New remaster:

Bon Jovi
25 Nov 1988
Gothenburg 🇸🇪 Sweden
🏟️New Jersey Syndicate Tour

🎛️🎶🎧->
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yTEOgTkWYn0

This filmer spent their 1 hour 11 minutes of film wisely!

👩🏼‍💻 the story 

My original Soundtrack of the Day Tweet from 25 November 2022 reviewed this video outtake (so it’s not the whole concert), pretty accurately, saying:

“Cutting in at Born to be my Baby, and documenting the most difficult stage of the entire NJ Tour;
This filmer spent his 1:11 of film wisely!
You can even see Jon casually sliding his foot in a rope, flying over the crowd, and playing I’ll Be There For You from the back of the venue.“

It wasn’t until now, quoting this old tweet in 2024, that I realized “he” is not a verified pronoun, since I have no idea who filmed it.
So for the 2024 title of this blogpost, I made it gender neutral, switching “he” for “they”.

But otherwise, within the limited number of characters Twitter/X gave you (the review was spread over 2 tweets);
I think the 2022 review was spot on.

It was based on a then available recording, but there has been an updated version, uploaded by hAnD90 on 24 February 2024, and it contains a few more minutes of restored footage.

So instead of starting the video at Born To Be My Baby (song 5), it now also has (video + audio) snippets of the openers Lay Your Hands on Me and I’d Die For You.
Footage which also explains what happened at the time;
The filmer switched places to a seat with a better view, and had a second Go at recording it.
This time successfully, and resulting in a video recording that has been around on YouTube, for years.

Gotenburg, Sweden is the 15th concert of the what would become the gruesomely long New Jersey Tour, which is the topic of the documentary Access All Areas.

The pace at which they rocked the world, was unbelievable.

Between the tour’s opening night, 31 October 1988 in Dublin and the final concert of this first leg of this tour on 19 December 1988, Bon Jovi played no less than 30 concerts all over the mainland, England, Scotland, Ireland, and they visited Germany twice, each time for multiple concerts.

What makes the 1988 concerts special, is described in the description box of Rotterdam 1988, a few days before Gothenburg.
hAnD90 writes about the sibling concert, Rotterdam 21 November 1988:

“Great early concert where not all gimmicks etc. were timed to perfection yet, but where a lot of raw energy was to be unleashed!”

Their previous tour, The Slippery When Wet Tour, had ended in October of 1987.
1988 Had been spent producing a worthy successor for their “Slippery When Wet” album (1986) which had brought them world fame.

Fame which no one in their right mind, thought could or would be held by the band;
Let alone prolonged and surpassed!

Slippery When Wet would always remain their most successful album in the United States, in terms of sales;
Yet it was its successor album New Jersey (Sept 1988), that was not just almost as successful as Slippery When Wet, but it also elevated them from world fame to being superstars.

A level that could never be undone.

In the early 90s, rock was pushed aside by grunge. Including almost all rock bands which had been popular in the 80s, of which there had been countless!
Although Bon Jovi did reinvent themselves in the 90s, the foundation was their musical talent and skill, of which the New Jersey album had already been proof of.
Combined with their unsurpassed quality as a live band, after the New Jersey album it could have been predicted, that Bon Jovi would survive all storms and changes of the industry.

But in 1988?
No one, knew that.
Not even Bon Jovi.

They had given their new album, New Jersey, their all, but they had not been on the road for over a year.
When the New Jersey Syndicate Tour started on October 31, in Dublin, they once again felt like a band who had to prove themselves.

If they failed to make “this” work, if they had lost their touch?
It would all have been for nothing. Bon Jovi would go under together with the other hard rock bands, and their Slippery album would be little more, than a sign of its times….

It was with that hunger, that urgency, of a band vibrantly aware that the job was not yet done, that the tour had started, on the 31st of October.
Their status, was hanging by a thread.
And an army of wolves would not hesitate to throw them over, the moment the magic of the Slippery album had worn off.

They had to make this work.

And so it began.

And on the first leg of this New Jersey Syndicate Tour 1988, which took place in the final months of that year, there was something unpolished, primal and visceral about Bon Jovi.
There was the boldness, the loudness, and the unapologetic level of belief they had pumped themselves into, that had been present in the earliest of days.

But this time, it was combined with years of experience under their belt. Both musically, as well as in terms of performance.
Yet at heart they were still that mid-80s rock show, where they swore and sweat, and every song was daring, rebellious, and dangerous.

Raw and unfinished, the show tethered on an unnamed edge, only to then plunge into an equally unnamed yet loud and vocal depth!
Into the darkness of pure rock’ n roll, dragging the willing crowd with them.
Immersing all who came to see, into new levels of frenzy.

It was as if the filmer knew, that this was not the time to half-ass. That it was bad enough they didn’t have enough tape to record the whole show, but that they were not going to let a bad view ruin this recording.
They were going to switch seats and start again!

Giving us from Born to be my Baby onward, 1 hour and 11 minutes, of the best Bon Jovi the world has ever seen.

An unfiltered, non-dramatized, 100% real record, of the final two months Bon Jovi still feared that one day, it could all be gone.

And when Jon Bon Jovi calls for “his chariot” – the hanging cables that will fly him to the back of the room – and mounts them with the words:
“It is time to fly.”

He meant it.

.
This new remaster

Bon Jovi
25 Nov 1988
Gothenburg  Sweden 🇸🇪
🏟️New Jersey Syndicate Tour

has been added to:
New in Bon Jovi concerts before 1997

And to the playlist:
“Part I: Bon Jovi concerts on this day 10 June – 5 December (before 1997)
https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLiGoDE3C06ScAo9UN4GyhtQWYfl3d6jMT”
at 25 November 1988.

.
~Rock Star Suzy
🇳🇱 Tikkie
☕️ Buy me a coffee
🌎 Paypal