I can't say anything about the actual early admission of fan club members to the stadium as I didn't make use of that possibility. Yeah, well, I am one of the older fans and so I'm very happy with a spot in 10th row of the pit where there is still some space around me to dance and I'm not being squashed to death as people are in the first five rows or so. In addition to that it was f******** hot day and my blood circulation has never been the best, so I didn't really like the idea of having to stand squashed in a crowd for five hours in the baking sun until the show would finally begin. So I ended up going out for a nice lunch in an air conditioned restaurant with Heike and easily walked into the stadium and the pit at around 17:30 and took a spot in 10th row of the pit which was still really really close to the stage and absolutely fine for me.

What I did notice then though was that security at the pit entrance still had a bunch of arguments with other fans about getting into the pit. I'm not sure if those were uninformed fan club members or "general public". But fact was that all wristbands for the fan club pit had been given out inbetween 13:00 and 14:00. After that there were none left. This also resulted in the fact that the fan pit was in fact very intimately packed, meaning, that there was room to breathe, to move and dance and the entire show could actually be enjoyed, which is usually not the case in the general "general admission" area, where you are being squashed to death up until probably row 60 or so. (Oh yeah, I remember those days back when there was no fan club pit yet.)

There was a second pit though behind the one for the fan club members. People in that pit had different colored wristbands and I suspect that this was the "general admission first come first serve" pit, meaning that those wristbands to allow your entry into that 2nd pit were given to those people who were not in the fan club but had been waiting in line since early in the day to get the best spots in the stadium.

In that effect I got to actually congratulate Backstage on the organization of the pits, because this way it was pretty much ensured (apart from the problems as explained above in handing out the wristbands) that the very first rows - the first pit right in front of the stage - was actually filled ONLY with fan club members (and their friends, taking into consideration that 2 bands were handed out on each membership ID), while the general public who had been standing in line to get good spots still got the chance to get better spots than the general public coming late by getting into the 2nd pit.

And now on to the MUSIC:

Southside Johnny and the Asbury Jukes opened first. I think they got on stage at a little after 18:00., They were great. Obviously. What else would we have expected. Unfortunately any hopes of Jon maybe jumping up on stage with them were not fulfilled. Main reason might have been that since they were the first to open, the Bon Jovi guys were probably not even at the venue yet at the time. Also in my opinion they could have definitely played longer than they did, because they really rocked the house.

On a side note though I had a little funky encounter with two girls in the pit. Well, since I've been a Bon Jovi fan of the early days and somewhat of an actual Jersey Girl myself, I knew Southside and a bunch of his songs. So did my friend Heike. In effect we didn't only dance and rock around but also sang along. This caught the attention of two girls to my left, and so one of them turned to me and asked "excuse me, do you know who this is?" I said "oh yeah, that's Southside Johnny!" and when she still looked at me with a big question mark on her face, I added "Southside Johnny and the Asbury Jukes". Hey, gee, I figured any Bon Jovi fan would have at least heard the name of that band at some point. But the girl was still a whole big question mark and turned to her friend and said "that's Southside Johnny and the Asbury Jukes, have you heard of them?" Her friend just shook her head in disbelief, and so I figured it was time for some more explanation and told her "well, Southside Johnny is one of Jon Bon Jovi's biggest idols. He's from New Jersey, too..." at the time they were just playing "Walk away Renee" and so I added "and Jon has also played THIS song as a cover song at some shows." Both girls were still two question marks come to life and now they even felt like I was putting them down, because the one girl somewhat snobbishly said to me "well, I've never heard that song and I've already been to some Bon Jovi shows already." Hmmmmm...... so I think, turn back to her and say "well, yeah, I think he hasn't played it in a while anymore, he did more in the beginning." Okay, so all of this didn't help, and I already figured "okay, maybe they're too young to know this, and so I started my last attempt, turned to them and said "and the guy on the guitar is Bobby Bandiera who played with Jon on his solo tour." But nope, this still didn't seem to ring any bells with them, and so I finally gave up. The fact though that the two of them kept looking at me as if I had lost all my senses kinda aggravated me. And so after a while I turn to Heike and say "can you explain to me how somebody can be a Bon Jovi fan and even be in the fan club and have never heard of the name Southside Johnny OR Bobby Bandiera?" Heike just started to laugh and explained "Miriam, those are the fans of the Crush generation." Oh! Okay.

Well, back to the happenings on stage. After the Jukes had left it, we decided to sit back down on the ground and I went to get some drinks in the general stadium area. (It was still awfully hot!)

The Stereophonics came on a little later and I gotta admit, in my opinion they sucked big time. After the first song I even decided to spare my energy for some good music and sat back down on the ground again.  But they just wouldn't stop playing. Maybe it just seemed so long to me because I wasn't too fond of their music, but I think they played much longer than the Jukes, which I found pretty unfair. Finally they were done and the stage was being set up for the main act. Took them about 30 minutes I think.

Well.... I guess I can spare you details of the stage set up and all, since you've already heard that a bunch of times. And what can I say about the show? It was great. What else did we expect. They all seemed to be in a great mood. Jon and Richie did a lot of buddy-stuff together like in the old days, which sometimes actually gave me chills. I got to admit that in the past couple of years I kept having the notion that things weren't as happy between the two of them anymore as they once used to be. It had seemed to me as if both were just doing their own thing and minding their own business even on stage apart from some little moments, which then even seemed as if they were acted and not quite honest. But this time it was all like it used to be. They were hovering together in between songs chatting, joking and all that.... it was really, really nice to see that.

When they first hit the stage Richie was wearing his multi-colored funky pants, a black T-Shirt with white print on it (I couldn't make out what it was since he was constantly wearing something over the Shirt) and a long white leather coat. In addition to this really funky outfit that didn't match at all (geez!!! Richie get a freaking mirror. I mean, those pants are one thing and can be a matter of taste. But if you wear something like that how about not mixing it with multiple other garments in various other colors?) Anyway in addition to that a tail of sorts out of the same fabric as the pants was hanging down on the back of him. I have no freaking clue if this was supposed to be like that, but I suspicion it wasn't, because later on during the show the guy who kept exchanging his guitars noticed it and tore it away from his back while exchanging his guitars and took it with him. Before he left the stage he showed it to Richie who actually broke into laughter. Hmmmmm.....

Jon wore black jeans with brown seams, a beige shirt and a blue jeans jacket with red writing on the back. Very simple but very sexy. Hugh wore black jeans and a dark purple shirt that looked as if he had borrowed it from Richie. (Really, it kind of reminded me of some Richie garment.) Dave wore black leather pants and a brown suede shirt and Tico wore black jeans and a black arm less shirt as well as a black cap.

SETLIST

- One wild night
- Raise your hands
- You give love a bad name
- In these arms
(some time during this song, Tico somehow kicked over his percussion stand. At the time nobody really noticed it, but by the end of the song, he got talking to Jon and the drums technician - or whatever the actual description of this job might be - got going in trying to build it back up. Obviously they couldn't work it out right away though. Meanwhile the guitar-exchange guy came on stage with a different guitar for Richie. At the same moment though Richie had walked over to the drumkit as well and was engaged in the conversation with Jon and Tico. The poor guitar guy just kept standing there with the guitar in his hands. Then Richie turned to him and said something and he left the stage with the guitar he had just brought and seemed a bit out of order. The whole situation was a bit chaotic. And when Jon noticed that the audience was quite confused as well, he went up to the microphone, smiled big time and announced "I just decided to change the set list." Well, guess he had to because the drum kit wasn't in order for the planned next song. Just another typical Jovi-moment!)

- Always
- It's my life
- Born to be my baby
(after this song Richie took off his leather coat only to look even more ridiculously dressed, because he was now displaying a see through shirt in zebra print on top of his black T-shirt and his funky pants.)

- Next 100 years
- Captain Crash & The Beauty Queen from Mars
- Just Older
- Wild in the streets

At this point again the guys kinda hovered around and took a little break. As they are about to start (I think Tico was already drumming the first beats) Jon noticed two girls that were about to leave the fan-pit and starts to talk to them via the microphone... he said stuff like "hey, what are you doing? Where are you going? Nobody has ever left a show of mine. Don't you like the show? What's wrong with you?" Finally the girls started to realize that he was talking to them and stopped. Meanwhile the camera had caught them and broadcasted them onto the screens for the whole stadium to see. And Jon rambled on and pretty much kept making fun of them by saying more stuff like "or are you about to come backstage? Like are you going to find a roadie now to get a backstage pass? Well, what are you going to do for that backstage pass?" and on and on and on.,.. meanwhile Richie had come over as well and said something to Jon which we couldn't hear. Both were definitely quite amused about the whole situation. And so Jon says (loudly into the microphone towards Richie as well as towards the entire audience - while before he had definitely been only looking into the direction of those two girls talking to them) "no, don't mind me, I got something to take care of here..." and he started to sound teasingly pleading "if you're going now, you're going to miss the best part of the show. We haven't even started yet. You're going to miss a great song now. The next song was a number 1 single. It's a really great song. I won a Grammy for that song. ..." at this moment the entire audience started to cheer because with that cue line we obviously all knew what the next song was going to be, and Jon went on "this song was nominated for an Academy Award. This song is the reason I'm making movies these days. You can't leave now." And then they finally broke into:

- Blaze of Glory
After that Jon and Richie changed their clothes: Richie changed his zebra shirt for a short purple suede coat and added a beige hat to it. Jon changed into a black T-Shirt with a white logo that looked like a distorted Reebok logo and a black biker jacket with red, yellow and white emblems and writing on it. Then they started the first chords of:

- I'll sleep when I'm dead
(At this point the on stage audience was exchanged, and Jon notices that the two girls he was talking to before because they were about to leave the pit, are now on stage. So he exclaims his surprise by telling the rest of us "oh look at that... there are the girls now. They were leaving to come up here. Now isn't that great. And the two of them - both blond "chickies" so to speak - feel ultimately provoked by Jon talking about them and jump right up onto the stage and walk towards Jon. They place themselves each on one side of him and start to dance around a little while the guys are strumming their intro chords. Jon is obviously a bit flattered but also a bit unsure. And since an attack is always the best defense he motions the girls to give him a kiss on his cheeks. They obviously follow his command and we get the wonderful picture of a cute little Jon being kissed on each cheek by a beautiful blonde at the same time. He really somewhat looked like a little boy underneath the Christmas tree. However this behavious was obviously a bit too tacky for Jon (as we've always noticed he tends to pick the shyest girl around to INVITE her to dance with him on stage and pretty much stays away from those girls that throw themselves at him), and so unnoticed he must have motioned one of the security guys, because right after the kiss, one of them is coming from behind and gently but firmly grabs an arm of each girl and guides them both back to their spot on the side of the stage. And then finally they start the full song.

This is followed up by
- Bad Medicine, which is put into a medley together with
- Shout

and then they officially leave the stage for the first time.

ENCORES #1
- Something to believe in
- Keep the faith, incl. Pleased to meet you

ENCORES #2
- I got the girl
- Someday I'll be Saturday Night
- Wanted dead or alive (the audience sings the first verse all by itself)
- Livin on a prayer (accapella intro before the whole song starts)

After this they really honestly actually planned to leave. But the audience was going so wild that they all form a discussion group on the front of the stage (after they had already taken their bows) and give us two more songs:

ENCORES #3
- Tequila
- Twist and Shout

And that was finally the end of a wonderful show.

Also towards later (not quite sure when, I think it might have been for the first encores) Richie changed again into a black tailcoat and a top hat and then also exchanged the regular top hat for a somewhat crooked one again later (for the second encores maybe). Jon also changed again into a plain blue shirt and a white leather jacket (the same style as the orange and the yellow ones he used to wear on previous tours) with two large stripes in blue and grey on the hem and a bright red lining (which ever idiot decided to line a white leather jacket with a bright red lining needs to be shot. The jacket itself looked great, but the red lining inside of it looked as if somebody didn't quite know what he was doing when he created the jacket.)

Jovially
Miriam