The Hawk

Issue date: 10/31/07 Section: Entertainment

Bon Jovi has been making the Garden State feel better for decades.

The Prudential Center, New Jersey's latest construction project, opened its doors for the first time Thursday, Oct. 25 in Newark.

It is now the home of the New Jersey Devils, MISL Ironmen, and Seton Hall Basketball. For a $375 million building, it wasn't anything special. It felt and looked almost identical to the Wachovia Spectrum in Philadelphia. The most egregious error I felt the architects left out-cup holders. But some of the best assets of this venue were the crystal clear screens on each end of the stage. The picture was phenomenal. It was like I was watching a concert on DVD.

The Prudential Center aims to hold 200 events a year. The first of which was one of 10 sold out Bon Jovi concerts marking the beginning of their world tour. The Jersey boys will host a variety of openers, including Big and Rich, Daughtry, The All-American Rejects, and others, each playing two of the 10 nights. The band who helped christen the new venue on opening night was My Chemical Romance.

I was shocked to find that a good chunk of the crowd, about 25 percent, was there primarily for My Chemical Romance. I'm pretty sure those fans left feeling extremely satisfied. Those boys definitely did not disappoint.

The band was so excited to be breaking ground in their hometown of Newark that they blew a speaker on the first song. After that little snafu, the acoustics sounded great, except for the fact that the vocals were more often than not drowned out by raucous guitar riffs and crazy drum theatrics.

My Chemical Romance played a 40-minute set, the a majority of which was comprised of from their latest album, "The Black Parade." Surprisingly, they played only one song from their breakout album, "Three Cheers for Sweet Revenge" - "I'm Not OK" - to which lead singer Gerard Way referred as the "biggest summer number one ever."

I'm not sure if this is true or not, but it's a damn good song and clearly a huge hit with the crowd.

The pop punk band toned down their set a lot for this show. There was lots of smoke and lights, but no pyrotechnics, confetti, costumes, or huge hot air balloons, which any fan knows have been major staples of their shows of late. I can't remember the last time MCR did a concert as anything but the headliner, but the performance was just as great as an opening act as it could ever be as a headliner.

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