Bon Jovi by Bon Jovi Read Free Book Online

get their asses up out of their seats, every last one of them, all the way up in the rafters. And they love to sing with the band. You could just stand there and play the music, but if you go that extra mile and make the crowd a part of the show there’s nothing better. I want to look out from the stage and see you being goofy and dancing and singing. Jon’s able to get thousands of people to do that.
    RICHIE: I’m completely challenged by Jon onstage—still. It’s not boring. I think that’s part of what keeps our dynamic together. Of course there’s me and I’m never boring, so he’s always challenged, for different reasons maybe but, emotionally, he knows and I know that when I walk out onstage, my heart becomes that much bigger. When I walk out onstage, it’s a part of my life that I love and feel comfortable with. It’s like taking your clothes off in front of seventy thousand people every night.
    We walk out there, even if we’re tired or we’re feeling like shit or something’s happening in our personal life that isn’t so great.
    JON: We’re all having fun but we’re dead on when it comes to performing. We want be great on that stage, not some 80s rock cliché. The guys are all great players. I don’t have to worry about them onstage.
    RICHIE: Jon being a very handsome guy, I think our shows involve a lot of idol worship. It’s like Elvis. We have a bit of that with Jon. Jon is that idol.
    JON: Ours was the number one grossing tour in the world for 2008. Makes you feel good for a moment, but in the grand scheme it doesn’t mean a thing. Numbers never meant fuckall to me. I don’t need the applause. The applause is bullshit. I don’t want a plaque. I just want to do the right thing …
    I want to look out from the stage and watch people smile. I saw a girl with seriously debilitating MS out in the front row five concerts in a row. What this poor girl has got to go through to be in the front row. Just seeing her and the other eighty thousand healthy people out there and putting a smile on their faces, having that shared experience. That’s what it’s about.
    RICHIE: We’d be assholes if we didn’t appreciate every moment onstage because there are not many people who have the absolute privilege to actually walk out there and entertain that mass of humanity. And for us, it happens a lot. But it is exhausting.
    JON: You commit to X amount of dates and you go out on tour and you do it well. I would never go out there and do an hour-and-a-half show. You can’t. If I don’t do two, two and a half, I feel unfulfilled. I get mad. We had one night on this last European tour where we did an hour fifty-five. The fan base knew it. I knew it. The band knew it.
    I still toil over the set list, even on show number ninety-two into the tour. I still change it even in the midst of the show, juggle songs around. You don’t want anyone to leave there with anything left in them—not the band, not the audience. Then you go home and your ears are ringing and your muscles are hurting and you lay down and you fall asleep thinking, “That’s why I wanted to do this when I was a kid.” You didn’t cheat yourself, the fans, the dream, the promise, or the reality. You close your eyes and say, “You left it all out there—every bit of what you had.”

BACKSTAGE
     
     
     
One Wild Night tour, pre-show chiropractic adjustment, backstage, San Jose Arena, San Jose, CA, April 23, 2001.
Cynthia Levine
     
    JON: It’s crazy how you’re dead tired and you get it together for showtime.
    You’re a mess. You’ll wake up in the morning, you’ll feel good for a while, and then around five o’clock, your body is gonna kill you. But you’ll rise to the occasion again once you hit that concert stage. I’m experienced enough now to know it’s OK. It’s the physical part of my touring cycle. I don’t worry about it now.
    But an inexperienced kid is driving to a stadium show at five o’clock going, “Oh, my God, I’m