Bon Jovi - The Experience

This is going to be a long, long, long post. It has to do with the title of my blog. Enjoy the pictures as you read along. Yes, these are ALL pictures I took. Some are shaky, and the video snippets I got are as well, but you get the gist of it. Besides, taking pictures and videos while jumping up and down and screaming at a rock concert while capturing a moving target can be tricky.

Bon Jovi. He's hot. I've been a fan for a long time. In case you couldn't tell I was a fan, look at the title of my blog. Kind of obvious now? So when my old roommate Brigid texted me at 10:30 on Tuesday evening saying she happened to have an extra ticket to the concert the following night, my response was quick and ready. 

Hell yes!!

So we went.

We screamed, cheered, jumped up and down, danced, etc. etc. etc, not caring how crazy or foolish we looked to anyone around us. It was AMAZING. Not only is he nice eye candy, but he's so fantastic live I was blown to a whole new level of adoration. He played for 3 straight hours - no breaks. He jumped around, danced, ran around, played guitar, and so on. On top of that his vocals are so much more amazing than I ever truly gave him credit for. He sang acapella, he sang with just his guitar, he sang with an incredible talented band, he did it all and he did it well. He's a true rock star.

 The best part was the concert was just him, his fantastic songs, his talent, and that's about it. There were cool special lighting effects, but that's about it. He didn't fly, or have back up dancers, or any of that dressed up crazy over the top stuff that goes on now a days. He sang his heart out and I still can't believe he sang so hard for so long and still had a voice by the end.

He did a great job of mixing it up and singing his newer stuff and the classic older stuff that we all know and love. You know that over the course of such a long career he's sung some of these songs a million times and probably is a little sick of them. But he sang his heart out of every single song and it was so great I can't even describe it! I just love him! I so want to travel to one of his venues next week and see him again. If anyone wants to join me let me know. 

I always tell my good friend that those crazy creepy out of control fans didn't start out that way. They were once normal people who took things a little too far and became that crazy obsessive person. Well, I think I might be on my way if I stalk Bon Jovi to his next venue to see him perform. I'm willing to take that risk too.

It was a great night. And I just love to look at him. He knows exactly how to work a crowd and get the girls screaming as any rock star can. He even did a few cover songs from the Rolling Stones (complete with Mic Jagger's classic chicken dancing) and the Beatles. 

Yeah. The pictures just say it all. 

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Love him! How can you possibly not love him? It's infectious - like a disease!!

As I woke up this morning tired and still high from the concert last night, I had a deep epiphany about why this concert was so earth shattering for me. Don't get me wrong, he's still an amazing performer and worth a heap of cash to see, but for me it was deeper than I can explain. So hopefully throughout my ramblings you can make sense of the emotions I'm trying to express.

The last 18 months have been long, hard, and miserable at times with what's happened in my life. I don't like to necessarily share as it's so personal, but no one has the perfect life we tend to portray on social media. So the last 18 months have been the hardest of my life. I started thinking about the last 3 years and realized that I hadn't really done anything truly fun. I'd played and done cool things, but it was work to make it fun. It was forced, or I was having to block out other factors to keep from dampening the "fun," or sacrificing my own fun for someone else. When you have to work that hard, it's exhausting and draining instead of what you need it to be - liberating.

I realized that this concert was the first time in a VERY long time that I did something truly fun for me. I not only went to see an artist that I absolutely love, but I went with people who are as big of fans as I am. I didn't have to drag someone along with me, or go with someone who only kind of liked him. I went with people who screamed, and danced, and shouted, and didn't care what anyone else thought because we were having the time of our life. I let my hair down completely for the first time in soooooo long and screamed and cheered my little heart out. And laughed. Really laughed - I'd forgotten what really laughing felt like.

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And it was fun. 

Truly and completely fun. There was no work needed to enjoy it, because it would have been impossible not to enjoy it. It would have taken work to make it miserable. For the first time I felt like me again. And somehow the screaming and cheering became a release I didn't know I needed from the last few years of hard and struggle. It was liberating and felt like I was cleansing my soul from the last of the dark stains that just wouldn't leave. The power of laughter and excitement and doing something I forgot I loved was lost for so long that it was powerful to find again. 

                                                          I feel liberated and free again. 

So, cheesy as is may seem, I've been made a bigger fan of Bon Jovi through this.