photo by Mark Weiss – click to go to his amazing book The Decade That Rocked, 2020
There are few things as frustrating, as having a good night sleep and a day filled with sunlight (sun? at least daylight), fresh air and hours of exercise with walking and cycling the forests of Nijmegen;
And having them punished by a headache.
Because I had not finished my second (!) coffee this morning, I thought there was a chance the headache was from caffeine withdrawal, so I had an extra coffee. But to no effect.
I spent the entire morning studying all the notes I made (I have scripted out all the lines Jon has said during theLahr concert, Germany)
Filmed the video too but threw it out because it wasn’t good enough.
And then there was the “biathlon” which did not bring me home blushing and in radiant health, ready to reshoot.
Not good. Not good at all.
But, and this is where YouTube turns out to be your Savior in times of need,
I was happily surprised by a YouTube suggestion: A review of the Bon Jovi album Bounce. And Bounce may be my favorite Bon Jovi album….
Erik is funny, knowledgeable, and although everybody who gives almost all heavy guitar songs on Bounce a straight “ten” has already been cleared by me, it was when he shared his thoughts on the ballads and just casually threw in “Silent Night”; That I knew this was a true fan.
Click to go to YouTube playlist of Dry County live performances, starting with the very first in 1993
You never know if something is the beginning or the end of something, don’t you?
With relationships, I think many of us have thought we were at the beginning of something.
A thing that, in retrospect, never quite started but was held together by a desire for a lover, for a friend, for a career.
It was a Fata Morgana from our desire to belong, that did not exist in reality.
Once we took our eyes off it, just for a moment, it evaporated. When we looked back, all we could see was hot vibrating air over desert sand.
And in all likeliness, that’s all there ever was.
But the opposite happens as well. That you do not wish, don’t want nor will it to life yet year after year? That friendship is still going strong.
That lover is still your number one.
You still work for pleasure, the good experiences just layer on top of each other, and you have to pinch yourself time after time.
Is this real?
I am someone who does not count on anything to be there in the morning; And as a result, I frequently get happily surprised. Often I believe that something is so good, so outstanding, it can never last forever. Or, like I had with the 2019 Bon Jovi concert; I KNOW, it’s not forever.
It’s 2,5 hours, and then you have to wait for years. And if you add a Covid pandemic, you may have to wait for years times twice, before Bon Jovi plays Nijmegen, The Netherlands again.
Yet little did I know that the 2019 Bon Jovi concert I had been looking out for and preparing for for half a year; Would not bring about an apocalypse of being a fan, where it would all come crashing down in a violent post-concert rebound.
No.
The concert had been just the beginning.
I had not even scratched the surface of what being a Bon Jovi fan was going to bring me.
My journey into fandom, into Bon Jovi, and probably also the journey into me, had just started.
I know so much more about Bon Jovi, since then. And one of the songs that keeps unraveling and revealing its secrets, is Dry County.
Although of course it doesn’t;
No matter how often you listen to it, you can never fully understand it.
No matter how often you take your gaze off it;
No matter how many years go by;
No matter how often you listen to it, or alternatively regardless of how little attention you pay to it;
Dry County is the well that has always more to give.
video: the latest addition to the expanding collection of memorable Dry County performances. An extremely rare rendition of Dry County, sung in the original key.
Click to watch a newly remastered 35 minute video from the concert Bon Jovi gave on New year’s Eve, 1990
The first of January is my strongest day of the year. You could even say that knowing it will soon come, is what gets me through December.
New Year’s Day doesn’t just mark new beginnings, with the days getting longer and a full year ahead, it’s also the ending of a season where all my days seem to disappear somewhere under Christmas shopping, gift wrapping, meal planning, buying and or designing seasonal postcards, and so on.
In January we start over, to make ourselves or our lives aright.
At least, that’s how I see it.
So today was indeed spent doing the things I from now on want to do daily, as well as having a great time with friends, and walking and sunlight and cycling and being very excited for the whole new year- but now at the end of the day, I feel: Blimey. For this Rock Star Writer project I have very little to show for….
It’s like so much has failed for this site, as well as for the YouTube series, that although I am still enthusiastic for about 80% of the projects, they are all so far behind on schedule that I almost don’t dare to show up for them. Don’t dare to bring them back to memory, by picking them up!
As long as I keep them hidden under the last posts, no one will know. As long as I don’t post a new video, no one will know how much time has passed.
But then again: That is not how I want to start the year. Or at least, it’s not how I want to start January 2nd.
So I ve decided to “come clean”. To be honest about the mess I made, and take responsibility for not doing the things I said I was gonna do. And what you can expect in 2021. .
ENDING Most SERIES
This site and channel started in 2019 as Rock Star Yoga. And I ve created about 50 videos for YouTube on juicy topics (I remember videos where I now can’t believe I dared to share that!) but also really novel ones that basically came down to a 50/50 mix of yoga and personal development with Bon Jovi.
And the result was really great.
But due to a combination of factors, some technical and some personal, I started feeling very conscious of the content.
And on top of that, the description boxes kept getting out of date, because I went through some changes with my offerings, website names etc.
A few weeks ago I started restoring them – which was a great idea. But I also turned it into a new project where I blogged the restored video, and adding a new blog post as well. In retrospect that’s when I got overwhelmed. But blogging/ restoring my old content was not the first thing that failed.
I also had a series Live from London, which had stranded. A series The Box Set, which had stranded. And a YouTube series on concerts from 1995, that had also stranded.
But now the mess was so big that I have decided to cancel all series (The Box Set, Live In London, restoring old videos) and only pick up the YouTube concert series, from everything I started in 2020.
And for the blog? I will do what has worked, time and time again, which is a line I even repeated in every description box on YouTube (too bad I didn’t understand its implications!).
It was: “Blog with its own unique stories (+ address to this site) “
This blog Rock Star Writer will have its own, unique, one-off, single-shot stories of whatever comes up.
I’m singing Carpe Diem I’m saying seize the day Come on, let’s live forever It’s new year’s day
from Bon Jovi, New year’s Day 2016
. Let 2021 be the year where we do not plan ahead.
And make it Carpe Diem instead.
~Suzanne
Rock Star Writer
.
The New Rock Star Writer
Subscribe to the blog, to get these posts in your mailbox. You can find the subscription button on this page, probably somewhere on the right.
Click photo to go to the turning point show: Bon Jovi | Legendary Concert at Rosemont Horizon | Rosemont 1993
Ever since my college years where I once made the mistake to go out on Christmas Eve and there were only a handful of people in the bar
– in my defense: In the Netherlands Christmas is built around first and second day of Christmas, not Christmas Eve-
I seem to need this total Christmas disconnect wake-up call every 7 years or so.
And judging from the pointless exercise I just made to the business building where I have a mailing address only to find it closed early? That 7 year marker was today.
You can’t escape destiny, because I sure as hell tried! You see, whereas normally I would never have gone there on a moment where there may be informal pre-Christmas afternoon drinks going on, with me being the casual visitor and ALL sides feeling awkward? I knew that was not the case this year!
It’s 2020 and we’re all in lock down, saving me a lot of thinking about how to avoid being a party crasher at working life, extrovert life, or family life situations.
Or how to avoid being too heavily confronted with everybody who has entrepreneurial drinks, business drinks, or other work related drinks.
It’s not that technically I would not be able to have them, although maybe by now it would be difficult because everybody knows I ll gladly clean up after you, pay you a bribe, or babysit your alligator; Anything in order not to attend.
Technically, “I” was often welcome to attend. But because what I stood for, who I am, wasn’t, I never wanted to go.
I felt I, as in who I really am, was never invited.
Although I had one friend in 2017 who invited the real me to her birthday. To this day I still remember and appreciate that, and I now know I was right in suspecting that real me was never invited all those other times and also that I was right in deciding I was never going to attend another party not feeling the way I was welcomed in 2017.
So although my problem with socializing is broader than just December, this month in particular, covering up, NOT naming things, and turning yourself inside and out to avoid confrontations, and to pretend everything is fine seems to be THE central underlying premises of all festivities.
I feel in order to be acceptable to people I have to dim my inner light to a degree that could barely hold a teapot lukewarm.
You cannot attend unless you re willing to play the game that everything is fine. Even though, obviously, everything is rarely fine and the beehive usually has more the likings of a hornets’ nest.
So compared to other years I thought this year would be surprisingly easy in avoiding uncomfortable confrontations surrounding Christmas.
Until two hours ago and I stood in front of a dark office building.
Now I have a firm belief that everything happens for a reason. For example, a not very far fetched scenario could be there was a letter from tax services in my mail, that would have spoiled my post-admin glow, which I attained when after basically 20 years of having a business, I could close the books Tuesday and sent them to my bookkeeper. . Maybe Universe made sure an order I had placed for Christmas, was delayed and rescheduled twice, so I ended up housebound today.
By the time the parcel had arrived, I was too late and the building had closed.
Maybe I was never meant to find my mail today.
So it’s not the mail I worry about.
My worries are deeper, more profound, and they have the urgency of an existential crisis that needs to be solved NOW, as far as I am concerned. Why am I disconnected from society? What the F is this? What is, the broader picture of the broader picture of the meta of things and THEN the meaning of life, for me?
In the description box of this 1993 Bon Jovi concert, YouTube’s most popular Bon Jovi channel hAnD90 wrote:
“This show was THE TURNING POINT of the Keep The Faith tour and the one that gave us the “holy” month of April.
Jon referred to this concert a couple of times in interviews himself.
Allegedly, someone had said to him backstage that this would be the last time he’d be able to play such a venue since Keep The Faith had been far behind most people’s expectations and ticket sales weren’t going well either.
It is said that this put Jon over the edge and they went on to perform as if it was the last time they’d be able to take any stage.
Concert attendees stated that Jon had to literally be carried off stage due to physical exhaustion after the set.“
Jon Bon Jovi had to be carried off stage.
At the threat of being pushed down in rock n roll hierarchy, 7 years after achieving world fame and beyond with the album “Slippery When Wet”,
he was prepared to give it his all.
There is a saying: “It is never crowded, along the extra mile.” Meaning that if you are willing to give more, give it your all, and rather die trying than give up? The world is yours.
And so it was. The world became theirs, once again. Resulting not just in what are considered their strongest years of touring, but also what many consider their best record These Days (1995)
Ultimate though, the string of successes came to a still. Everyone went their ways. Jon appeared to have lost his heart to acting and his late 90s solo album was an indie record, not a rock record.
It became awfully quiet.
Until seven years after that Rosemont concert, Bon Jovi punched the world in the gut with their comeback album, Crush (2000) and first single It’s My Life.
This ain’t a song for the broken-hearted No silent prayer for the faith-departed I ain’t gonna be just a face in the crowd You’re gonna hear my voice When I shout it out loud
With the album Crush and the single It’s My Life, Bon Jovi broke into what would become their most successful and productive decade ever.
Once every seven years we all get a chance to pick ourselves up.
To get our asses back on that stage, and to give it our all.
Pull all the stops.
Blow the fuses.
Fire on all cylinders.
And to not just go that extra mile; But to stretch it to its maximum potential.
Until you have absolutely nothing more to give and they have to carry you off stage.
~Suzanne
Rock Star Writer
.
The New Rock Star Writer
Subscribe to the blog, to get these posts in your mailbox. You can find the subscription button on this page, probably somewhere on the right.
Whether it was due to magical abilities of my hAnD90 mask, which I received from Sinterklaas (Sankt Nikolaus/ Dutch Santa Claus),
– Sinterklaas made the mask himself!
There is no official merchandise from the channel probably because Dominik from hAnD90 seems to be as modest as he is brilliant –
Or maybe it was not because of the magical mouth mask but because of some other reason;
But after 5 days my favorite Bon Jovi video channel hAnd90 is back online!
And he immediately spoiled us with three new uploads in 72 hours,
among which a live video premiere with chat!
I attended and after 2,5 hours of online partying – there were surprisingly many people drinking beer – and so much great input from other fans,
which performances were great to watch, I decided to look them all up and make a play list in honor of this night.
I m using it for yoga but you can use it anyway you like!.
A selection of Madison Square Garden night 1 and 2, was turned into a dvd
And here’s a link to that newly uploaded full Bon Jovi concert video Bon Jovi | 2nd Night at Madison Square Garden | New York 2008 You can replay our chat by looking for the “Live Chat” option.
~Suzanne
Rock Star Writer
.
The New Rock Star Writer
Subscribe to the blog, to get these posts in your mailbox. You can find the subscription button on this page, probably somewhere on the right.
click on the photo for the book “Burning Desire: The Jimi Hendrix Experience through the Lens of Ed Caraeff”
Ed Caraeff was only 17 years old when he made the photo of a kneeling Jimi Hendrix who had set his guitar on fire.
He became a successful photographer, and 40 years later, he sold all his possessions including his photographic library, to travel across America in a camper.
Because he was so young when he started working, he wanted to make up for lost time.
Whether being guided from within age 17, like Ed Cardaeff, is thanks to luck, a personality trait, faith in God, or perhaps even something that can be trained? When your passion calls you out that loudly, you walk the right path automatically. And to the envy of many who do not have Jeanne d’Arc like callings.
But there is a flip side… The day when you realize it’s no longer working.
People who have learned to love their job (or each other!), or who have made a sensible choice for a profession that offers stability or gives them a sense of purpose, will be able to carry on even when things are shifting;
But for the passionate ones, like Ed, that is a hard landing.
You can compare it to the difference between a relationship that is functional because you re in your thirties and want children;
And a love affair you canceled your return ticket for, lost your job over, and are now stuck with abroad, and you can’t go back home because of Covid.
In the first situation, if the marriage is no longer serving you, you will be able to keep it up for a good while. Maybe even forever. Because it was largely designed and planned out to begin with.
But if you were used to doing everything intuitively and in full connection?
In full wanting of each other?
(there were times when you didn’t even eat that’s how much sex you had!)
And then suddenly conscious efforts are required to even remotely get along?
That stings.
So at times like that, it’s good to realize that it’s one or the other.
Either you re going to plan out your life, and make it sustainable;
But then you re never going to taste the sweet high of being carried by Life itself, always knowing the next step, having more energy than you would possibly know what to do with, creating your best work, needing hardly any sleep;
OR you’re going to enjoy all those things, and not be sensible and stable at all.
Whether you’re one or the other is (probably) set (by now).
But they can both train or work to get better outcomes!
Whether you’re Mr. or Ms. Passion or Mr. or Ms. Plan;
There’s no reason to not get you where you want to go.
Providing you don’t work against your talent.
However what I have experienced, is that we as a society know much about how Mr. and Ms. Plan can reach for their dreams;
And very little about how Mr. or Ms. Passion should go about them.
The biggest difference between being someone who is comfortable planning their life, and someone who lives with passion and from an intrinsic need to do something, to answer a call, is that we (the creative and the passionate ones) also tend to muscle through it, thinking of our end goal. When that will never work with us. Instead, we need to find the passion back.
So what do you do then? I imagine Ed Caraeff being front row at a Lenny Kravitz gig, and it was the one where his pants were accidentally ripped open and he was suddenly naked on stage. And Ed finds himself eye rolling instead of clicking his camera….
You stop.
You be.
You just allow that sense of knowing you’re in the wrong spot to sink in and allow all the feelings that come with it.
If I look back on my life, it is the ONE lesson I could have learned earlier; When it’s no longer working, for a passionate creative person?
That is a whole different ballgame than if it’s no longer working for someone who has been consciously designing and planning his or her life.
They can tweak and hack around it;
But for us such a thing is pointless.
We need to burn the bridge and move on.
So here I am, December 2020. One year after I became single. Two years after I became a Bon Jovi fan. And it is time to burn the bridge.
Just like Ed Careaff, I have cleared out all the paperwork. Removed the list of Bon Jovi concerts I was going to review, from my kitchen cabinet. Tore out a manually written catalog of Bon Jovi songs, from an A4 journal. Threw them out and stored the remainder of the notebook with only blank pages. Cleared out my ringbinder with information on the 1995-1996 tour. I unfollowed all Bon Jovi accounts, and Bon Jovi affiliated accounts. The only ones I kept are people I consider friends.
So here I am. Alone. With absolutely nothing to show for.
Yet I feel as if I’m 24 years old, on my knees;
And I just set my guitar on fire.
~Suzanne
Rock Star Writer
.
The New Rock Star Writer
Subscribe to the blog, to get these posts in your mailbox. You can find the subscription button on this page, probably somewhere on the right.
I m going to open this blog post with a tweet that says how you want your Google reviews to be,
how you want your tribe to think of you,
how you want your FANS (aka customers or clients) to GLOW after having purchased your service. Here it is: “Almost better than sex.” and a blush on their cheeks.
That is the kind of response we’re looking for.
The tweet you just saw was my response to attending a free live chat on the now emptied out channel hAnD90 (see yesterday’s post, on why hAnD90’s channel is gone), but you’re going to want that desired response even more for any product or service people paid for.
Like for example, if your name is Bon Jovi, and due to Covid you have to take your business model online.
“Almost better than sex” is what we’re looking for, and here’s how to ROCK being a business online, make millions, get the fans, thoroughly satisfy all, throw in an encore, and another one,
make them BEG for more;
How to RADIATE.
ROAR!
So are you still with me out there?
Then fasten your seat-belts, because for the next three headers, my ass is yours.
the three things to make your biz ROCK online
1. Show up and show up HARD!
I don’t know what it is about Jon Bon Jovi’s presence in the online space, or general showing up in front of a camera, but whatever THAT is, that he brings to a live performance on a real stage?
Oh, he’s that leaving it at home.
I have not seen that RAW unapologetical Let.Me.Show.You.How.It’s.DONE! energy anywhere, since touring stopped in 2019. .
Since late last year, when the first work of the new Bon Jovi album “2020” was shared with the public, it became clear this would be a serious album.
The tone was a lot bleaker than Bon Jovi had ever been, but Covid inspired additions to the album, and lack of touring, might have given Bon Jovi’s upbeat rock n roll power, the final blow.
The live streams looked pale, compared to anything we had seen in all those years.
So the first lesson if you want to make it online is: Show up and show up HARD Just like a rock show this thing ain’t gonna work, if people “can’t hear you in the back.”; You need to be loud.
You need to be bold.
And you need to take showing up online, as serious as Jon Bon Jovi took his live performances for over three decades.
Amp it up!
And then amp it up some more!
2. ask for the sale, always
If you re online people do not buy because you’re selling a unique service.
People also don t buy because you’re offering more for less either.
They buy because they relate to YOU, root for YOU, and then they will basically buy whatever it is you want to sell.
Jon Bon Jovi could be selling gym memberships this week, high-ticket entrance to his inner-circle over the weekend, and start fresh on Monday selling $5 tickets to a rerun from a premium This House is Not For Sale concert, where he will be attending online and we’ll all be sharing our favorite Bon Jovi tour memories.
Or there can be a weekly offer selling concerts/ tour bundles, which will then be uploaded to your Bon Jovi dashboard. Imagine the appeal, of collecting them all – how as a fan you just want to unlock all the bundles, all the concerts, you can see right before you on the dashboard. Now there’s a business model for you.
Yet generic memberships programs, the way many online service providers have them, are unsatisfying. Not in the least to your wallet, both from the purchaser as the business.
But specialized memberships programs, that offer whatever it is the client is interested in, can be amazing.
In Bon Jovi’s case you could have: Memberships programs with interaction with Jon. Memberships programs around affiliated merchandise, sweaters etc. Memberships programs around musical merchandise, vinyl, etc. Memberships programs around buying videos and video bundles, f.e.buying recordings of one leg of a tour, or individual concert.
You can sell the online bundles at a 50% discount, in the week you premiere them, keeping everyone on the edge of their seat, what will be released next.
Credit card in hand!
Make selling part of your everyday routine. You are showing up for everyone.
You are in a relationship with everyone.
And you’re selling to everyone.
Practice it until asking for the sale is as natural as breathing.
3. Always overdeliver
The current discussion, the one that made hAnD90 take down his YouTube channel, revolved around hAnD90 having shared content that was said to be part of a membership program.
The question arose:
“If this content is shared in the public space, what are we paying for?”
“We” should be paying because we want to
AND
because they re overdelivering so much, that we will not care about about two videos leaking and are still delighted with our purchase.
If you want to make it online, you want to be overdelivering so much on your FREE content already, everybody so involved, hanging onto every word, that they are just waiting to pay you. That it’s a natural progression of what you have on a day to day basis.
Overdelivering for paid content means: Give a discount, add in bonuses, make surprise appearances, and make people feel just really good about their purchase.
If you attend to the relationship so well people WANT to pay you, AND overdeliver, it will not matter at all if some of it has leaked, or if technically they could have gotten the content somewhere else for free, or for less.
Because your offer will have so many whistles and bells on it; It’s rocking the house.
When you show up as strong as Jon Bon Jovi shows up on stage; When you consistently ask for the sale, tell them what you’re selling right now, and do it knowing that you’re actually doing them a disservice NOT to tell them how to join or go next level if they want to; And when you always overdeliver on what you bring to the table;
You’re going to ROCK your biz online, serve fans, make millions,
and have everybody THROW their credit card at you.
Even when you’re not Bon Jovi.
~Suzanne
Rock Star Writer
.
update December 2020
As long as the hAnD90 channel is down, all Bon Jovi related series on this site and my YouTube have been suspended.
Curious how the Bon Jovi/ hAnD90 saga will pan out, and what on earth we re gonna talk about should I drop out of being a fan?
So am I!
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This is my last post until:
– the site from hAnD90 is back up
or
– January 2021, when it will continue Bon Jovi- free, probably as Rock Star Yoga
I could not find an image of that beautiful logo that hAnD90 used at the beginning of every Bon Jovi concert video: A hand.
You could already hear the audio in the background, usually the crowd cheering, sometimes Jon talking. And after the image of the hand had slowly drifted closer towards you, it would disappear, and you would see where you were. In a stadium. A hall. Or a more intimate setting.
For I believe ten years plus, Dominik’s YouTube channel hAnD90, has been a beacon for us fans. And my site Rock Star Writer or Rock Star Yoga as it was called in the first year, is just as much a tribute to his channel hAnD90 as it is to Bon Jovi.
The first time I knew I was going to see the name hAnD90 a lot more often, was when I saved the recording of the concert, Nijmegen Netherlands 2019, knowing I would listen to it over and over again.
It was his, he had received the recording from friends.
Suddenly I knew who the two men were right behind me, who had refused to speak when I said something:
They didn’t want to ruin the recording with their voices!
The hAnD90 recording from Nijmegen, Netherlands 2019, was recorded from the golden circle and it was one of the many excellent recordings, of four decades of Bon Jovi concerts, that had the (I m gonna say it!) honor to be remastered by hAnD90.
I refuse to go into full-on obituary mode here, after all I don’t even know what happened to the channel. All I know is that Jon Bon Jovi’s brother has been inquiring which channel had shared exclusive “JBJ experience” members-only recordings on YouTube, and next thing anyone knows hAnD90’s channel is cleared out.
So not going into obituary mode means: I m not going to look back on who hAnD90 WAS (past tense), and that his description boxes got so personal and at the same time very techy, which I found an enticing combination! I refuse to see this as The End – To commemorate just one brilliant video hAnD90 made.
If this should be final, I will do more research and write a piece about the hAnD90 channel. But not today.
I also think this is not the time to share my take on business models, but I will say that anyone who thinks art can be protected by putting a paywall around it, has got it wrong.
Anyone built for the future is in a continuous conversation with their fans and they can pay to be closer to you, to be in your energy. That’s it. Payment is almost a symbolic thing: It is because you give so much value, that people are happy they can finally pay you.
You pay for the experience of being part of a community; Not because you can’t get the products or digital products cheaper or free somewhere else.
However, from this day forward, I will never speak or write of them again, as long as the hAnD90 channel is down. I m quitting all series here, and my YouTube series of Bon Jovi concerts 1995-1996. And not just because I looked forward to reviewing the concerts hAnD90 had remastered, but as a principle.
There is so much I want to say, about the business model, about bootlegging (Jon’s loud: “Bootleggers roll your tapes!” has been the inclusive message ever since the 90s!), about how it is the fans that ultimately make the tribe.
Yes, you can remove all your bootlegs from YouTube.
Just ask Guns N Roses.
The reason this site is NOT about Guns N Roses, is because they do not have that legacy. I have nothing to work with. A handful of GNR albums, and all bootlegs removed….
But Bon Jovi has stayed in business throughout, always making records, surviving even the departure of their lead guitarist. But it were the bootlegs on YouTube and hAnD90s remastered recordings that made the fandom ALIVE.
It were the fans who breathed life into Bon Jovi, just as much as they gave it to us.
Ironically the songs hAnD90 posted were called Shine and Luv Can.
As Axl Rose would say: “Take that one to heart.”
~Suzanne
Rock Star Writer
.
Curious how this will all pan out?!
So am I!
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In 2004 Bon Jovi created a 4-cd (1 dvd) box set with unreleased work, called“100.000.000 Bon Jovi fans can’t be wrong”. In this series I discuss all of the 50 songs.
I m still early in this series, yet this post may end up being my favorite one.
This video from Miss Fourth of July live, is one of the “one-song videos” from the full concert Bargota, Atlantic City 2004, that is still available.
The full concert, where Jon gave the song an introduction [ Bon Jovi, Atlantic City 2004 ] is no longer online. Luckily, I had already written out Jon’s introduction to the song, below.
Miss Fourth of July
26 November 2020
Jon Bon Jovi revealed in this interview he drinks a fishbowl full of coffee. And that he’s a great flirt.
There will be times in this Box Set series, where I supply you with a fascinating origin story of the song, hail it for its profound meaning, or conduct science experiments how few sentences it took before Jon had us crying like babies;
And then there will be times when I will diligently write out, an entire speech or full verse or chorus, because I think it should be swallowed whole and that we should not be picking it apart in an effort to understand it.
Or the third option, which is my personal favorite;
I write about why the song is about sex.
And then!
Then there is apparently the one in a 100.000.000 Bon Jovi fans can’t be wrong– chance that I just might be able to deliver all three of them!
Because after hearing Jon’s elaborate explanation on how bad he was doing when he wrote “Miss Fourth of July” and how deep his crisis, and I then read along three verses, three repetitions of the chorus, and the outro I thought:
“This is about sex and you tried to slip it by us.”
So either, you can read along and overthink it with me.
New rare video footage to support my vision will be delivered!
OR you can just take Jon’s word for it and keep it at that, and look for a video on YouTube called: Bon Jovi – Live at Borgata Events Center | Full Concert In Video | Atlantic City 2004 { this is the concert that is no longer available, unfortunately, 2022 }
And start at 29 minutes 5 seconds.
This was the introduction from Jon Bon Jovi to Miss Fourth of July on the Borgota concert:
Jon introduces Miss Fourth of July, as follows: “This is a little something I wrote back in ’91 and a period I now refer to as the grey period. It was cloudy for about two years of my life.
It was a very interesting time because we were trying to figure out who the hell we were, as people.
The twenties were now behind me, the thirties were just coming on strong. Innocence seemed to have all be gone. But fortunately for us we got over that hump
[…]
But this is written during that period that if we didn’t get over this hump at that time we would have in fact been another one of those casualties that you hear about on “Where are the now?”.
[…]
So if you can just imagine I am in this little teeny eight by eight bedroom in Malibu California, probably either drunk or hung over, with a rented piano, and I happen to like the song more now because it doesn’t hurt as bad.
Check out the lyric, it is called The Fourth of July.”
Now, if at this point, you’re shaking your head at me.
“How can you possibly see this song as being about sex?”
Then I m going to cut you short because I too didn’t see it as being about that at this point.
Just like you, I docilely listened to the acoustic song with Jon and Richie on guitar and David Bryan on accordion.
And wept with them over losing their youth, as the price they paid for growing up touring pretty much back to back, from 1985 to 1990.
No wonder they were in crisis.
Yet there was probably already a sign that they would make it. Because contrary to other, I would almost say contrary to “most”, hardrock bands in the 80s, the Bon Jovi members were not addicted to heroin.
The band Bon Jovi started in the early 80s, with Jon Bon Jovi delivering enough material for an entire record all by himself, before (after launching the single Runaway) they pulled together a band.
With their self-titled album (1984), their second album 7800 Fahrenheit (1985), their biggie Slippery When Wet (1986), and the absolutely brilliant shockingly good successor to that New Jersey (1988), under their belt and non.stop.touring.
– New Jersey was in fact even often “excused for” not being that good because they didn’t have time to properly innovate their music, while also touring –
that when that final tour finally ended early 1990;
Of course they were beat.
Of course they were stressed out.
Of course there was going to be a massive withdrawal from touring for years on end, that would pull each and everyone of the members into their personal versions of hell.
Of course it was going to be a time of staring into the heart of darkness. Alone.
But! This did not mean that fans from Jon Bon Jovi, would have to miss out.
Early 1990, he joined the cast of Young Guns 2 on location, and started writing for the soundtrack. The script and emotions it provided for him, gave him not just a sense of direction on what the music should be about; It also gave him a mask.
He was not Jon Bon Jovi the singer who had probably lost his entire band and himself;
He was writing music to fit the script. He later said he had put a lot of himself in that album Blaze of Glory, but at the time he hid behind the cowboy hat and leather clothes.
So there I was (current day me, not 1990 Jon) listening to Miss Fourth of July and reading the lyrics.
And I stumble upon a lyric that makes me think that he did not have real sex, but only watched (a stripper, or a couple, or two women, something along those lines), and yet someone (I think his wife) was upset with him anyway.
This was the lyric, it is in the first verse: “For a night I just watched and you walked out of here”
I don’t consider myself a knowledgeable Bon Jovi fan.
Just last Sunday I mixed up the intros from It’s My Life and Livin’ On A Prayer. So I will never even remotely suggest you should take me seriously, as far as facts about the band go. I m not a typing encyclopedia, and often even fail to Google things. But there is one area I am an expert at: Sex.
And with Jon Bon Jovi, this usually means that I have a knack for when he’s talking about cheating. And even when I later find he was doing it “in character”, like in Always which was originally for a movie so it’s not his own story, I can’t imagine that he did not pour from his own experience when he wrote that. But this is not about Always. This is about Miss Fourth of July, that we are supposed to take at face value about being about an entirely sexless coming of age, or maybe coming of fame is more accurate, theme of a rock star finally returning home with almost Odysseus like pathos, suddenly realizing is he no longer the man who left, filled with hopes and dreams.
“For a night I just watched and you walked out of here” This “baby-level” Bon Jovi fan, who cannot tell the difference between It’s my Life and Livin’on a Prayer intros, thinks Jon Bon Jovi tried to stay faithful within limits, yet got in an argument with his wife about it anyway.
That’s the baseline I got when I started this blogpost. I had honestly not thought any further. Until I started typing out that entire speech, which was a lot of work, I think I easily spent an hour on it. And in that hour, the tiny bedroom in Malibu remark started to look very familiar. Even though Jon was referring to a two year period, I was suddenly certain this referred to the mansion he had rented, which he called “Disgraceland” and where he stayed when he recorded the Blaze of Glory record. It is also the location where my favorite Jon Bon Jovi interview was located:
An MTV interview with Julie Brown, which was supposed to air on Independence Day.
(if you’re currently shouting “But that’s on the fourth of July!”; That is correct!)
To mark the occasion Julie was dressed in America’s independence colors red and blue. “Now I see where the white is,” Jon says as he lifts her skirt.
As soon as I saw this interview, which was early 2019, I knew for a fact that we had watched a genuine sexual attraction between Jon and Julie. That it was both staged, and real. Julie and Jon were hiding in plain sight.
click the photo to go to the playlist of this interview
The only problem this presents, now that I know that Miss Fourth Of July was written in the backlash of a one-night stand, or encounter, with someone special yet you can’t make it work, was that I no longer understood the sentence: “For a night I just watched and you walked out of here” I no longer know what that sentence means.
Yet Jon being messed up after Julie left, does explain many other lyrics. “Don’t say we never tried” “I ain’t too proud to let you see tears fall from these eyes” “Just look me in the eyes and say it meant nothing at all” “Nothing but a heavy hit of heartbreak ;
A handful of blues”
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I immediately noticed something was missing when I clicked on what looked like a YouTube upload of the dvd Live From London. At 1 hour and 24 minutes, it was about right, although I remembered the dvd to be 90 minutes. But hey! Why would someone sneakily cut six minutes out of a Bon Jovi concert right?
And yet, the moment I watched the intro I knew Jon taking the stage was missing.
That you don’t start a dvd with Jon having magically appeared out of thin air at the mike, in his stone washed New Jersey jacket, black blouse with white stripes, chest hair luscious in a way we would never see again after it was taken off less than a year later for his movie role in The Leading Man;
Wearing his black bandana with white design tied around the head in the wide yet sturdy fold and wrap technique, only he and Axl Rose ever seemed to have mastered;
And the first words of this Magically Appearing Front Man being;
“Tommy used to work on the docks!”
That’s now how it works.
There is a “before”.
There is a leading up to.
There is anticipation.
In the previous chapter I referred to the long audience shots clapping in “We Will Rock You”-style.
And you don’t let the viewer wait, watching a sea of clapping hands, only to then cut to-
Oh.
Wait.
He’s already there.
So I knew the 1 hour 24 minute concert version I had found on YouTube was not the real dvd; It had been tampered with.
And I was right.
Both a YouTube clip of “Livin’ On A Prayer” from that concert, which I have included at the top of this post,
as well as the full 90 minute show Live In London which is available on Vimeo, and which I have included at the bottom of this post,
show the full intro of Livin’ On A Prayer.
We see Tico Torres standing behind his drums in a white vest, clapping with the crowd.
And then the camera shot from over the crowd, retreats back into the darkness of the side of the stage, we’re looking into the sun.
We see the silhouette of a tall, rangy man, walking up to the edge of the stage.
Sharp cut to a close shot at eye level:
It’s Ritchie Sambora!
He takes a bow, rising back up, his small round sunglasses mirror the Wembley stadium and the clear blue sky. Long dark mane, and long black coat adding to a rough cowboy-like look. He gives the crowd a battle cry; “Yeah!” Fist pumping in the air.
There is tangible concentration when the musicians set up the almost monotone, slow moving base sound with Tico Torres using a mark tree, a percussion instrument that consists of a set of hanging metal-like pipes. Until after a few seconds that moment we have all been waiting for when Richie folds his mouth over the talk box, and gives us the signature sound that will become Livin’ On A Prayer.
Richie’s almost synthesizer like tones join the auspicious baseline that the other instruments have set up.
The sounds from the talk box moves fluently up and down, as if gently caressing us.
Until we here the thin sound of a drumstick to the cymbals:
“Tick tick tick”
[….]
“Tick tick tick”
The Livin’ On A Prayer drums take over, a drum roll if ever there was any!
And a sound that I can only describe in a way that does not do justice to what many consider the best song of the best rock n roll band since the 80s: – in my defense; English is not my first language! – but here we go:
Oompa oompa oomp!
(repeat endlessly)
(keep it going)
(trust me on this)
And it is there! On the sounds of Oompa oompa oomp! that the man of the hour, the rock legend Jon Bon Jovi takes the stage with a run that goes into an energetic jumping up and down, legs wide, two feet jumping in the air again and again.
A wide grin over-viewing the stadium and just like Richie he has his fist in the air!
He stands with the microphone and in his talking voice, he delivers us the intro that we all know from the thousands and thousands of times we’ve heard this song: “Once upon a time.
Not so long ago.”
All this (I m now pointing and waving at the past paragraphs describing the epic rock star beginnings of this show ) was not included in the dvd upload I found on YouTube, and with that one of the biggest takeaways from this show was lost; How to make an entrance.
How to consciously, and conscientiously, show up.
I once attended a yoga workshop from an internationally acclaimed yoga star slash yoga guru, which I ended up hating and considered a waste of my time and money. And yet the lesson he taught in his first five minutes is one I will never forget: What is the basis for every relationship?
The answer was: You show up.
It is THAT choice, where you make the first commitment.
Either you give away your power, if you show up for things you don’t want.
Or you use it to show up for the things that you do want.
Show up for your yoga, was what this teacher hinted at. But it goes for every area of life; Are you showing up for it? Are you even THERE for the thing or the person or the hobby or the business or the audience or the 80.000 fans, to have a relationship with you?
And then, if you ve got that, if you know and decide that from now on “Hell Yes! I m gonna show the f up for my art, for my family, for my dreams, for my fans, for my LIFE!” Then this opening sequence of Bon Jovi in Wembley 1995 uplevels that for you.
Make your showing up as deliberate, as epic, as full of intent; As layered, as exciting, as full of bouncing, pounding energy, as Bon Jovi starting their Wembley show, and you really are living aright.
You’re living with Oompa oompa oomp.
Repeat endlessly.
Keep it going.
Trust me on this.
. ~Suzanne Rock Star Writer
new: LIVE FROM LONDON
Just. Show. Up. { Prayer Intro }
is the second chapter from “Live from London Take the stage, rock your life and rule the world”
Click on “Live from London” to read all chapters.
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Whether it was due to magical abilities of my hAnD90 mask, which I received from Sinterklaas (Sankt Nikolaus/ Dutch Santa Claus),
I m going to open this blog post with a tweet that says how you want your Google reviews to be,
And yet, the moment I watched the intro I knew Jon taking the stage was missing.
Rock Star Writer 