What will Bon Jovi open with in Seattle? See for yourself!

It's mere hours before Bon Jovi hit the stage in Seattle, and you can

WATCH THE FIRST 15 MINUTES OF THE CIRCLE TOUR FROM HOME!
Bon Jovi kicks off The Circle Tour this Friday, February 19 in Seattle, WA and they wants fans all over the world sharing the excitement of the first concert! Be there for when the band enters the Key Arena and reveals the new stage, the new screens, the new production! These will be 15 minutes you are sure to remember for years to come and will undoubtedly get you fired up to see Bon Jovi in 2010 and 2011! Visit the homepage of BonJovi.com at 8:30pm (PST) on 2/19 to see a live stream of the first 15 minutes of Friday night’s debut on The Circle Tour!

(I believe 8:30pm PST = 4:30am GMT).

Wonder what they'll open with? Will we get a surprise first up, like at the February 11 Honolulu show, when they kicked off with "Blood on Blood"?

Here's the video of that performance to whet your appetite.

Brokenpromiseland and Working Man from Honolulu

I posted some more videos of the old gems Bon Jovi dug up in Honolulu, including "Shot Through the Heart", in my previous post. From something old to something new, here are "Brokenpromiseland" and "Work for the Working Man".

BROKENPROMISELAND - One of the best songs on the album IMO. A little tentative here but this marks its first performance ever.


WORK FOR THE WORKING MAN - This song made its debut at the National Conference on Volunteering and Service, performed by "JBJ & Friends". Here it is from Bon Jovi the band.


WE WEREN'T BORN TO FOLLOW

Shot Through the Heart and more golden oldies from Honolulu

Some more great videos from Honolulu shows have been uploaded. Thanks to all the Bon Jovi loving YouTubers who were in Honolulu last week.

SHOT THROUGH THE HEART - Finally, a full video of this! It's still amazing hearing this gem in 2010.


ROULETTE - Another video; I don't think I could get tired of hearing this one either.


GET READY - Is it just me, or does the band seem somehow refreshed after dusting these old gems off?


ONLY LONELY


TOKYO ROAD


And Richie Sambora's first lead vocal performance of the tour...

Only Lonely in Honolulu!

And here it is! "Only Lonely" from the second Honolulu show, February 12, 2010. Wow.

Full set list from that show here.



And "Only Lonely" in 1985...


I've also edited my previous post to include full videos of "Thorn In My Side" and "When We Were Beautiful".

More Honolulu videos

Happy Valentine's Day and Chinese New Year, readers and friends. What better way to celebrate than... more videos from the past two Bon Jovi shows in Hawaii? ;)

A couple of new songs...

WHEN WE WERE BEAUTIFUL


THORN IN MY SIDE


I'm loving The Circle more and more.

And a couple we've seen before, but slightly different...

WE GOT IT GOING ON - It's no secret that I think this is a terrible track but if it was written to be a mindless "party" song, it succeeded. Jon seems to have a lot of fun with it. And from about 2:05 onwards, Richie starts saying "We Got It Going On" with the talk box which is actually pretty cool.


YOU GIVE LOVE A BAD NAME - Jon on the guitar... playing a solo that consists of more than two notes... What on earth is the world coming to? :P


Related posts:
"Roulette", "Diamond Ring", "Bed of Roses", and "Love's the Only Rule" from the first night;
"Tokyo Road", "Superman Tonight", and "Livin' on a Prayer" from the first night;
"Get Ready" and a snippet of "Only Lonely" from the second night;
Honolulu night #1 set list and comments;
Honolulu night #2 set list and comments.

Get Ready + Only Lonely - Honolulu night #2 videos

Some extreme rarities from the second Honolulu show for your viewing pleasure. You can check the full set list and my thoughts on it here.

GET READY - This is actually one of my favourites from the first album and it sounds great here. "You need someone to make it last, no Romeos who love and leave you fast..."


ONLY LONELY (partial) - Just a 30 second teaser... hopefully someone captured the whole song.


EDIT: There's now a full video of "Only Lonely" in this post. :)

Honolulu night #2 set list

The second Honolulu show, and the second show of the Circle tour just wrapped up about 20 minutes ago. Not as good a set as the first night, but we were lucky to get what we did. The obvious gem was "Only Lonely", which is my equal favourite 7800° Fahrenheit song (along with "The Hardest Part is the Night"). "Only Lonely" wouldn't have been played in at least two decades so I'm very keen to see this and hear how it sounds in 2010.

I'm eager to hear how "Thorn In My Side" and especially "Brokenpromiseland" sound live too. Come on, Hawaiian YouTubers! ;)

At this point I'm also wondering why "Whole Lot of Leavin'" and "We Got It Going On" had to be played both nights. I do actually like "Leavin'" but "We Got It Going On" is quite horrendous... Jon, if you want to play Lost Highway songs, please play good ones. :P What about "Any Other Day"?

Anyway, thanks again to the wonderful Big Apple Jovi Girl for her play-by-play tweets live from the Blaisdell Center.

EDIT: It seems a tweet about "Get Ready" being played between "Born To Be My Baby" and "Only Lonely" didn't go through properly. So that makes two big surprises for this show! :D

HONOLULU, USA - NEAL S. BLAISDELL CENTER - Feb 12, 2010
Lost Highway
We Weren't Born to Follow
You Give Love a Bad Name
Born to Be My Baby
Get Ready
Only Lonely
Thorn In My Side
When We Were Beautiful
Whole Lot of Leavin'
Superman Tonight
We Got It Going On
It's My Life
Bad Medicine
Hallelujah [Leonard Cohen cover]
I'll Be There For You [Richie Sambora on lead vocals]
Brokenpromiseland
Someday I'll Be Saturday Night
Who Says You Can't Go Home
Love's the Only Rule

ENCORE:
Wanted Dead or Alive
Livin' on a Prayer

More Honolulu night #1 videos

I'd been quite apprehensive about Jon's voice based on some of the promotional shows, but he doesn't sound bad at all. Here are some more videos from the first night (February 11, 2010) in Honolulu.

Videos of "Roulette", "Diamond Ring", "Bed of Roses", and "Love's the Only Rule" can be found here.

You can read the full setlist for the show here.

TOKYO ROAD - With the Japanese intro (like on the studio album), which I don't think they would have done since the 80s. "Tokyo Road" itself was last performed on the One Wild Night Tour to promote the release of the Japan-exclusive "best of" compilation of the same name. As a side note, this song makes me miss Tokyo.


SUPERMAN TONIGHT - A welcome return to the power ballad.


LIVIN' ON A PRAYER


Hath has a media guide to the show, including links to more videos ("Who Says You Can't Go Home", "We Got It Going On") on her Circle tour blog.

Honolulu night #1 videos

Videos from the first Circle tour show in Honolulu. You can read the full setlist here.

ROULETTE - Jon talks to the crowd before dedicating this lost treasure to "the hardcore lunatic fans who gave us such a hard time". If there's one criticism that can be levelled at the first two albums, it's that they sound comparatively dated (New Jersey, for instance, is much more timeless. But I don't believe the 80s are anything to be ashamed of.) But "Roulette" still holds up well in 2010, and it's such a cool song. My face hurts from grinning so much. :P


DIAMOND RING - Love the intimacy this song brings. Check out the response from Richie when Jon asks if anyone's married or wants to be. ;)


BED OF ROSES - One of the first Bon Jovi songs I ever heard and still in my top five of all time. So glad they brought it back on the last tour.


LOVE'S THE ONLY RULE - Never in my wildest dreams did I imagine this song (catchy but fairly lightweight to be honest) could be so epic in a live setting. Jon fluffs some of the words and his voice is a bit thin (though better than at this stage of the previous tour), but I was almost shaking while watching this... and I wasn't even there!

Honolulu set list

Well! Show #1 of The Circle tour just wrapped up a few minutes ago and Jon kept his word with some huge surprises!

Special thanks to Big Apple Jovi Girl for her play-by-play tweets from Hawaii.

EDIT: Some videos from this show are now available here and here.

HONOLULU, USA - NEAL S. BLAISDELL CENTER - FEB 11, 2010
Blood on Blood
We Weren't Born to Follow
You Give Love a Bad Name
Born to Be My Baby
Roulette
Shot Through The Heart
When We Were Beautiful
Whole Lot of Leavin'
Superman Tonight
We Got It Going On
It's My Life
Bad Medicine
(You Want To) Make a Memory
Diamond Ring
Bed of Roses
Work for the Working Man
Have a Nice Day
Who Says You Can't Go Home
Love's the Only Rule

ENCORE:
Tokyo Road
Wanted Dead or Alive
Livin' on a Prayer


Opening with "Blood on Blood" was the first surprise before the band floored us with "Roulette" and "Shot Through the Heart". "Diamond Ring" and "Bed of Roses" were obvious gems too but "Tokyo Road" was the sweetest icing on the cake. My only real gripe is the lack of 90s stuff (my favourite Jovi decade), and my belief that a band with such an extensive catalogue should aim to represent every album (except This Left Feels Right :P ), including Bounce, at every show. But these are small gripes when you look at that whole set. Songs we hadn't heard in a decade, or two decades, and by all expectations would never hear again.

Massive thumbs up from me, Jon. If this is a sign of things to come, bring on the rest of the tour!