New remastered audio:
Bon Jovi
7 November 1988
Saarbrücken, Germany 🇩🇪
🏟️ New Jersey Syndicate Tour
🎛️🎶🎧->
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o0cuitJUfmk
This recording was uploaded on the 1oth of October 2024,
by YouTube channel hAnD90.
From the description box:
“After a rather tumultuous start with the infamous first night in Dublin, the band hustled to get back to their rhythm.
(-)
Especially the second half ramps up as Jon seems to regain more and more confidence in his vocals”
Although Bon Jovi’s September album New Jersey had overdelivered on any expectation, the band clearly didn’t feel accomplished until they knew they still had it live.
To them the battle for the hearts of their fans was on stage, not in the studio.
So when the New Jersey tour had started off in Dublin 1988 and, as the documentary Access All Areas shows, the band is stressed and disappointed after their first show;
Things were not looking good.
Seven days and four shows later?
Watch and learn!
An exciting rollercoaster ride of a show, where a strong selection of songs and the faux endings after Livin’ on a Prayer, as well as after the encore (finishing with the Thin Lizzy cover Boys are Back in Town) and ultimately closing with the final song Bad Medicine;
Created a compact but exciting show!
Unwritten rules of rock n roll dictate the minimum length of a show is
90 minutes.
This recording is 1 hour 27 minutes 39 seconds, but the fade out between songs has almost certainly shortened the runtime.
But nevertheless it was obviously quality, not quantity, that won Saarbrucken 1988.
That year’s New Jersey album had been the successor to their 1986 breakthrough album Slippery When Wet (featuring You Give Love a Bad Name, Livin’ on a Prayer, Wanted Dead or Alive).
Together with their first two albums this brought their catalog at four studio albums.
But as many of us know, on this tour the first two albums had completely dropped from their setlist, with the exception of the song Runaway.
With the other songs rarely, if ever, reappearing in years to come.
This effectively meant the entire New Jersey Syndicate tour, 235-ish shows long, was hinging on “just” two albums:
Slippery When Wet (1986)
and
New Jersey (1988)
Now this is a good time to mention Bon Jovi has always integrated cover songs into their live performances, bringing in an element of surprise.
But it is also a testament to the musical variety of these two albums, that their New Jersey Syndicate Tour performances, consistently hit the ball out of the park.
And on day 8 of it, the Saarbrucken concert, they hit a home run.
Starting the Saarbrucken tape, and after the drum heavy intro of Lay Your Hands On Me, a track written to make for a spectacular opening of both the album as well as to be the standard opening track during this tour, the first thing that stands out is the register in which it is sung.
So high!
Compared to the majority of Bon Jovi shows, Saarbrucken 1988 is probably closer to the recorded version of the songs.
If I recall correctly, in the beginning of 1989 all songs will drop half an octave, putting less strain on Jon Bon Jovi’s voice.
But this is where we can hear the secret-not-so-secret ingredient of Bon Jovi’s raving 80s success, in all its glory;
An outstanding singing performance.
If I wasn’t so dangerously musically illiterate (at least for someone who calls herself Rock Star Writer) I would have more vocabulary to label this quality.
But for now suffice to say Jon Bon Jovi’s voice has been able to move me;
When others, to this day, never did.
It is a voice I would like to wrap up in and cover myself with.
* a foreshadowing alarm goes off *
Saarbrucken 1988 was first uploaded to YouTube in January 2015, on YouTube channel Joey Keys.
And there have been single-song uploads from;
-Let it Rock on the FighterBJ channel
as well as from the rarely performed song
– 99 In the Shade on the hAnD90 channel
You (meaning, even I, musically illiterate person!) can hear them singing out of tune at the start of that one, so this might also be an explanation why this song was played so seldom.
Another reason is of course, that if you have two albums plus any cover song you fancy to choose from, there are bound to be songs that will not be played (much) live.
As is always the case, hAnD90 has given a full setlist including timestamps to all the songs, in the description box of the video.
Shout out to hAnD90, for always including the “extra tracks” which were in this case track
“05. Jon greeting audience [15:46]”
and
“08. Jon talking about new album [27:19]”
I have been doing the same thing, timestamping my videos Life lessons for Bon Jovi songs on my YouTube.
But recently even caught myself putting in a “Suzanne talking to the audience” for a Dutch video!
With a wink emoji, because it was so very meta.
We have a Dutch saying, you become with whom you hang out 😉
Anyway, I will not be going through the whole 90 minute long, layered and beautifully sung setlist.
Because that is a little beside the point, and also because we now know I will fall short doing it properly anyway.
Which brings me to what I actually do really well;
Which it to attribute it/ anything/ try me, with meaning.
So what does
-the strongly Catholic influenced Lay Your Hands On Me;
–You Give Love A Bad Name, debuting in its new New Jersey Tour iteration
– Runaway with improvised lyrics
– the haunting so-much-more-than-the-album-version of Homebound Train
– sparkling Wild In The Streets
– the upbeat Born To Be My Baby with its 80s harmonica
– Pink Flamingos correctly introducing Let It Rock (and not Raise Your Hands, as was the habit early on in the previous tour)
– the to-become-evergreen I’ll Be There For You which was then still fresh from the vinyl press and no one knew how big a live song this would become
– the second song reinvented-for-live-audiences-only, Blood On Blood
– the rare 99 In The Shade, mildly controversial for the lyrics implying Jon wants to be every girl’s blanket (covering us, something which considering the temperature of 99 Fahrenheit would test even the biggest Bon Jovi fangirl how much we’d want him)
-Tommy and Gina’s anthem Livin’ On A Prayer with not enough people in Saarbrucken knowing the words to let the singing of the audience reach the microphone.
-A solid encore with Wanted Dead Or Alive preceded by the captivating and always slightly different, instrumental piece on guitar;
-Jon inviting the whole audience to come with them on the road;
-Thin Lizzy’s The Boys Are Back In Town;
– And then bringing it home with the second encore, an eight minute party with Bad Medicine, the first and flagship single from the New Jersey album.
So what does/do, all of those things, tell us?!
First of all, to never trust a Rock Star Writer who claims she will “not be going through the whole 90 minute long, layered and beautifully sung setlist.”
Secondly:
That it is not just okay to leave out half your life’s work so the new stuff can shine;
But that it could very well be what is actually required to make it (b)last across the decades.
Thirdly:
That all it takes to find your voice, and to go from struggling to great?
Is seven days.
And finally;
That it’s never too hot for some things.
.
~Suzanne
🇳🇱 Tikkie
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ABOUT THIS SERIES
In 2022 -2023 I started the “concerts on this day” series,
resulting in many blogposts on the Daily Bon Jovi Yoga blog and two full fledged playlists on YouTube, covering the whole year.
Afterwards, I have not been consistently keeping these playlists updated.
Even though many concerts got new uploads.
But before I could seriously get my head around finding a rhythm to keep these playlists updated, YouTube stopped supporting the description boxes to their playlists.
The whole list of dates and locations, was no longer visible, or usable for myself, in order to place newly added concerts in the right order.
Which is why this Bon Jovi Saarbrucken 1988,
could not be added to the playlists:
Part I: Bon Jovi concerts on this day 10 June – 5 December (before 1997)
https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLiGoDE3C06ScAo9UN4GyhtQWYfl3d6jMT
Part II: Bon Jovi concerts on this day 6 Dec-9 June (before 1997)
https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLiGoDE3C06ScbVI_oPZcf77OtrO_935JD
The two short playlists that will keep being updated are:
Part III: Bon Jovi concerts on this day 1997 – 1999 | The Fin de Siecle Years
https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLiGoDE3C06SdDi4oetaCnK6zLRa1odZXJ
And
Dutch Concerts Bon Jovi 1984 – 2019
https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLiGoDE3C06SdpUmEpb6svNP-I79CnolR2
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