Early Opportunity | Bon Jovi 1984 11 03 | Brussels | opening for KISS | Concert Reading

Published on 14 July 202514 July 2025 by Suzanne BeenackersLeave a comment

Today’s card is:
Early Opportunity

Bon Jovi
3 November 1984
Opening for KISS
Brussels
🏟️ The First Tour 1984

🎛️🎶🎧->
https://youtu.be/Nyu0KdKX4gw?si=Nn69nepURIKPR5Xo

Remastered by YouTube channel hAnD90, 13 July 2025.
The description box:
“Despite its age and hiss (it’s been over 40 years), I feel this cassette has a really nice and warm charme to it. Really old school, but kinda fun. And crazy to hear their young energy here!”
.

Backstory

3 november 1984, Brussels
opening for kiss

.
The wrap-up was in sight.
Bon Jovi was three gigs away from the end of what had been a rollercoaster ride that had lasted 13 months.

From being thrown in front of the lions, opening for two ZZ Top concerts in 1983, probably making Bon Jovi the only band to ever play Madison Square Garden without even an album out;
To the album release in January;
To playing small clubs, followed by a gruesome three months of opening for the Scorpions’ North American Tour, where they learned to win over crowds who took offence by everything Bon Jovi stood for;
To August where they had five gigs in Japan, for Super Rock Festival 84.
And finally from late September to early November they toured Europe, opening for KISS.

The tour’s final concerts were Brussels (the concert for today), The Netherlands and Paris.

Thirteen months in which the band, put together in 1983, had grown into having a gang-like cohesiveness.
And turned them from five individual musicians into Bon Jovi;
A band that could now win over even the toughest crowd.

Beating the odds, and enduring countless objects and insults thrown at them from a variety of hostile audiences;
Saying yes to every opportunity to perform, and no doubt creating new opportunities with their bare hands whenever they saw just a glimmer of a chance, their first round was now on the very cusp of coming to an end.

“We’ll be back!” Jon Bon Jovi yells, not once but three times.
“I guarantee it!”

And guaranteed, it was.

Early Opportunity

the card

The Early Opportunity Card marks a period of learning, of growing and stepping into those boots many deem too big for you.
Or too early.
A pair of shiny black leather Someday Boots, yet you put them on your feet the moment you had them in sight.

And when people wanted to make you give them up because things did not go as planned, you had to improvise and your inexperience got you in severe trouble?
You did not just refuse to give them up, but those failures, those lessons, became the very reason you strut around in them with even more ownership and pride.

The Early Opportunity Card can refer to an intense time period that is currently going on, one that you are about to start but feel doubtful if it will not be too much (hint: it will require you to give up EVERYTHING)
Or it can refer to a time period that you’re wrapping up.
With just three electrifying 45 minute performances between you and the finish line.

Yet, can’t wait to see what’s next.

.
~Suzanne Beenackers
Rock Star Writer

🇳🇱 Tikkie
☕️ Buy me a coffee
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You can follow all content on:
Twitter, Facebook, and I am new on Instagram.

about concert readings

.
Founded on the 4th of December 2024, Concert Readings are the Bon Jovi equivalent of a Tarot reading.

Can we find the stories still buried deep inside the bootlegs?
Can we elevate the ones already told a thousand times?

This series is intended to run for ten years, covering a good part of the available 20th century concerts.
And who knows?
Maybe from 2035 up, we’ll do what Jon calls a round two!
Covering the tours 2000 – 2010.

Map out your future but do it in pencil.
Jon Bon Jovi

That was it!

Thank you for reading my Rock Star Writer blog!
Subscribe to the blog, to get them in your mailbox.
You can find the subscription button on this page, probably on the top right.

subscribe to my SUBSTACK
for all my English articles.

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And YouTube Life lessons in Bon Jovi songs

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Poorly pitched, but two great stories. | Borderline | Life lessons in Bon Jovi songs (new video)

Published on 2 July 20252 July 2025 by Suzanne BeenackersLeave a comment

new story on YouTube:
click here to see it->
https://youtu.be/cXKpDqnCPi4

#31 Borderline
| life lessons in Bon Jovi songs

Welcome back, Jovi friends!
Life lessons in Bon Jovi songs continues with Borderline.

This is the second “outtake”;
A song that was never included on the album.

Borderline was written for Bon Jovi’s third album Slippery When Wet (1986).

You can listen here for Jon Bon Jovi’s version.
And here for Richie Sambora’s version, which did not air until 2024.

Borderline was ultimately released in 2004, on the box set 100.000.000 Bon Jovi fans can’t be wrong.

In this video:

1. Welcome to another episode 00:00
Of Life lessons in Bon Jovi songs.
And forget I am pitching it so dryly!
But if you do bear with me, then today we’re starting the outtakes from the third Bon Jovi album.
It’s way better than I made it sound, because this was from THE Bon Jovi album!

2. Disclaimer time! 01:00
There will be no actual life lesson…
Just could not come up with anything.
But I will be having not one, but two stories for you, tied to this rare Bon Jovi song.

3. The 2 albums this song is tied to 02:08
One is the album Borderline was supposed to be on, and the other is the album it actually appeared on. Almost two decades later.

4. Why was it dropped? 03:05
Giving you the you-have-never-heard-this-take-before story.
To my knowledge no one has mentioned this before.
But if you were born in the 70s or earlier, you might know it too, the moment you see the question in front of your eyes:
“Why would Bon Jovi not want to be tied to a song called Borderline in 1986?”

5. The Mystery of Richie’s Version 08:40
The second story with regard to this song, could benefit from someone with better detective skills than me.
But here’s my best shot 😇

6. The Rolling List 12:40
Extra mention of the list that will be build as we go, containing all the outtakes.
https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLiGoDE3C06SfkAr0Ll4wz-GlGnZJNZDYh
Rolling List of Hidden Bon Jovi Gems 1985 – current day

7. Next up “Edge of a Broken Heart” 14:05
An outtake crowned as one of the top 10 Bon Jovi songs ever!
(https://ultimateclassicrock.com/bon-jovi-songs-ranked/)
Yet, this song might be a bit polarizing because everybody seems to agree this is one of their best songs ever.
All but one person.
( Anyone else who did not fall head over heels in love with it?)

But what I will do, is get you a proper life lesson next time!

So next stop, the third outtake:
Edge of a Broken Heart!

.
~Suzanne Beenackers
🇳🇱 Tikkie
☕️ Buy me a coffee
🌎 Paypal

– playlist:
https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLiGoDE3C06SfkAr0Ll4wz-GlGnZJNZDYh
Rolling List of Hidden Bon Jovi Gems 1985 – current day

SOURCES for this series:

1. RANKED
My favorite Bon Jovi article and indispensable for this series:
https://ultimateclassicrock.com/bon-jovi-songs-ranked/
By Tony Kuzminski.
List also covers any outtakes from the 2004 box set.

2. QUOTES
https://twostorytown.com/slippery-when-wet-quotes
full page of quotes EVERYTHING anybody ever said about the 3rd Bon Jovi album:

3. BJ TOURS
https://bjtours.jimdofree.com/the-albums/1986-slippery-when-wet/

4. THE LIST
Check our full playlist with rare songs here:
https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLiGoDE3C06SfkAr0Ll4wz-GlGnZJNZDYh&si=x3mA6MQtkafEfI9I
Rolling List of Hidden Bon Jovi Gems 1985 – current day

5. THIS SERIES
All videos, of Life lessons in Bon Jovi songs (playlist): https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLiGoDE3C06SeCKg4jvR2EoVHBOfXzHm_R

—
You can follow all content on:
Twitter, Facebook, and I am new on Instagram.

That was it!

Thank you for reading my Rock Star Writer blog!
Subscribe to the blog, to get them in your mailbox.
You can find the subscription button on this page, probably on the top right.

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Playlist Life lessons in Bon Jovi songs:
https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLiGoDE3C06SeCKg4jvR2EoVHBOfXzHm_R

Businesses

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Dutch:

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RARE! This is the only known outtake of the first 2 Bon Jovi albums | We Rule The Night | Life lessons in Bon Jovi songs (new video)

Published on 18 June 20252 July 2025 by Suzanne BeenackersLeave a comment

new story on YouTube:
click here to see it->
https://youtu.be/e5sRMU-8e6Q

#30 We Rule The Night
| life lessons in Bon Jovi songs

Welcome back, Jovi friends!
Life lessons in Bon Jovi songs continues with We Rule The Night.

This is the very first life lesson about an “outtake”;
A song that was never included on the album.

We Rule The Night was written for Bon Jovi’s second album 7800 ° Fahrenheit (1985).

It is the only unreleased song (outtake) we have, from both the first and second album.
And it is the first outtake in this series, of Life lessons in Bon Jovi songs.

If you’re not familiar with the song you can listen here.
The picture with all Bon Jovi members in golden suits is from the box set 100.000.000 Bon Jovi fans can’t be wrong (2004), on which the song was released, twenty years after the date.

In this video:

1. Welcome to another episode 00:00
Of Life lessons in Bon Jovi songs.
And after the first episode of this series?
I think this is the most important one!

2. What is an “Outtake”?! 00:30
Let me fill you in!
Because we’re talking deepest layer of fandom-stuff here.

3. New discoveries
I just found three “new” outtakes even I had never heard of.
They are demos from the Slippery When Wet album (1986).
You can find these three, together with all the others, on this playlist:
https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLiGoDE3C06SfkAr0Ll4wz-GlGnZJNZDYh
Rolling List of Hidden Bon Jovi Gems 1985 – current day

4. 3 LINKS 03:51
I expected to be posting this video without a proper description box.
But everything is in place now.
Here are the links I mention in this video, that are the most essential:

– playlist:
https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLiGoDE3C06SfkAr0Ll4wz-GlGnZJNZDYh
Rolling List of Hidden Bon Jovi Gems 1985 – current day

– Bon Jovi Tours website album page(s):
https://bjtours.jimdofree.com/the-albums/1985-7800-fahrenheit/
Their page on the 3rd album, was the one that brought me to find the super rare demos:
https://bjtours.jimdofree.com/the-albums/1986-slippery-when-wet/

– full page of quotes EVERYTHING anybody ever said about the 2nd Bon Jovi album:
https://www.twostorytown.com/7800-fahrenheit-quotes

5. We Rule The Night 06:25
Where this outtake is from, and how it was eventually brought to the public after 15 years.
The cd box set behind me, to which I am referring in the video, is called:
“100.000.000 Bon Jovi fans can’t be wrong” (2004)

6. The fourth link 08:41
My favorite Bon Jovi article and indispensable for this series:
– https://ultimateclassicrock.com/bon-jovi-songs-ranked/
By Tony Kuzminski.
List also covers any outtakes from the 2004 box set.
He writes anything between a few lines and a few paragraphs, of every Bon Jovi songs
(bar demos/ unreleased songs that did not appear on the Box Set)

7. It reminds me of…. what?! 09:28
We Rule The Night struck me as being familiar to some kind of 80s rock.
But which band was I reminded of?!
The article immediately filled in the blanks.

8. It’s not about lovers 10:30
I immediately assumed We Rule The Night would be about lovers.
Just like that Bruce Springsteen song (Because The Night Belongs To Lovers, live 1978)
But the lyrics are actually a lot darker.

9. The Shadow Twin
We Rule The Night is the unknown brother to another song;
One that did make it to the album!
The life lesson being…. (watch it!)

Check the full playlist with rare songs here:
https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLiGoDE3C06SfkAr0Ll4wz-GlGnZJNZDYh&si=x3mA6MQtkafEfI9I
Rolling List of Hidden Bon Jovi Gems 1985 – current day

Next stop, the second outtake:
Borderline!

~Suzanne Beenackers
🇳🇱 Tikkie
☕️ Buy me a coffee
🌎 Paypal

You can follow all content on:
Twitter, Facebook, and I am new on Instagram.

That was it!

Thank you for reading my Rock Star Writer blog!
Subscribe to the blog, to get them in your mailbox.
You can find the subscription button on this page, probably on the top right.

🌍🌎 📚🛒
Online bookshop

Playlist Life lessons in Bon Jovi songs:
https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLiGoDE3C06SeCKg4jvR2EoVHBOfXzHm_R

Businesses

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become the Rock Star you were born to be

Dutch:

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Your Greatest Asset Is Your Fear | Rolling List of Hidden Bon Jovi Gems 1985 – current day | episode 2

Published on 11 June 202511 June 2025 by Suzanne BeenackersLeave a comment

11 June 2025
You can check the new playlist here:
Rolling List of Hidden Bon Jovi Gems 1985 – current day

And can find what I changed at the bottom of this post, in the “work done on THE LIST” section

—

Yes, it’s episode 2. But I didn’t have much more for you in episode 1 than a conclusion that obviously if I was serious about cataloging all unknown Bon Jovi songs?
Then my 2021 blogpost✏️ 102 Hidden Bon Jovi Gems 1985 – 2020 and its original playlist on YouTube, both required an update.
Or more likely;
A lifelong commitment.

I don’t think I even said that, I didn’t even get that far. I was still in denial in episode 1. But just mentioning that there was a list, and something needed to be done- well, that was simply all I could bring myself to do.

Now, honestly, I still have no idea how I ended up calling myself Rock Star Writer because if you’ve ever seen the extensive knowledge other Bon Jovi fans have, the commitment they bring to their fan art, the connection they create with the rest of the community, their level of expertise and maybe they do not suffer from what I’ve started calling “musical dyslexia” either;
Well, then it is not difficult to see I’m at least figuratively speaking not the sharpest pencil in the box.

Even the entire catalog itself, including the outtakes (unreleased songs) that were collected on the 2004 box set 100.000.000 Bon Jovi fans can’t be wrong, have already been reviewed AND kept up to date by Anthony Kuzminski in the article
All 359 Bon Jovi Songs Ranked Worst to Best
Which has been online since 2018, but has stopped featuring publishing date as well as fails to acknowledge the author. At least in the browser I am using. I’d advice VCR magazine to include them again, as authenticity and reliability are the new gold in the age of AI.
Kuzminski’s article is a prime example of the level AI will never be able reach.
(Amen)

However, it is also a level I will never reach either. And I will not even come close to AI’s attempt at recreating it, either.
So what will I have for you, in the upcoming years?
With my skills obviously lacking and my commitment ranging from erratic to absent.

I will give you depth.
I will give you meaning.
I will move you and I will rock you, and will leave no song unturned and let whatever we find there shock us, delight us or let it blow up in our face.

Together, we will uncover the deepest layers, hidden beneath deceivingly simple lyrics, and we will hunt the most remote and desolate lands of the Bon Jovi Universe.

Or, as Tony Kuzminski said it in his review of Wanted Dead or Alive, which he granted the honor of being the best Bon Jovi song at number 1;

“There’s something hidden in each of their psyches, where the fear of never being good enough drove them to be one of the biggest bands in the world.”

Bon Jovi is always hailed for being positive and inspirational, but that’s a hairspray and bubblegum version of a deeper truth.
It’s not about believing in yourself.

Your pain, your troubled past and your chronic self-doubt are not just what sets you apart from AI.
They’re more than flaws that do not make you any less lovable.

It is your deepest pain, that makes you great.
That, is Bon Jovi.

~Suzanne Beenackers
🇳🇱 Tikkie
☕️ Buy me a coffee
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Subscribe to this blog for updates on THE LIST
and to my YouTube for the video series Life lessons in Bon Jovi songs

work done on THE LIST

In this 1st session, updating and refining the list with unknown Bon Jovi songs, I threaded lightly and limited myself to three actions:

1.removing cover songs

The songs I recognized as covers, and removed, were: “With a little help from my friends”, “Brother Louis”, “Fever”, “It’s my life – We Gotta Get Out Of This Place”, “Baby, What Do You Want Me To Do”, “Mrs. Robinson”, “I Don’t Like Mondays”, “Crazy”, “Tumblin’Dice”, “Heaven Help Us”, “Sylvia’s Mother”, “Hallelujah”, “Have A Little Faith In Me”
It’s possible I missed a few, which I’m sure will surface at a later and probably highly inconvenient date 😉
Cover songs will be getting their own playlist in the future.

2.check if there were any new outtakes from their latest album Forever (2024)

Yes!
“That Was Then This Is Now” was added to the list

3. Did I miss any? First 3 albums (BJ TOURS WEBSITE)

I went over their pages covering the first three albums, to see if there were any songs I’d missed. The first two albums only had one outtake (We Rule The Night) which was already on the list. But about the third album they write:
“Early songs that were either dropped during the recording process or never released with full production were: Stand Up, Deep Cuts The Night, Right Side, The Promise, Lonely Is The Night, Take Me Home, Never Enough, Game Of The Heart”

Game Of The Heart as well as Deep Cuts The Night, are already on the list.
Neither Stand up nor Right Side could be found.
But the demo versions of The Promise, Lonely Is The Night, Take Me Home, and Never Enough were found and added to the list.

4. Brought to my attention

These welcome additions were given to me by a reader:

“We All Sleep Alone” live 1990, by Richie Sambora
“Mister Big Time” Jon Bon Jovi solo Armageddon soundtrack (1998)
“Nothing (2024 remaster by hAnD90)” (Have a Nice Day outtake, 2005)
+
A better version of “Starting All Over Again“.
The list contained the 2004 Box Set version, and now has one closer to the release date (prob. B-side to Keep the Faith single)

—
Those were the alterations for this first episode.

You can check this new shortened list here:
Rolling List of Hidden Bon Jovi Gems 1985 – current day

Foundational post (2021):
102 Hidden Bon Jovi Gems 1985 – 2020
Including highlights of The Best Bon Jovi Songs you’ve never heard of!

Or go listen to the original 102 songs-long playlist here:
Bon Jovi 1985 – 2020 Hidden Gems In Chronological Order
Created in January 2021

You can follow all content on:
Twitter, Facebook, and I am new on Instagram.

That was it!

Thank you for reading my Rock Star Writer blog!
Subscribe to the blog, to get them in your mailbox.
You can find the subscription button on this page, probably on the top right.

get all my international articles without ever visiting social media
and read without ads?
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The Socials:
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🌍🌎 📚🛒
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Playlist
Rolling List of Hidden Bon Jovi Gems 1985 – current day:

The Mandela Effect | Bon Jovi 1987 05 26 | Detroit (first night) | Concert Reading

Published on 27 May 202527 May 2025 by Suzanne BeenackersLeave a comment

Today’s card is:
The Mandela Effect

Bon Jovi
26 May 1987
Detroit
🏟️ Slippery When Wet Tour

🎛️🎶🎧->
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oFcptAy3Cps

A video registration remastered by YouTube channel hAnD90, in 2020. The description box:
(this show) “somehow always captured the magic of that era for me.“

And the description box also contains context to the entire Slippery When Wet Tour, by quoting Richie Sambora:
“Slippery’s success took us all by surprise. So much that our entire stage setup wasn’t prepared for these big arenas. Not the sound system, not the lightning setup, nothing.”

The video
Bon Jovi | 1st Night at Joe Louis Arena | Detroit 1987
was uploaded on the 21st August 2020 already.
So it’s not its newness that sparked my interest and made me select it to create a new card.
The context to this concert reading is an entirely different one altogether!

And one that could have been predicted by any Bon Jovi fan, with or without clairvoyance skills.

Backstory

“25 may 1987 Philadelphia”
(hear me out!)

.
The official Bon Jovi account on Twitter has got a bad reputation.
Although in light of the post-2022 slippery slope of the medium, it could have been worse.
It’s not like this account has become hateful, or went down the drain like the rest of them, but “we see it as” unreliable, fake motivational, a laughing stock, etc. Quotation marks because many fans have stopped seeing it altogether.
I know I did.

So when on the 25th of May I saw a colorful mid-80s Bon Jovi concertposter commemorating their show that day 38 years ago in a venue called The Freedom Hall?
I liked it!
Not only because I liked the poster, but also because it had been weeks since I liked one of Jane’s posts who posts daily about Bon Jovi, and the majority are dated as “On this day” (in 1987 f.e.)
I automatically assumed the poster was posted by her.

But it didn’t take long until I saw claims this poster was fake. That Bon Jovi did not play a concert on the 25th of May 1987;
Their concert on the 24th had been Thornville and on the 26th had been their first night in Detroit.
Philadelphia didn’t have a Freedom Hall.
And the photo was “clearly” (quotation marks because I am blind to this, but clear for those in the Know!) from 1988 and not from 1987.

Over 24 hours passed before the account took the fake poster down, but if you have X you can still see a picture of it here, on the account of Mitch Lafon, in a tweet on the dates surrounding the 26th which I used for this article🙏

Meanwhile the generator to make your own fake concert posters had been tracked down and an extra thousand jokes about the interns who were apparently in charge of running the Twitter/ X account, were cracked.
Including someone remembering that time the account congratulated Richie Sambora for his birthday, despite him never having been included in any of the stories from the account.

But with this fake poster to a concert that never happened the account had crossed the line between ignoring a band member who had been instrumental to Bon Jovi’s success;
And was now knee deep in distributing fake news.

If I was their spindoctor, I’d suggest a statement that the account had been hacked.
Hell, I still think that is the most plausible explanation!
Surely better than the intern, since A. no serious band leaves their social media to chance and B. we all know interns do an amazing job at social media, so whomever has been in charge of it, is clearly not a Gen Z intern.

But I digress.

Because by far the most interesting thing I have for you is the possibility that the concert on 26 May 1987 did take place. In the Freedom Hall in Philadelphia and that people will remember having been there.

Something known as “The Mandela Effect”, after people who have vivid memories of Nelson Mandela having died in prison in the 80s, despite that not having been the case.
If you’re interested in knowing the scientific explanation you can watch this video:
The Mandela Effect Finally Explained

This is why I have chosen Detroit on the 26th of May 1987;
It is the concert that did take place, one day after the alternative fact-poster.

Bon Jovi Detroit on the 26th of May actually happened, we have a two hour video proving so. Just like Nelson Mandela really lived to be very old and did not die until 2013 when he was 95 years old.

With explanations for the Mandela effect going deep into quantum physics and the multiverse, and the idea that there is an infinite number of realities, the question raises;
Has Bon Jovi 26th of May 1987 actually taken place, in one of them?

The Mandela Effect

the card

The Mandela Effect Card means you have shifted.
And now your memory of what happened is different to other people’s versions of reality.

The theory stems from the Double Slit Experiment where observation influenced how particles behaved.
When observed the particles behaved like little pieces of matter. When not observed “they” were a wave, like light or water. They were still in potential, infinite possibilities.

This reality crossed time and space:
If a recording of the experiment was made without looking, and the tape was studied in the future, the same thing occurred.
Indicating the particles still felt it, even though the looking happened in the future.

When the Mandela Effect cards shows up in your reading, it means you need to be reminded that from a quantum perspective, what you think about, you bring about. And if you keep thinking about it, you keep bringing it about.

Alternatively, you are invited to see if you can change the past by going over the event in your mind, and creating a new memory of it. Of people lovingly supporting you. Of you being happy. Of safely taking the kettle off the stove and pouring the water in the tea pot, effortlessly.

You’re free to create, change or take out the whole layer of reality, that responds to thoughtforms.
The boundaries of reality may come with a lot more give, than you give it credit for.

Without your observation, none of this would be here.

~Suzanne Beenackers
Rock Star Writer

🇳🇱 Tikkie
☕️ Buy me a coffee
🌎 Paypal

You can follow all content on:
Twitter, Facebook, and I am new on Instagram.

about concert readings

.
Founded on the 4th of December 2024, Concert Readings are the Bon Jovi equivalent of a Tarot reading.

Can we find the stories still buried deep inside the bootlegs?
Can we elevate the ones already told a thousand times?

Map out your future but do it in pencil.
Jon Bon Jovi

That was it!

Thank you for reading my Rock Star Writer blog!
Subscribe to the blog, to get them in your mailbox.
You can find the subscription button on this page, probably on the top right.

subscribe to my SUBSTACK
for all my English articles.

The Socials:
Instagram – Twitter – Rock Star Writer Facebook – Facebook Suzanne Beenackers Schrijver – LinkedIn –
And YouTube Life lessons in Bon Jovi songs

🌍🌎 📚🛒
Online bookshop

The Fortnight | Bon Jovi 1993 04 09 | Rotterdam, The Netherlands (first night) | Concert Reading

Published on 15 May 202519 May 2025 by Suzanne BeenackersLeave a comment

Today’s card is:
The Fortnight

Bon Jovi
9 April 1993
Rotterdam
🏟️ Keep the Faith Tour

🎛️🎶🎧->
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WfQTmF1-ONg

A rare video registration remastered by YouTube channel hAnD90, with extra credit in the description box of the video on how the result was achieved:
“one of my best long-standing Bon Jovi pals sat down and substituted the sound with one from an external tape. With both analog sources running off speed, it was a close-to-impossible task, but he managed to keep it close to working well. Special thanks, Ronny! “

And my personal note of appreciation for integrating the pro-shot clip from You Give Love A Bad Name at 11:33, broadcast by Countdown Live (the V in the upper left screen is from the broadcast organization Veronica)

This new video version of
Bon Jovi | Live at Sportpaleis van Ahoy | Diehard Recording | Rotterdam 1993
Was uploaded on the 5th of October 2024.

Backstory

9 Apr 1993 Rotterdam

.
It was 1993, and Bon Jovi had not visited the Netherlands since their bootleg bestseller (the concert has been recorded on video and is one of the most well-known shows from the New Jersey Syndicate Tour) concert at the same venue, late 1989.
That concert too, was one booked by popular demand, since the band had visited Rotterdam already in the earliest weeks of the New Jersey tour.

So they knew Holland was digging them;
The question was, after four years and with the musical landscape having changed from rock to techno and grunge, would the Dutch still want Bon Jovi?

Late 1992, the band had broken their 1990-1992 silence with their comeback album Keep the Faith, which had a surprisingly different sound.
The single Keep the Faith is generally regarded as the closest they’ve ever come to dance! Due to the beat.

And Jon looked different too: His hair was cut, and he was sporting flanel shirts.

With this first single and the new look Bon Jovi had thrown the decade a few boons. And it worked! Coupled with an excellent album and a tight promotional tour where they performed in tv studios all over the world including Dutch Countdown;
Bon Jovi was in!

Perhaps another reason they managed to survive the 80s had also been the allure of having been the rock band that had retreated from the public view those first years of the decade.
They had not desperately tried to keep up to make the first mark and win the decade.
Instead they had given the decade time to find its feet, and had had time to adjust and see what they wanted to pick up, and what they’d leave in the 80s.
Their management, for starters.

Whether it was the hitsingle, the new album, the late 1992 Countdown performance or the Dutch liking Jon’s new looks?
It was more than enough to sell out the 9th of April in a heartbeat, and a second date on the 23rd of April was immediately scheduled.

So when they took the Ahoy stage for the first time in four years, they knew they would be back in two weeks.
Something which Jon refers to frequently, during the show.

And from the description box of an earlier upload of hAnD90:
“The band was clearly thrilled by the overwhelming demand (for tickets) as well as Richie being fueled by the visit of his friend Jimmy Page that night. As it was the standard for Bon Jovi’s shows at that venue, the energy of band and crowd was to go through the roof!“

The encore closes with: “We’ll see you guys in two weeks!”
And then they throw in an extra song:
An acoustic version of Never Say Goodbye.
Not yet, anyway.

The Fortnight

the card

The Fortnight Card means you are weaving your own timeline, most likely over the span of two weeks but it could be any amount of time you are able to create an arc for.
Like a storyteller tying two events together, or a painter creating a diptych, an altar piece of two hinged wooden panels that can be closed like a book.

You’re giving a performance, creating an experience for someone, or making a piece of work but you’re also holding something back.

You’re giving your audience something to look forward to, leaving them in the sweet bliss of a promise of something yet to come.

You’re whispering in their ear:
“We’ll do this again. Soon.”

~Suzanne Beenackers
Rock Star Writer

🇳🇱 Tikkie
☕️ Buy me a coffee
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You can follow all content on:
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about concert readings

.
Founded on the 4th of December 2024, Concert Readings are the Bon Jovi equivalent of a Tarot reading.

Can we find the stories still buried deep inside the bootlegs?
Can we elevate the ones already told a thousand times?

Map out your future but do it in pencil.
Jon Bon Jovi

That was it!

Thank you for reading my Rock Star Writer blog!
Subscribe to the blog, to get them in your mailbox.
You can find the subscription button on this page, probably on the top right.

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And YouTube Life lessons in Bon Jovi songs

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The song that summoned the album | Wild in the Streets | Life lessons in Bon Jovi songs (new video)

Published on 2 May 2025 by Suzanne BeenackersLeave a comment

new story on YouTube:
click here to see it->
https://youtu.be/_aJZADqRxpc

#29 Wild In The Streets
| life lessons in Bon Jovi songs

Welcome back, Jovi friends!
Life lessons in Bon Jovi songs continues with Wild in the Streets.

It is the 10th song of the album Slippery When Wet (1986), and the final track.

If you’re not familiar with the song – or simply long to be taken back to 1987 when this video was created – you can listen here, to the official video.

It turned out this was a song that had a lot of storytelling attached to it. So much that I even forgot to mention that the innerest of inner circles of Bon Jovi fans may jokingly refer to it as “Wild Industries”, because there once was a bootleg that incorrectly listed this track as such.

And it surely lives up to its name.
Wild Industries it is!

In this video:

1. Welcome to another episode 00:00
Of Life lessons in Bon Jovi songs.
And a turbulent week where I have cut out a lot of channels through which I worked.
This series will stay on!
But if you want to know more about the 4 blogs and YouTube channel I did end, you can check my farewell video to that era here:
https://youtu.be/pMHJTSKlYqc

2. A change! 01:13
We are going to include the rare Bon Jovi songs, after all.
Rare songs are songs that were recorded but never made it to the album.
Listen to find out how they will be weaved into this series.
Starting with the next one!

3. Initially lukewarm 04:55
I was not looking forward to covering this song!
And for at least semi-good reasons, I’d say.
But I warmed up to it fast!

With thanks to a biography of this album:
“Let it Rock” by Neil Daniels
Who hailed it as the perfect ending to this album.

4. Was BON JOVI BIGGEST ALBUM, actually SUMMONED?! 10:20
( source quote Jon Bon Jovi: https://twostorytown.com/wild-in-the-streets )
Sit back for this story about brotherly love and the bigger context of guitars that brought their owners success;
With help from the other side 😈

Reference to Sinners (2025) and The Devil At The Crossroads (2019)

5. Here’s your recap 18:45
1 minute on why Wild In The Streets is probably the best song of the album, simply by its backstory alone.

6. Wrapping up the Slippery When Wet album.
And before we move on to the album that probably could have been a triple album, that’s how much material they had (New Jersey, 1988) ;
We’re going to do something entirely new!

We’re going back to the beginning, and start picking up all rare tracks or outtakes, that never made it onto the first three albums.

Check the full playlist with rare songs here:
https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLiGoDE3C06SfkAr0Ll4wz-GlGnZJNZDYh&si=x3mA6MQtkafEfI9I
Rolling List of Hidden Bon Jovi Gems 1985 – current day

Next stop, the first outtake:
We Rule The Night!

~Suzanne Beenackers
🇳🇱 Tikkie
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That was it!

Thank you for reading my Rock Star Writer blog!
Subscribe to the blog, to get them in your mailbox.
You can find the subscription button on this page, probably on the top right.

🌍🌎 📚🛒
Online bookshop

Playlist Life lessons in Bon Jovi songs:
https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLiGoDE3C06SeCKg4jvR2EoVHBOfXzHm_R

Businesses

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On the road | Bon Jovi 1989 12 23 | Frankfurt, Germany | New Jersey Syndicate Tour (14th month)| Concert Reading

Published on 18 April 202516 May 2025 by Suzanne BeenackersLeave a comment

Today’s card is:
On the road

Bon Jovi
23 December 1989
Frankfurt
🏟️ New Jersey Syndicate Tour

🎛️🎶🎧->
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nAO0fG8bUe0

by YouTube channel hAnD90, uploaded 23 December 2023.

Backstory

23 dec 1989 Frankfurt

.
With a four band line-up (Bon Jovi, Alice Cooper, Great White and Dan Reed Network) , this concert shortly before Christmas was actually a festival and not a regular concert.
It was called “Christmas Rock”.
At this point Bon Jovi had been touring for 13 months, three weeks and two days, and fatigue was setting in.
Where the first concerts had had their own challenges, Jon Bon Jovi was now dancing a very fine line between collapse and just pulling it off, legend has it with help from steroid injections in his throat.

When YouTube channel hAnD90 unlocked this recording after 34 years, I immediately wrote a whole article about it on my website Daily Bon Jovi Yoga.com. This site will almost certainly be dropped, for a number of reasons but one is that WordPress has eaten the layout and I would have to manually change html codes of all archived posts, if I would like to keep it operational.
But I did renew the domain recently, and changed the html, so the link to the Frankfurt 1989 article will probably work until March 2026.

I will use that 2023 article for the backstory.
The paragraphs below are from this article “a Christmas concert avant-la-lettre” (link works until March 2026)
The On the Road– Card Reading below it, is new and was written today.

“A Christmas concert, before Bon Jovi even knew they had Christmas concerts!

Frankfurt 1989, is when the band hit what must have been their Christmas-infused homesick rock bottom, playing night after night in another city in Germany.
You can hear the melancholy drip off Blood on Blood’s introduction, and throughout the show every time Jon Bon Jovi drops the word Christmas – which is often and a concept that clearly means more to him than to the 1989 German crowd, where Christmas still revolved around baby Jesus not Santaclaus (who some say was given life by Coca-Cola!)-
the pain of missing home is almost palpable.

A year after this concert, they were indeed home.
Exactly as they had longed for, playing Germany around Christmas time, having been 16 months on the road and counting.
But they would not just rest on their laurels.

For seven years, from 1990 to 1996, they would play New Jersey’s Count Basie theatre, in the week before Christmas;
The Christmas Shows
(link to the bjtours website where you can find them all)

But nothing explained the profound meaning it had to them, to spend Christmas at home;
Than Frankfurt 23 December, 1989.”

On the Road

the card

The On the Road Card means you’re bypassing your own needs, claiming you are accepting and even choosing for things to be this way.
Labeling your version of working at Christmas as purpose, as inevitable, as what you have to do because it is the right thing.

You can deceive other people, but the heart is not so easily betrayed.

You have come to the brink of exhaustion, convincing even yourself this is your divine duty.
But you’re working yourself to death.

Go home, Rock Star.
Or did you not see A Christmas Carol.
I

~Suzanne Beenackers
Rock Star Writer

🇳🇱 Tikkie
☕️ Buy me a coffee
🌎 Paypal

You can follow all content on:
Twitter, Facebook, and I am new on Instagram.

about concert readings

.
Founded on the 4th of December 2024, Concert Readings are the Bon Jovi equivalent of a Tarot reading.

Can we find the stories still buried deep inside the bootlegs?
Can we elevate the ones already told a thousand times?

Map out your future but do it in pencil.
Jon Bon Jovi

That was it!

Thank you for reading my Rock Star Writer blog!
Subscribe to the blog, to get them in your mailbox.
You can find the subscription button on this page, probably on the top right.

subscribe to my SUBSTACK
for all my English articles.

The Socials:
Instagram – Twitter – Rock Star Writer Facebook – Facebook Suzanne Beenackers Schrijver – LinkedIn –
And YouTube Life lessons in Bon Jovi songs

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The Ghost Album | Bon Jovi 1988 | Concert Reading | New Jersey – alternative double album

Published on 11 April 2025 by Suzanne BeenackersLeave a comment

Today’s card is:
The Ghost Album

Bon Jovi
May – July 1988
Recording Studio Vancouver Canada
or unknown demo recording location 1987-1988
🏟️ New Jersey album

🎛️🎶🎧->
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GKOymf1mhkw&t=441s

by YouTube channel hAnD90, uploaded 2nd April 2025.

Back Story

1988 demos new jersey album

.
Oh, THEBONJOVINEWJERSEYALBUM THEBONJOVINEWJERSEYALBUM THEBONJOVINEWJERSEYALBUM!
I ask of thee!
What could POSSIBLY have been more brilliant, more seductive, more the pinnacle 80s rock than Bon Jovi’s 1988 New Jersey album?!

The answer is of course TWO 1988 Bon Jovi New Jersey albums.

Which is exactly what was forged, in the creative fires of the Little Mountain Sound Studios, Vancouver.
The same place where biggest-80s-rock-album Slippery When Wet had been recorded two years prior.

The band wanted this successor simply called “New Jersey” after their homestate, to be a double album.
December 1987 the band already had 30 demo songs.

But the record company didn’t want a double album, claiming the fans would not be prepared to invest that kind of money.
For context: in 1988 I would have been prepared to give my life for a new Bon Jovi record, and I was not the only 16 year old who thought that way!
So clearly the band was in the position they could have created anything they wanted, ask any price they wanted, and still have us screaming for more.
But okay.
Record companies, you know how it is.

Anyway!
What followed was one singular New Jersey album, and decades of rare recordings resurfacing in different shapes and sizes.
The band’s 2014 Deluxe edition from the album New Jersey is the most official, most complete version we have, of how this album would have sounded if the band had gotten their way and the album had been a double one.

Under the working title Sons of Beaches, recording took off.
And although I like to think that all songs had the honor of being performed at least once in the studio in Vancouver Canada, it is possible some versions were never brought into the studio.

But what we do know is that there are multiple versions, even from songs that never made it to the album!
In April 2025 hAnD90 on YouTube gave us a new interpretation of how Sons of Beaches (meaning: an alternative version to the New Jersey album) could have sounded.

The description box says:

“They’ve been around as part of the Sessions From The Vault demo bootleg collection and widely spread across the fan base and on YT. I think back in around 2011, my good friend Felipe Fontoura (some may remember his amazing acoustic Bon Jovi covers back in the day!) fine tuned the wobbly old tapes from this session and brought them up to the right speed and pitch. I slightly enhanced his work by balancing the instruments a bit more and refining some things”

This is your cue to click it, and let yourself be absolutely rocked (this is a f*ing promise!) by this jaw dropping alternative version of a double album that never existed in the first place.

🎛️🎶🎧->
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GKOymf1mhkw&t=441s
Bon Jovi | Sons Of Beaches | New Jersey Demo Tapes | Vancouver 1988
1hour 16min 28sec

The superb quality of their writing, music and OMG can we talk about Jon’s voice?!
Because of ALL of those things, and the crazy number of songs from this era, New Jersey will never stop being:
The Well That Keeps On Giving

The Ghost Album

the card

The Ghost Album Card means you’ve been overpowered, most likely in the area of creativity. Capitalism and its henchmen have you in a chokehold, making you take your creative work back, or altering it.
They’re making you change the message, or cutting it in half.
Watering it down.

The power to create was given to you. The time has come to summon that same power to send the work into the world, exactly as it was intended.

Your call will be answered.

~Suzanne Beenackers
Rock Star Writer

🇳🇱 Tikkie
☕️ Buy me a coffee
🌎 Paypal

You can follow all content on:
Twitter, Facebook, and I am new on Instagram.

about concert readings

.
Founded on the 4th of December 2024, Concert Readings are the Bon Jovi equivalent of a Tarot reading.

Can we find the stories still buried deep inside the bootlegs?
Can we elevate the ones already told a thousand times?

Map out your future but do it in pencil.
Jon Bon Jovi

That was it!

Thank you for reading my Rock Star Writer blog!
Subscribe to the blog, to get them in your mailbox.
You can find the subscription button on this page, probably on the top right.

subscribe to my SUBSTACK
for all my English articles.

The Socials:
Instagram – Twitter – Rock Star Writer Facebook – Facebook Suzanne Beenackers Schrijver – LinkedIn –
And YouTube Life lessons in Bon Jovi songs

🌍🌎 📚🛒
Online bookshop

A Time Capsule Ballad | Never Say Goodbye | Life lessons in Bon Jovi songs (new video)

Published on 18 February 2025 by Suzanne BeenackersLeave a comment

new story on YouTube:
click here to see it->
https://youtu.be/sQ-2DHUtQYE

#28 Never Say Goodbye
| life lessons in Bon Jovi songs

Welcome back, Jovi friends!
Life lessons in Bon Jovi songs continues with Never Say Goodbye.

It is the 9th song of the album Slippery When Wet (1986), and the second to last track.
It is also the very first real Bon Jovi ballad.

If you’re not familiar with the song – or simply long to be taken back to 1986 in this TIME CAPSULE OF A SONG! – you can listen here, to the official video.

In this video:

1. Welcome to another episode 00:00
Of Life lessons in Bon Jovi songs.
And why this song is such a watershed moment, in the Bon Jovi repertoire.
And a bit of an 80s time capsule 🤗

2. The 1987 Prom Song 01:34
And why it was such a darn On Point one! 😅
NB In the video I date it as “1986’s Prom song” but even with my non-existent experience with proms, I’m almost a 100% sure I should have said 1987.

3. Never released as a single?! 03:20
Or was it?
Why there is so much confusion about so many of the songs on this album, whether they were or were not released as singles.
And why they deliberately capped this mega successful album after only the third single, Wanted Dead or Alive.
Their heartfelt Swan Song.

4. Famous for these reasons 07:36
With this song never having been a single, why did it became a fan favorite?
Well!
Because this baby was the living, breathing, exhausted HEART of the show from 1986 to 1988!
It was what Jon Bon Jovi sang AFTER he FLEW over the audience, all the way to back of the venue.
All alone, an exhausted rock star, isolated, on a plateau.
For some of us, and by some of us I mean me, this pinnacle of rock star symbolism would become impossible to top.

5. the 3 different live VERSIONS 09:40

Over the course of 9 years Never Say Goodbye would be sung in three different ways.

The 1987 version: In the back of the room
https://youtu.be/p9FrdyS_RJs?si=jvxTMKCmkVuUsCfX
Vancouver

1990: the double guitar acoustic version, together with Richie Sambora
https://youtu.be/WKW6rPT6aNg?si=2s9tqFjhyrPHQqsi
Rock in Rio

1995: The Even-The-Critics-Loved-Bon Jovi Era, of musical perfection:
https://youtu.be/GTc7UR7P0bQ?si=-nbkpMovwl7uGHJJ
Jakarta

6. The 3 Groups in fanbase 12:04
Every version of Never Say Goodbye has its own fanbase!
With a special story about how Bon Jovi won over even the hardest critic. Forever.

7. How the song was created 17:17
Jon has gone on record saying Never Say Goodbye was inspired by Bruce Springsteen/ Southside Johnny’s song Hearts of Stone.
But with a demo sung by Richie Sambora, and the claim he actually wrote it about Jon and Dorothea, it is hard to get to the truth about who did what.
What we do know is that this song would never have been on the album. had it not been for the Pizza Parlor Jury!

8. The Life Lessons here 19:24
Don’t knock the power of the Pizza Parlor Jury!
And sometimes it takes 9 years before something has reached its full potential.
And even then?
Someone, somewhere, will prefer the raw 1987 Jon-is-exhausted version 😅

Next stop:
Wild In The Streets!

~Suzanne Beenackers
🇳🇱 Tikkie
☕️ Buy me a coffee
🌎 Paypal

You can follow all content on:
Twitter, Facebook, and I am new on Instagram.

That was it!

Thank you for reading my Rock Star Writer blog!
Subscribe to the blog, to get them in your mailbox.
You can find the subscription button on this page, probably on the top right.

🌍🌎 📚🛒
Online bookshop

Playlist Life lessons in Bon Jovi songs:
https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLiGoDE3C06SeCKg4jvR2EoVHBOfXzHm_R

Businesses

Catacombe
become the Rock Star you were born to be

Dutch:

de Club
yoga voor generatie X

Backstory

3 november 1984, Brussels opening for kiss

Early Opportunity

the card

about concert readings

work done on THE LIST

1.removing cover songs

2.check if there were any new outtakes from their latest album Forever (2024)

3. Did I miss any? First 3 albums (BJ TOURS WEBSITE)

4. Brought to my attention

Backstory

“25 may 1987 Philadelphia” (hear me out!)

The Mandela Effect

the card

about concert readings

Backstory

9 Apr 1993 Rotterdam

The Fortnight

the card

about concert readings

Backstory

23 dec 1989 Frankfurt

On the Road

the card

about concert readings

Back Story

1988 demos new jersey album

The Ghost Album

the card

about concert readings

3 november 1984, Brussels
opening for kiss

“25 may 1987 Philadelphia”
(hear me out!)