When Adele chose to hold a residency in Munich two years ago, the idea kickstarted the trend for holding huge multiple outdoor concerts where fans would travel from across the globe to see their favourite act: instead of the artist coming to your city, you had to go the distance to see them.

This year Harry Styles replicated the trend by only playing a string of European dates in Amsterdam and London.

Following a run of dates at Madison Square Gardens in New York earlier this summer, American rock heavyweights Bon Jovi are only playing Edinburgh, Dublin and Wembley Arena on their current Forever Tour.

Their absence from touring since 2022 was due to lead singer Jon Bon Jovi undergoing vocal cord surgery that year to repair an atrophying vocal cord.

As fans waited to enter the Murrayfield Stadium in Edinburgh for the band's performance in front of a sold-out crowd of 67,000, the air was filled with not only Scottish accents but also American, Spanish, Italian, and German, among others.

As support act to the multi-international audience, James Bay had all the odds stacked against him: his early arrival on stage, an audience who weren’t necessarily there to see him, plus a short curtain half-way through his set when a member of the audience fainted.

Bay and his band remarkably turned around the situation with ease, though it helped immensely with his trademark songs Best Fake Smile and Hold Back The River. With Bay in his prime, he captivated the Murrayfield audience with charm, talent and those cracking songs.

There is a lot to be said about seeing an act in their prime; having seen Bon Jovi numerous times over the last thirty years, their arrival on stage was highly anticipated. When many legendary acts have gone to enter the Rock ‘n’ Roll pearly gates of heaven over the last few years, many fans are so thankful that their favourite artist is still there in front of them, regardless of how good or bad they might now sound.

There is inevitably a difference between seeing Bon Jovi in their 1980s pomp and seeing them in 2026. Time catches everyone. But that misses the point. What remains remarkable is the strength of the material and the extraordinary bond between these songs and the people who grew up with them.

The night began with a suitably communal flourish as Join Together and With a Little Help From My Friends warmed up the stadium before the band launched into Beautiful Drug. From there, We Weren't Born to Follow and Lost Highway provided an energetic opening salvo before the first truly deafening response arrived with You Give Love a Bad Name.

This is the secret of Bon Jovi's enduring appeal: the audience knew every word, which was especially important as Jon Bon Jovi allowed the fans to sing back the majority of Living On A Prayer while he stood by, almost giddy with the joy of being back on stage.

At Murrayfield, Bon Jovi weren't trying to recreate 1986. They didn't need to.

They simply opened the vault, turned up the volume and reminded 67,000 people exactly why these songs have survived.

For two and a half hours, Edinburgh belonged to Bon Jovi — and nobody seemed remotely ready to give it back.