Bon Jovi - One Wild Night: Live 1985-2001

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Music reviews of One Wild Night: Live 1985-2001

Music Review: Not Wild Enough - and not good enough
Rating: 2 Stars

By having a compilation of live songs as opposed to a live concert, the flow is disrupted. A complete concert flow would have added a better touch and give the listener an opportunity to hear the CD as if it were concert as well as get a better Bon Jovi experience. As for the songs themselves, one would expect a very high energy level with the performances. After all - this is Bon Jovi and the album is "One Wild Night". I never get the impression of a "party" on stage at any point on this collection. Songs such as "Livin on a Prayer", "You Give Love a Bad Name", and "Bad Medicine" are just extremely weak when comparing them to the studio versions. It just seemed like the "A" game was missing when these songs were performed. I would consider Bon Jovi's peak period in 1986-1990 (i.e. the "Slippery When Wet" and "New Jersey" albums), yet there are no live performances from this period. That is a shame, because we probably would have gotten a glimpse of Bon Jovi during their heyday. Instead we get the many of the performances from 1995 and 2000 - doesn't make much sense. The songs don't seem ordered very well either. I don't think "It's My Life" is enough of a classic to open up a live performance (and that is the first track). I also don't like "Bad Medicine" as the wrap up song. Plus "Livin on a Prayer" and "You Give Love a Bad Name" are tracks 2 and 3 - so by track 4 you already have passed the 2 biggest hits from their biggest hit album ("Slippery When Wet"). Finally, Bob Geldof joins Bon Jovi on stage for performance of "I Don't Like Mondays" from London. "I Don't Like Mondays" is one of the biggest hits from Geldof's band, the Boontown Rats. My question is - why Bob Geldof and the Boontown Rats? I understand it was a moment from the London concert where they brought Geldof on stage, but to me - Bon Jovi's cover of this song with Geldof is not that good. The inclusion of this song was at the expense of other Bon Jovi songs (i.e. In These Arms, Lay Your Hands on Me, Social Disease, etc) that were left off the album. The new song "One Wild Night" is pretty average - nothing special.

There are some positives though. Bon Jovi does another cover - this time Neil Young's "Rockin in the Free World" (recorded in South Africa). This particular cover is very good and is one place where I do feel some intensity in the performance. The beginning chords of the song almost sounds like a U2 song, but then it bridges very nicely into a good hard rock version of the Neil Young classic. Despite the fact "Wanted or Dead Alive" is included from a year 2000 performance (again a over a decade since it was released), the song doesn't seem to lose a beat. Bon Jovi puts a "western like" spin on it that gives it an "electric/acoustic" feel to it. "Wanted Dead or Alive" is the best performance on the collection. Following "Wanted Dead or Alive", there are two Bon Jovi "classics" - "Runaway" and "In and Out of Love". These songs also have a great deal of intensity and since they were recorded on the same night (April 28, 1985) in Tokyo - that might explain it. "Runaway" has a pretty good ending that could have easily been the CD's "finale".

The liner notes are very difficult to read. There is a nice writeup on the the Bon Jovi concert experience by Lonn Friend, but because it is written in "marquis like capital letters", I find it very difficult to read. The same holds true for the production credits. The concert dates are actually on the back cover of the CD. The CD has a bunch of tour like memorabilia and concert pictures. Again, it really doesn't do much for me. The lyrics for the new song are not included.

This collection is pretty good if you want to have live Bon Jovi cuts in your collection, but overall it was a major disappointment to me. You probably aren't missing out on anything if you don't add this to your collection.

Description of One Wild Night: Live 1985-2001

Classic Rock CDs

• Music > Styles
• Hard Rock & Metal
• Pop
• Rock