Night had set over the Mexican crowd as the wind carried Jon’s words away.
34 Years later the director would use a snippet of the speech, and chose the Thank you, Goodnight reference, as his title.
But the rest of Guadalajara’s speech would go unused.

But maybe, just maybe, rock n’ roll was never about that one phrase that clicked.
Not about those moments when your words managed to touch eternity.
Not about that time you made the right decision, or about when you smoothed out the rough patches and you created something that was perfect.

Maybe rock n’ roll is in the one hundred women that should have been a perpetually growing number.

In the guitarist like the Chinese nightingale;
Replaced by the emperor for a mechanical one, trimmed with jewels. Forever singing the same song.

Maybe rock n’ roll is not in wanting to matter, but in fearlessly being contemporary.

Saying things that will be forgotten, before the sun will rise the next day.

To speak up and to commemorate the political riots, that had surrounded the concert, for the 33.000 people who had waited the whole day for the second show at Estadio Tecnológico in Guadalajara.

To keep talking, as if in an endless conversation, locking in each and every one of the 20.000 people at the the Alpine Valley Music Theatre, East Troy, as if it’s just the bunch of you hanging out in a bar.

And maybe rock n’ roll is thanking the enthusiastic and supportive audience at the Rosemont Horizon, over and over again, realizing that even if your career would end the next day because an unimpressed music journalist would write that one bad review that will be the death verdict of your career;
Tonight, you are with friends.

Maybe timeless rock ‘n roll is not created by hard work and planning ahead and doing the thing that’s wise, let alone by doing the thing that’s proper.

But by your heart, your soul, your whole entire being oozing, shouting, and roaring;
“YES!”

And loving every minute of it.

~Suzanne
🇳🇱 Tikkie
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“Be fearlessly contemporary! “
is the fourth and final outtake from last week’s juggernaut post:
Messy 80s randomness versus the proper documentary
| Bon Jovi 1987 07 11 East Troy & Thank You Goodnight (2024)