Reviewed: February, 2026
Released: 2008, Universal Video
Rating: 2.5/5
Reviewer: JP
This month I pulled out a couple of older, live, concert DVDs by arguably two of the biggest bands on the planet; Metallica and Bon Jovi. Feel free to enjoy both reviews.
Good ol’ Bon Jovi. Apparently his kid married the kid from Stranger Things TV show , or so I’m told by my daughter who is a fan of the show. Also I read that Spaceballs II is coming out in 2027 and I recall that in Spaceballs Part 1 the Bon Jovi song ‘ Raise Your Hands’ was in the film, so in a roundabout way Bon Jovi has been on my mind this week so I pulled out an old Bon Jovi DVD to review.
Bon Jovi is at the very lower edge of the limits of acceptability of what we would normally cover here at Metal-Rules.com, but hey, those first four or five albums were pretty iconic hard rocking albums and a good song is a good song so he gets a pass.
LIVE AT MADISON SQUARE GARDEN is his 13th home video overall. It comes in a standard case with an 8-page booklet with not much info, just a few photos. It comes across as a bit low-budget. The DVD is a live concert as you might have guessed and although the package says there are ‘bonus features’; there aren’t really any. The ‘so-called’ bonuses are three live songs from the same two-night stand! Why not just show the whole concert? Apparently the Blu-Ray version has a related documentary .
It’s a pretty long, career retrospective running over two hours long so it is a decent value in that respect. As expected when you have that much money to hire the best, the sound and visual quality is amazing. It’s a decent in-the-round stage that is well lit with a ton of camera angles, all filmed in high-def.
The concert itself is fun, but Bon Jovi was clearly in (and still in) his country-rock soccer-mom phase with virtually all energy drained out of the songs. They just don’t rock that hard anymore. Stripped down to a four-piece, long-standing bassist Hugh McDonald gets virtually no screen time and the same goes for the rhythm guitarist and violinist.
The band dutifully runs through the hits and a mid to slow pace, even formally faster songs having little bite. Richie Sambora sings a cut; this was back when they were still getting along and the band do a god-awful rendition of Hallelujah by Leonard Cohen. It’s too long and it is a creepy song to begin with lyrics about voyeurism, domestic abuse and seeing god. On the positive side, despite softer performances these songs still stand the test of time, hit after hit after hit.
It’s a decent show, the nostalgia keeps it from being a total bomb and of course LIVE AT MADISON SQUARE GARDEN sold a billion copies because everything he touches turns to gold and deservedly so. For whatever reason I’ve never seen Bon Jovi live and after seeing this DVD, I’m not sure I need to because if they were that slow back in 2008, I can only imagine what they would be like on stage 18 years later in 2026.
Bon Jovi seems to have abandoned the home video market as this was the second last DVD he ever released to date, the last being a video collection 16 years ago in 2010. This show was fun to revisit and it makes me wish I’d seen them back in the 80’s. If you only have one Bon Jovi concert DVD in your collection, and there are about half a dozen, this one is as good as any of them.
Track Listing:
“Lost Highway”
“Born to Be My Baby”
“Blaze of Glory”
“It’s My Life”
“Keep the Faith”
“Raise Your Hands”
“Living in Sin” / “Chapel of Love”
“Always”
“Whole Lot of Leavin’”
“In These Arms”
“We Got It Going On”
“I’ll Be There for You” (with Richie Sambora on lead vocals)
“(You Want to) Make a Memory”
“Blood on Blood”
“Dry County”
“Have a Nice Day”
“Who Says You Can’t Go Home”
“Hallelujah”
“Wanted Dead or Alive”
“Livin’ on a Prayer”
“Bad Medicine” (with audio only in the ending credits)
Bonus tracks
“You Give Love a Bad Name”
“Runaway”
“Bed Of Roses”
Line Up:
Jon Bon Jovi – lead vocals, acoustic guitar
Richie Sambora – lead guitar, talk box, backing vocals
David Bryan – keyboards, backing vocals
Tico Torres – drums, percussion
with
Hugh McDonald – bass, backing vocals
Bobby Bandiera – rhythm guitar, backing vocals
Lorenza Ponce – violin, backing vocals
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