Bon Jovi (9 page)

During the breaks between songs, I’m like a boxer in his corner, thinking about what he’s gonna do next and catching his breath.

The band are so consistent every night; my monitors are so consistent. I know if I’m singing great. I’m not worried about anything. It’s just: “Where do I take this crowd?” They’ll go with me if I take them to a quiet place. They’ll listen to a slower song. They’ll really listen to the words.

You have to find that compromise where you give them what they want and you give yourself what you need.

Lost Highway
tour, Punchestown Racecourse, Dublin, Ireland, June 7, 2008.
Phil Griffin

TICO:
There are tides in all shows, in all songs. I don’t think anybody wants to be going crazy the entire show. There are ups and downs, ebbs and flows.

JON:
I love singing the older songs. Every one in the set I want to sing, still. I love the majesty of “Livin’ On A Prayer.” I know when we start that song, that crowd is gonna rise, and I’m gonna rise. I enjoy the tease of “Bad Name.” I enjoy the exuberance of “It’s My Life.” I enjoy the cowboy imagery of “Wanted.” I like all that. If I didn’t enjoy a song, I wouldn’t include it in the set list; I wouldn’t sing it.

TICO:
I could never go on idle—on cruise control—and play the show. It’s impossible for me. You really have to give it your all. Plus, there are some audiences that react better and some that you really have to work at because of language or cultural differences.

Lost Highway
tour, XCEL Energy Center, St. Paul, MN, March 2008.
Phil Griffin

Lost Highway
tour, Zentralstadion, Leipzig, Germany, May 25, 2008.
Phil Griffin

JON:
Sometimes you have a night like Dublin, where it’s pure magic. I love Ireland. I wish I was Irish. Somewhere in my past life, I was Irish. I know I was. I feel a connection. It isn’t the architecture. It isn’t the food. It’s the people. I told my wife I’m jealous all the time because she and my kids are part Irish. I want to be adopted. I think every time I go to Ireland, the Irish fans know that.

I started flipping songs around in the Dublin set list midshow. I could add “Hallelujah.” During “Hallelujah” I was in my own world entirely. Every audience is different. The Irish crowd wants lyrical content. Maybe it has to do with being able to speak in a common language. It’s more about the lyrical connection than getting the whole audience to sway together or jump around.

Dublin expects greatness. They don’t accept any nonsense. It’s always a great crowd. They love us as much as we love them.

TICO:
You can’t take it for granted. It’s special to be out here doing this. Once you take that for granted, you should just go home and do something else.

RICHIE:
Who doesn’t want my job? It’s so fulfilling to walk out onstage and be confident in my performance, knowing I am going to deliver my soul to those people. I am completely at home and at peace up there.

I always try to get out of my body, spiritually, when I’m playing. I used to smoke to get high to help me get ‘out there’, but I realized that playing a guitar solo took me to that same place.

I’m striving for technical virtuosity and a spiritual virtuosity when I play because that’s the way I grew up. When Hendrix was playing or B.B. King would play, Stevie Ray, Johnny Winter, Jimmy Page, Jeff Beck, Duane Allman, all those guys … it was spiritual.

The heart of this band is that we’re good musicians. We ain’t here by accident. We’re proud to be a bunch of guys who pour their heart out every night. It’s not inconsistent. This is every night. There’s not a bad fucking show, ever.

The vocal game is so daunting from a physical standpoint: remaining healthy, keeping your voice in shape so you can get out there and sing and entertain a crowd and actually enjoy yourself without the nagging worry of wanting to hit a note and not being able to nail it. Physically, you’re tired. If you haven’t been taking care of your throat, you’re a dead man.

Jon hasn’t really had those problems since the
Jersey
era. He’s been a tough, strong man and he’s learned how to take care of himself and manage his voice, his instrument.

What’s interesting for me has been watching Jon perform, especially over the last two tours. He’s reached a place as a vocalist where he’s unbelievable. Honest to God, Jon blows me away every night. He’ll do something that he’s never done in the twenty-five years we’ve been playing together and blow my mind.

Lost Highway
tour, City of Manchester Stadium, Manchester, England, June 22, 2008.
Phil Griffin

Lost Highway
tour, XCEL Energy Center, St. Paul, MN, March 2008.
Phil Griffin

TICO:
We play our asses off but it really comes down to the front man. Jon is a great front man. He will get an audience up on their feet. He’ll demand it of them. Jon’s determined to 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 so tired. What I need is the steroids. What I need is speed. What I need is alcohol. What I need is somebody to pat me on the back and tell me some bullshit.”

The experienced guy says, “It’s OK. It’s five o’clock. Don’t worry about it. Eight o’clock is coming. Don’t touch the steroids. Don’t touch the adrenaline. Don’t need the caffeine.” Then there it is, as always. Eight o’clock, I get up like I know I’m going into the ring.

The fuckin’ steroids for my vocal chords are always in my bag. In my head I go, “Take it. Take it. Take it.” ‘Cause part of me is saying, “Your chords are shot. You’re tired. You can’t make it through the show. You need them. Take them. Take them.” It’s fear and insecurity fueled by all the adrenaline.

My brain overpowers my body though and says, “Don’t do it. You don’t need it. You’re fine.” If I take the junk I’ll go home, lay my head on my pillow, and say to myself, “You fucking failed.” You pay the price for taking the junk—physically and mentally. I didn’t take the junk. I didn’t hit it at all this tour.

These days, towards the end of a tour, it’s not my brain; it’s my body that says no more, you’re shutting down, to hell with your brain. Complete shutdown. We’re gonna restart the computer. Don’t worry right now; we’re just rebooting.

The Shoe Inn, Middletown, NJ, December 10, 1999.
Olaf Heine

Lost Highway
tour, signing merchandise backstage pre-show, XCEL Energy Center, St. Paul, MN, March 2008.
Olaf Heine

Lost Highway
tour, signing merchandise backstage pre-show, XCEL Energy Center, St. Paul, MN, March 2008.
Olaf Heine

Lost Highway
tour, signing merchandise backstage pre-show, XCEL Energy Center, St. Paul, MN, March 2008.
Olaf Heine

JON:
Before every show, I warm up my vocal chords. But after the show, I cool down. Every night. Twenty years. Simple as that.

Around 1990, I was having a lot of problems with my voice. Little Steven said, “Katie Agresta.” I called Katie and she asked me if I warmed down, and I said I’d never heard of such a thing. Then she asked me, “If you ran a marathon, would you go right to bed or would you walk it off?” I said, “You have my undivided attention.”

For years, I’d visit her studio to sing, listen, learn. I’d bring Katie on the road whenever I felt beat up. I’ve relied on a cassette tape of her warm-down exercises from the day I met her. It’s a religion. I take it with me everywhere. Ninety-nine percent of the time I won’t go home from a show without it. U2 came to see us one night and after the show Bono asked, “How the hell do you run around and sing like that for two-and-a-half hours?” I told him what I tell everyone.

I warm up before the show. I warm down after the show. And I’ve got a chiropractor on the road. It all keeps me in real good shape.

Lost Highway
tour, mid-concert in quick-change tent, Twickenham Stadium, London, England, June 28, 2008.
Phil Griffin

Lost Highway
tour, mid-concert in quick-change tent, Twickenham Stadium, London, England, June 28, 2008.
Phil Griffin

Your vocal chords are as big as your thumbnail—for real. Those vocal warm-down exercises are a saving grace because if you don’t sing well at night, you feel like a schmuck. Worst case scenario, you have to cancel the show and you don’t want to disappoint fifty thousand people, the band, road crew …

The Dublin show was one of those days—it happens in those dusty green soccer fields—when my hay fever and allergies kicked in. I was in such pain. My eyes were swelling shut. I was sneezing like crazy. In my quick-change room, I was blowing my nose during every guitar solo. There’s this thing in the back of your mouth, your soft palate. If you press on it with your tongue, fuck!!! You see stars and start sneezing and wheezing. I’m doing that between songs, looking at the boogers in my towel going, “Wow, that’s disgusting!” I just keep blowing the snot out. The wardrobe girl’s underneath the stage holding up a Sudafed and I’m motioning for her to put the tablets on my tongue during the show.

The show finally ramped up ‘cause the Sudafed kicked in.

Lost Highway
tour, backstage pre-show, XCEL Energy Center, St. Paul, MN, March 2008.
Phil Griffin