New remaster:

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

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

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

👩🏼‍💻 the story 

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

A level that could never be undone.

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

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

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

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

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

They had to make this work.

And so it began.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

He meant it.

.
This new remaster

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

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

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

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

New remaster:

Bon Jovi
25 August 1989
Winnipeg, Canada🇨🇦
🏟️New Jersey Syndicate Tour

🎛️🎶🎧->
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=92uew3JwuiM

Or, as my original Soundtrack of the Day Tweet from 25 August 2022 said it concisely:

“Born to be my baby with harmonica
Let it Rock with Pink Flamingos
And;
“We don’t say goodbye, we just say goodnight.”
= Bon Jovi 1989″

Which was based on a then available recording, but the latest remastered audio, uploaded by hAnD90 on 16 February 2024, really made this concert shine.
Which is why I will do a beforehand failed attempt of eloquently describing its beauty.
.

No words do 1989 Bon Jovi justice

👩🏼‍💻 the story 

.
Before this review gets to the point where I brutally cap it, miles before it is even close to done, since “done” is a place that would require a song-by-song review and another 2.5 hours (An investment which has become even more impossible now that the hAnD90 channel treats us to at least one Bon Jovi pre-1997 upload a week! *heart eyes*);
Let’s start with the proper, tweet-sized review, from the description box, where hAnD90 always outlines what we are going to listen to:

“The first few songs, they were in their comfort zone and it felt like they were “warming up”
– until everything got unleashed from Living In Sin onwards.
Incredible energy, passion, raspy vocals (Wanted Dead Or Alive!) and so much more.
Absolutely stunning show!”
Source: description box by hAnD90

So now that the proper review is done, let’s start unpacking what I got for you today 😉
Because I did listen to this audio for days in a row!
There ARE notes here!

Though, something doesn’t really get written down, unless it is so powerful it manages to capture my attention when I am in deep levels of concentration writing something entirely not-Bon Jovi related.
If it manages to crack that defense?
I hastily look for a pen and scribble it down in a form of “homemade shorthand”.

Resulting in the following notes, for Winnipeg 1989;

“Speech < badname”

< means before, in my shorthand.
So the note means that like all other 80s performances of You Give Love A Bad Name, there is a story introducing this song. 

In Winnipeg 1989, Jon doesn’t even attempt, to tell a story in a way that it ends with: “Baby? You give love a bad name!”
Which means the story is short, and serves more as a breather than entertainment. It has a less comedian, more Rock Star attitude in Winnipeg!

“End of BTBMB”

BTBMB stands for Born To Be My Baby.
The note means that the end of Born To Be My Baby is noteworthy-
and it really is.
You could even say that the “take-off” hAnD90 describes, in Livin’ In Sin, can already be heard in Born To Be My Baby.
The lyrics/singing/final minutes of this song, already indicate this show is going to be great.
Speaking of which, in 2024, just like in 2022, I noted down:

“harmonica end of BTBMB!!”

Again, BTBMB stands for Born To Be My Baby.
And since the note is exactly what I tweeted about this song in 2022, it means my heart still, consistently and fully, melts every time I hear Jon play harmonica🥲

“BOB Richie”

BOB stands for Blood on Blood.
The note means that Blood on Blood is a good one here, in particular the parts where Richie Sambora is on vocals.

“Love for sale ❤️❤️❤️”

This means the acoustic New Jersey album (1988) song Love for Sale, made it to the stage, and that quite similar to Jon’s harmonica play, I get all excited because the song is about, well, “Love” for sale!
And I never outgrew being 16, when it comes to Jon Bon Jovi singing about sex or when it comes to drawing hearts.

“intro Wanted – fav guitar song”

Wanted stands for Wanted Dead or Alive
This means that the song Richie Sambora plays in the instrumental prelude to Wanted Dead or Alive, is what I call “my favorite song”.
I’m very musically illiterate, but other more knowledgeable fans would be able to name it in a heartbeat! 

“Wanted PASSIONATE!!!!!!”

This is the only note where you can see hAnD90 and me were talking about the same concert, since he too mentions the excellence of this song.

Then we’re getting to two notes, about songs which are almost certainly before Wanted Dead or Alive, but like I said, I listened to this concert for days, so these are notes I didn’t write down the first couple of times I listened.

The first of my closing notes is hard to reproduce, because I placed two strong vertical lines in the margin, to emphasize its importance, but cannot make this with my keyboard.

||
||Screaming intro
||              “Let’s go for a ride”
||                       Let it Rock
||

The vertical lines mean I understand the Winnipeg crowd screaming when they hear Let It Rock!!!
I would scream too!
In particular if Jon tosses in a few extra spoken words “Let’s go for a ride”
*screams back YEAH LET’S!!!!*

And then the final note, a song that is definitely not in the second half of the show, but it is fitting to end with:

“I’d Die For You ❤️❤️❤️”

Again, the hearts indicating that words are not needed. Who doesn’t long for those concerts that had I’d Die For You in them?
In particular in the 80s when Jon always played electric guitar, so it was a TWO electric guitars song!

My notes finish with the first two sentences of Jon’s speech introducing You Give Love a Bad Name.
Going back to early in the show, the first time he addresses the audience that night:

“Last leg of this never ending tour. We had to skip over Winnipeg but I swore we’d be back and now we’re glad we’re here.”

We too Jon.
It’s 35 years after the date, and we’re still glad you were there.

.
This new remaster

Bon Jovi
25 August 1989
Winnipeg Arena, Canada🇨🇦
🏟️New Jersey Syndicate Tour

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

And to the playlist:
“Part I: Bon Jovi concerts on this day 10 June – 5 December (before 1997)
https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLiGoDE3C06ScAo9UN4GyhtQWYfl3d6jMT”
at 25 August 1989.

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

New on YouTube

Bon Jovi
23 December 1989
Frankfurt, Germany 🇩🇪
🏟️ New Jersey Syndicate Tour

was unlocked, remastered and made available to the public by hAnD90 at 20 December 2023
🎛️🎶🎧->
https://youtu.be/nAO0fG8bUe0?si=No259smD4vcXXbaU

Welcome to the third in a new series for this blog!

This Rock Star Writer blog will from now on be host to posts about live concerts from 1983 to 1996;
A position previously held by another blog, but that blog has found its purpose in its latest iteration;
As home to Daily Bon Jovi Yoga.

The story below, was originally posted there.
But rest assured; All those old Bon Jovi posts will be saved and reposted here, so that contrary to Frankfurt 1089, they do not run the risk getting lost for 34 years!

a Christmas concert avant-la-lettre

👩🏼‍💻 the story 

.
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. 

This new concert

Bon Jovi
23 December 1989
Frankfurt, Germany 🇩🇪
🏟️ New Jersey Syndicate Tour

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

And to the playlist:
“Part II: Bon Jovi concerts on this day 6 Dec-9 June (before 1997)
https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLiGoDE3C06ScbVI_oPZcf77OtrO_935JD”
at December 23.

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

New for me

Bon Jovi
“I’ll be there for you”
14 January 1989
Honolulu, Hawaii
🏟️ New Jersey Syndicate Tour

🎛️🎶🎧-> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uVRu-Fb4v8Q

Welcome to a new series for this blog!

This Rock Star Writer blog will from now on be host to posts about live concerts from 1983 to 1996;
A position previously held by the Daily Bon Jovi Yoga blog, but today that blog has found its purpose in its latest iteration;
As home to daily Bon Jovi yoga.

Meaning it’s daily, it’s a blog, it’s about yoga done to Bon Jovi and everything that comes to our path, which history proves is a broad one 😉
You can sign up for those at the Daily Bon Jovi Yoga blog– , the previous host to this series.

So now that we’ve moved the 20th century Bon Jovi concerts, to this Rock Star Writer blog, how do we open here?

Well, as it happens I encountered just the right, bite-size Bon Jovi nugget on Twitter, to mark this occasion on the 14th of January, which is a 14th of January upload that is new for me.

Meaning: it has been on YouTube for years, but I managed to miss it when creating the two main Bon Jovi concert playlists you can find at the bottom of this post.
The two lists, which cover the entire year, do not have this one on them.

So I didn’t have this upload on there yet.
It is one song (I’ll be there for you), from a Hawaii 1989;
A concert that has no other uploads.
It was brought to my attention by Jane on Twitter, who shares all on-this-day events from Bon Jovi, on her fan account.

(post continues below tweet)

She also added an article that was published about this concert. And all of Jon’s quotes are still quite readable so I thought maybe you liked it if I reprinted them here?
Courtesy of @Jane_ on Twitter, thank you for satisfying our Bon Jovi hunger, and for keeping me sharp!

clipping printed
in advance of 1989 01 14 concert

Interview with Jon Bon Jovi by Wayne Harada.
Name of newspaper unknown, but the title the reporter has is pretty cool!
“Adventure Entertainment Editor”

The interview takes place by phone, on the day of the final concert in Japan, so January 10, 1989.

Jon Bon Jovi:

“There is an exchange of adrenalin with the audience that keeps you going. It’s the highest high. I don’t know if it’s better than sex, but just as good.”

“As a kid I always thought the guy singing on stage would look at me, even though he really didn’t see me. As a performer I felt I should always work at getting that energy going and that was one of the reasons I went flying in my last shows (on a cable, flying to a small stage in the back of the venue, playing one or more songs there-Rock Star Writer)
I realized I couldn’t see the whole place from the stage, so I flew. By getting to the back of the house I could see the people in the back. Making that eye contact. And they could see me.
It was exciting and every other rock act has done it since so I’ve hung up my flying wings.”

The rest of the interview is on page B4, under the header “Superstar”, but I do not have that page.

Which is why my work was done, and all that remained was adding:

Bon Jovi
“I’ll be there for you”
14 January 1989
Honolulu, Hawaii
🏟️ New Jersey Syndicate Tour

to:
New in Bon Jovi concerts before 1997

And to the playlist:
“Part II: Bon Jovi concerts on this day 6 Dec-9 June (before 1997)
https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLiGoDE3C06ScbVI_oPZcf77OtrO_935JD”
at January 14.

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