Elvis has left the building at Bon Jovi's St Louis show

We're nearing the end of Bon Jovi's 2022 Tour. In years gone by, I would've said "end of the first leg" but I really have no clue what the future holds at this point. Anyway, here's what was played in St. Louis.

St. Louis, Missouri, USA - April 21, 2022

Enterprise Center

1. Limitless
2. The Radio Saved My Life Tonight
3. You Give Love a Bad Name
4. We Weren't Born to Follow
5. It's My Life
6. Beautiful Drug
7. Born To Be My Baby
8. This House Is Not For Sale
9. Just Older
10. Let It Rain
11. Keep the Faith
12. American Reckoning
13. Whole Lot of Leavin'
14. Do What You Can
15. I'll Sleep When I'm Dead
16. Lost Highway
17. Roller Coaster
18. Have a Nice Day
19. Livin' on a Prayer
    
    encore #1:
20. Wanted Dead or Alive
21. Who Says You Can't Go Home
22. Bad Medicine
    
    encore #2:
23. I'll Be There For You

Selected videos from St. Louis

"I'll Be There For You". Jon seemed emotional here, taking it all in. He used similar "Drive All Night" ad libs to the ones on the Live from London performance of "Always" in 1995. And then he just... left the stage, leaving David Bryan looking a bit confuzzled:

Jon's brother Matt called it the "Elvis exit":

People. It was the Elvis exit. It was awesome

— Matthew Bongiovi (@TheMattBongiovi) April 22, 2022

"Beautiful Drug". I dig the track but I'm mostly posting this because it's one of the few new songs where Phil X can kind of cut loose a bit:

 "This House Is Not For Sale". I just like the song, okay:

 

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No April Fools, it's 2022 - Bon Jovi's "2020" tour begins in Omaha

And we're back! And by we, I mean Bon Jovi, but I've been MIA for a long time as well. I haven't decided how I want to approach the tour at Blame It On The Love this time around, but we'll figure it out over the course of this leg, I guess. 😀

After two years on the sidelines, Bon Jovi finally began their tour in support of the 2020 album -- on April Fool's Day of all days. Kelli McDonald, Hugh's wife, made Jon's American flag leather jacket. And this is what the band played:

Omaha, Nebraska, USA - April 1, 2022

CHI Health Center Omaha

1. Limitless
2. The Radio Saved My Life Tonight
3. You Give Love a Bad Name
4. We Weren't Born to Follow
5. It's My Life
6. Just Older
7. Born to Be My Baby
8. Beautiful Drug
9. Let It Rain
10. Keep the Faith
11. American Reckoning - acoustic
12. We Don't Run - acoustic
13. Someday I'll Be Saturday Night - acoustic
14. Who Says You Can't Go Home
15. Lost Highway
16. Wanted Dead or Alive
17. Do What You Can
18. This House Is Not For Sale
19. Have a Nice Day
20. Livin' on a Prayer
    
    encore:
21. Love's the Only Rule
22. Bad Medicine

 

Some nice inclusions there, including: 

• "The Radio Saved My Life Tonight" for the first time since 2015;
• "Just Older" for the first time since 2011, and
• "Love's the Only Rule" (aka The Circle song they should be playing all the time) for the first time since 2013.

Cheers to Bon Jovi Updates for the heads-up on how long it'd been since those songs were played, 'cause I'm so not keeping track of that stuff.

 

Selected videos from Omaha

"Beautiful Drug". I like this song a lot and I'm bummed we haven't gotten that single and music video for it:

 

 

"We Don't Run". The This Left Feels Right-style acoustic version was dedicated to the people of Ukraine. I'm in two minds about the arrangement but I like Jon in acoustic mode:

"American Reckoning". I alternate between thinking this song is too ham-fisted and thinking it's beautifully sad. But anyway, here it is, with a bit of Bruce Springsteen's "The Promised Land" as a harmonica intro/outro:

"Livin' on a Prayer". This has been transposed to a noticeably lower key but I'm honestly fine with that:

"Love's the Only Rule". Won't lie, this is a bit of a vocal mess. But I still maintain that every time Jon goes to put "Born to Follow" in the set, he should take it out and put this in instead. Or maybe "Superman Tonight". I know he doesn't really rate The Circle anymore, but it's got some good tracks on it:

 

Got other videos from the show you want to share or highlight? Add a link in the comments.

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Beautiful Drug on Ellen

Bon Jovi beamed into Ellen for a socially distanced performance of "Beautiful Drug", which I assume/hope is the next single from 2020. Greg Mayo filled in for David Bryan on keys:

I wish "Beautiful Drug" had been the lead single. Having said that, the fact that the first two songs I did hear from 2020 were very uninspiring to me, and I now absolutely love the album, is testament to how strong the other tracks are. In my humble opinion, of course. Obviously if you hate the album, you'll disagree with those sentiments. 🙂

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2020 deluxe version + GMA, iHeartRadio

In what seems like a weird move, a deluxe version of Bon Jovi's 2020 album has been quietly released to download and streaming services three days after the standard version came out. In addition to the 10 tracks on the original version, the deluxe edition contains three bonus tracks:

• "Do What You Can" - duet version with Jennifer Nettles
• "Shine"
• "Luv Can"

The latter two were already on the Japanese edition of the album. I had ordered a CD from Japan but it'll take a while to ship to me so I'm very happy to be able to get the tracks in the meantime.

"Shine" and "Luv Can" have been circulating online for the last couple of days, so the sudden release of the deluxe album might be in response to that. Or maybe it was planned. But hey, I would've liked a 12-track album in the first place. 😉

Anyway, there's obviously a new album to promote, so I'll be posting some of that on this blog over the coming days/weeks.

Here's Jon's interview with Good Morning America, where talks about 2020 and collaborating with Jennifer again, among other things:

And here's Bon Jovi's performance on the show of "Do What You Can", with Jennifer Nettles joining remotely and Greg Mayo filling in for David Bryan:

Jon also joined Jim Kerr on iHeartRadio to celebrate the release of 2020. The segment featured an interview with Jon interspersed with recordings of recent live performances. It included the live debuts of "American Reckoning" and "Beautiful Drug", as well as "Do What You Can", "It's My Life", and "Livin' on a Prayer":

 

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