Rod Stewart’s “Hot Legs” with ample glee.

Know your place in the rock pantheon: In introducing “We Got It Goin’ On,” Bon Jovi said, “Next week, here, Lady Gaga is performing! We remember when everyone was gaga for Madonna!” So do we! Woot!

Be musically great: Not easy, but Bon Jovi -- regardless if the music is your cup o’ Lipton -- is a great live act, powerful and tight, artfully incorporating video panels that float over and around the stage and employing hydraulic platforms to great effect. Especially impressive is percussionist Tico Torres, who is a madman behind the drum set even though he seems about to succumb to cardiac arrest. The band pulls out to an acoustic set midway through the show, where errors can’t be masked. It’s here that “I’ll Be There for You,” a song you might not expect to raise chills, hits the mark.

The band and the singer have grown older, a little more wizened, yet still looks and acts very cool. Leather vest or no, that’s no small feat.

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