On a night when the Utah Jazz’s playoff dreams were finally quashed, a near-capacity crowd roared its approval all evening long in EnergySolutions Arena.

Of course, the Jazz were playing on the road in Memphis, losing 86-70 to the Grizzlies in the final game of the regular season to fall out of playoff contention, while New Jersey rockers Bon Jovi were holding court and raising the roof in the house Larry H. Miller built in Salt Lake City. The only thing in common between the two groups is that it could be said they each served up some “Bad Medicine” on Wednesday night.

Band leader and namesake Jon Bon Jovi has the whole rock star thing down pat. He’s got the look, a full complement of poses, the strut, the voice and the ability to control a crowd’s every reaction on command. And why shouldn’t he? As he reminded the packed-to-the-cheap seats audience, he’s been doing this for 30 years now.

“I ain’t as pretty as Justin Bieber,” Bon Jovi shouted during a breakdown segment in the middle of main-set closer “Bad Medicine.” “And I can’t dance as good as Justin Timberlake. But I’ve been around longer than both of them put together!”

Bon Jovi’s three decades’ worth of material was well represented Wednesday night. “Runaway,” the band’s first hit single (back in 1984), was a jolt of adrenaline late in the main set and a trio of songs from the group’s just-released “What About Now” album were also well received and well-placed in the setlist. The rest of the two-hour, 10-minute set was jammed with hits and gems from the band’s solid gold catalog.

The band made news recently when popular guitarist Richie Sambora suddenly left the tour on the afternoon of a show back on April 2 for undisclosed “personal reasons.” Sambora is not only a key contributor to Bon Jovi’s songwriting efforts, he’s also an integral part of the live show. So a big question for local fans coming into the concert was how well could noted session guitarist Phil X fill Sambora’s big shoes at stage right.

The answer to that question was “quite nicely, thank you.” The X factor, as it were, was virtually indistinguishable from previous Bon Jovi tours as Phil didn’t miss a beat, talkbox riff or squealing harmonic. Everything sounded exactly as it should on tunes that have been burned into the collective consciousness over the course of a million radio airplay spins to date. A second, uncredited guitarist was also on stage all night — but I’m not sure if he is a normal touring member of the band or has been added to help cope with Sambora’s temporary absence.

The rest of the band — including keyboardist David Bryan, drummer Tico Torres, and Park City resident Hugh McDonald on bass — were largely out of the limelight most of the night on a slightly raised platform behind Bon Jovi and Phil X. Each member, though, had brief moments to shine, such as during an extended middle segment in “Keep the Faith.”

That being said, the show mostly revolved around band namesake Bon Jovi, and he certainly didn’t disappoint. Whether it was playing acoustic guitar (which he did on 10 different songs), ordering everyone to get on their feet (despite the fact that everyone already was), making females swoon with a smile (often shown in close up on the big screen), or leading 15,000-plus fans in what can only be described as a mass breakout of jazz hands, Bon Jovi was the ultimate cheerleader.

Bon Jovi’s stage acumen was put to a little bit of a different test during “Bed of Roses.” The frontman had ventured out to the middle of a big circular walkway — which formed a ring around fans seated in an intimate pit area — for two songs in the middle of the set. While strolling the walkway, Bon Jovi noticed a nearby woman on the main arena floor who was feverishly texting on her cell phone instead of watching him work the crowd. He stopped and made a few comical gestures in her direction, then sat down on the edge of the walkway right in front of her for some more spontaneous ribbing.

“Are you done texting now?” he asked, shaking his head in mock exasperation while momentarily pausing the song. “Let me see that silly contraption. What are you texting?”

The phone changed hands and the singer read the purported text out loud.

“I send love songs just for you … Mike — Loverboy?” he said, sending ripples of laughter through the crowd. “Loverboy?”

Then turning his head back to his bandmates on the main stage, he said, “I’m working up here and she’s, like, texting her hottie.”

He handed the phone back and continued the song, but the brief ad-lib added a bit of welcome levity to the proceedings.

In addition to the walkway, which was only used by Bon Jovi for the two-song segment, the stage production featured more than 90 moving elements, ranging from a dozen or so individual multi-purposed spotlights that descended and rose on command to varying heights to a groundbreaking video board featuring a 40-column wall of 30-foot hexagonal moving towers showing various imagery and artwork. The unique moving video board certainly added some eye-popping theatrics, especially during the band’s three-minute break between main set and encore. However, the video board was under-utilized, if that’s possible, in that I would have liked to have seen what it could do projecting live concert footage instead of canned visuals and animation. It would have also been nice for those in the nether regions of the arena, who could only see closeups via the in-house big screens located high — a bit too high, in fact — in the arena.

As for the music, it was pretty flawless. The hits flowed freely and included most of the main highlights, such as “You Give Love a Bad Name,” “It’s My Life” (which, in a nice touch, Bon Jovi dedicated to a group of Alpine School District students who wrote to him saying they had made it their theme song), “Born to Be My Baby,” “Keep the Faith,” “Who Says You Can’t Go Home” and an extremely rousing “I’ll Sleep When I’m Dead.”

The encore was a four-song hit suite including “I’ll Be There for You,” “Wanted Dead or Alive,” “Have a Nice Day” and the anthem of its generation, “Livin’ on a Prayer.”

The Utah Jazz’s season may have ended on a sour note Wednesday, but there was nothing out of tune with Bon Jovi’s effort in EnergySolutions Arena.

EnergySolutions Arena

April 17, 2013

That’s What the Water Made Me

You Give Love a Bad Name

Raise Your Hands

Lost Highway

Whole Lot of Leavin’

It’s My Life

Because We Can

What About Now

Born to Be My Baby

Keep the Faith

(You Want to) Make a Memory

Bed of Roses

Runaway

We Weren’t Born to Follow

Who Says You Can’t Go Home

I’ll Sleep When I’m Dead

Bad Medicine

Encore

I’ll Be There for You

Wanted Dead or Alive

Have a Nice Day

Livin’ on a Prayer

Performance time: 2 hours, 10 minutes