Bon Jovi Adroitly Modernizes ‘80s Pop

Pop culture is unpredictable, and so, apparently, is Jon Bon Jovi. The man is quietly becoming the real king of all media, refusing to disappear into the black hole that swallowed others from the discredited ‘80s pop-metal scene. He not only returned to MTV and the pop charts this year with his namesake band’s new “Crush” album, but has also begun a legitimate acting career, posed for Versace and recently handed $1 million to the Al Gore campaign during a fund-raiser at his New Jersey home.

Unlike so many of his contemporaries, the singer has mostly kept his head through the years, with hardly enough bad habits or bad moves to fill an episode of “Behind the Music.” A measure of his surprising and continuing success in the age of ‘N Sync, Eminem and Korn could be found at the Great Western Forum on Saturday, as his band played a modern version of his old sound to a full house, without any desperate pandering to nostalgia.

Bon Jovi delicately trimmed away all the “hair metal” trappings that would have dated such songs as “Livin’ on a Prayer.” Bon Jovi as a band has successfully eliminated the cheese factor from its persona, with nothing to recall the silly pop-metal past. And drawing a distinction from the boy bands of the moment, the singer declared, “I’m here to tell you, this is a man’s band, baby.”

While many in the crowd were undoubtedly drawn by nostalgia, there were enough younger fans to suggest that Bon Jovi has also tapped into a new audience, drawn by the contemporary flavor of the new “It’s My Life” single. It’s the same accessible pop shell that will forever prevent the band from reaching the passionate, thematic heights of such fellow Jersey heroes as Bruce Springsteen and Southside Johnny.

But the singer was still able to tap into some of Springsteen’s joyous gravity with his own brand of anthemic pop--at one point telling a long, personal anecdote, a la Springsteen, about missing his 20th high school reunion because he was playing on the road. Despite the fleeting satisfactions of his chosen formulas, Jon Bon Jovi is very much the same sort of everyman rocker as his heroes. Which means he’ll probably be around for a while.