Bon Jovi forever

If you were sitting around a junior high cafeteria table in 1988 guessing at the top concert draw of 2008, would anyone have bet on Bon Jovi? Maybe.
But there would probably have been an equal amount of lobbying for Whitesnake, White Lion and Cinderella. If you took the debate out of the junior high and to the editors of music magazines, Bon Jovi’s chances would have been laughable - a hair band packing stadiums in 2008? That ain’t ever gonna happen.
And yet, here we are. New Jersey’s second-most-beloved rock heroes play TD Banknorth Garden on Wednesday and Thursday. Two decades on and Bon Jovi is on track to have this year’s highest grossing tour.



Astounding, perhaps, but the one-time peers of Winger and Tesla have become an evergreen act that can pack any arena across the globe on any summer night. At least it’s astounding to some. Bon Jovi guitarist Richie Sambora doesn’t seem the least bit surprised.
“I had to be reminded that the last time I played indoors in London it was 1988,” said Sambora en route to playing a sold-out UK show at the 34,000-seat Ricoh Arena. “It’s been huge worldwide for a long, long time, so this is what I expect.
“We played Moscow in 1988 and the (Berlin) Wall was still up,” Sambora said. “In the early ’80s we were in Japan and Korea long before they were as Westernized as they are today. We opened up this leg of the tour in Abu Dhabi of all places. One tour in 1995 we played 42 countries. Not 42 cities, but 42 countries. I still love it and I’m so thankful for it, but it’s what I expect.”
Maybe the junior high kids that bet on Bon Jovi picked up on the band’s eternal Everyman appeal. From the get-go, the average Joes of Bon Jovi - if you can call world-famous, multi-millionaires average - rocked like Def Leppard and Poison. But Jovi was always different.
The band - still made up of original members Sambora, singer Jon Bon Jovi, keyboardist David Bryan and drummer Tico Torres (bassist Alec Such John left in 1994) - has always been quintessentially American. No eyeliner and lipstick like the Sunset Strip crowd, no hip British accents. Instead these boys told Jersey tales about dockworker’s dreams, union strikes and hocking six-strings to get by.
Sambora believes coming up in the scene that spawned Springsteen (or maybe the scene after the scene that spawned Springsteen), helped define the band and give it a credibility you can’t fake.
“Working the bars in New Jersey in the early ’80s really gave us a pit bull attitude about playing live,” he said. “We had to learn to do it and make it real every night.
“It’s funny because we’ve always been the same great live band, but we had little dips in our popularity. First, when grunge came in the early ’90s. And then another in the late ’90s. Dips are going to happen in this cyclical record business. But those dips were only in America. Internationally, our popularity has stayed constant.”
If Americans hold Bon Jovi dearbecause of its American-ness, what’s the rest of the world loved about the band for so long? Probably it’s American-ness as well.
That and Jon’s blend of Robert Plant/Brad Pitt hot.
Sambora, who turns 49 next Friday, says Jon is “one of, if not the best, frontman in the world.”
That debate will have to wait for a different junior high lunchroom session. But what’s certain is that 46-year-old Jon’s still-boyish charisma keeps the crowds coming back.
So will Bon Jovi keep pulling crowds in 2028?