Da série: músicas que não funcionam ao vivo...

"Staring" é a minha música predileta do Destination Anywhere. Mas infelizmente ao vivo deixou a desejar. Tanto que Jon tocou pouquíssimo, mesmo na tour em 1997. Mas acabou fazendo uma versão em espanhol. Precioso! :)

Sugarland & Bon Jovi

Horrível a tragédia que aconteceu em Indiana esse fim de semana. O palco que o Sugarland ia se apresentar simplesmente desabou matando 5 pessoas e deixando vários feridos. Espero que eles dêem toda a assistência para os fãs envolvidos. :(((

Adoro a música abaixo. Vale a pena conferir.

Australia - 1987

Este é vídeo é muito engraçado. Jon e Richie apresentam um programa na MTV Australia. Richie, completamente bêbado, mas sempre divertido. Jon animado por estar na primeira vez na Australia, tenta trabalhar, divulgar o álbum, tocar gaita, tudo ao mesmo tempo e, lógico, acaba se rendendo e morre de rir com o Richie.

Something for the pain

I did a TV show for Italian broadcast here in New York, 1984, the beginning of our career and Sammy was frail at the time and he was walking towards the little stage in the TV studio and he was on a cane, glasses, walked in rather gingerly, as soon as those lights went on and I saw the director, go three, two, one to Sammy, that cane was gone, the glasses were gone and the showman came out again. I never forgot that. You see? And that's the magic of performing. And nobody can explain that to somebody who's a layman who doesn't understand what that is. You have to have done that sometime in your life. My wife again, has always said, I could perform with my head cut off. I don't realize the pain. (JBJ)

Edge of a Broken Heart - a melhor outtake de todos os tempos

Até hoje é incrível pensar que essa música nunca entrou no Slippery When Wet. Virou demo, outtake e foi parar numa trilha sonora. Finalmente depois de muito anos, Jon se redimiu e colocou-a no box set com um formal pedido de desculpas:

This is the song that you've all wanted me to play live... people ask me why didn't this make Slippery? Well, this was the same era that I didn't think that Livin' On A Prayer was a hit. I never claimed to a good A&R guy. But Edge Of A Broken Heart was an outtake of Slippery. It ended up on a soundtrack for a little movie called Disorderlies and it starred a very early rap band called The Fat Boys. i know you guys like it so we found the masters and we put it on this box just for you. It was absolutely appropriate for the Slippery record - coulda, shoulda, woulda been on Slippery had cooler minds prevailed. Here's my formal apology. (JBJ)


Essa é a versão demo gravada no porão da casa do Richie:



Ai eles foram pra Vancouver e fizeram essa versão demo que já tava maravilhosa:



E finalmente a versão do box set:



Pode isso Arnaldo? Pode deixar uma música dessa fora do álbum? Peloamor da Nossa Senhora de Nova Jersei!

The real story of Tommy and Gina

Em comemoração aos 25 anos do SWW, Jon e Richie deram esta entrevista contando detalhes sobre como foi escrever o álbum e quem eram na vida real, Tommy e Gina.

Ouça aqui: http://www.inthestudio.net/

The circle is gone

It's been 400 hours
200 days
I cursed every minute since you went away
It's hard...letting you go...

Wow. What a perfect way to say goodbye!

Melhores momentos da tour 2010/2011

Bon Jovi diz: "135 shows, 22 countries, 18 months..... 3 million fans in attendance. From our heart to yours THANK YOU for making this last year and a half on the road so spectacular. We have the best jobs in the world and it's all because you believe in us and help us stay on this crazy ride. We will see you all again shortly, friends. Thanks for making our 2010/2011 tour one of the best!"

Pra mim foram 18 shows, 8 países em 12 meses...alguns dólares, reais, pesos, euros e libras mais pobre! Mas muito, muito feliz e realizada como fã em todos os aspectos. Fiz algumas reviews, mas faltam muitas...

1. New Jersey – New Meadowlands Stadium
2. Saratoga Springs - SPAC
3. Toronto - Rogers Centre
4. Toronto - Rogers Centre
5. Boston - Gillete Stadium
6. Chicago - Soldier Field Stadium
7. Chicago - Soldier Field Stadium
8. Santiago - Estádio Nacional
9. Buenos Aires - River Plate
10. São Paulo - Morumbi
11. Rio de Janeiro - Apoteose
12. Vancouver - Rogers Arena
13. Vancouver - Rogers Arena
14. Edinburgh - Murrayfield Stadium
15. Manchester - Old Trafford Cricket Ground
16. London - Hyde Park
17. Dublin - RDS Arena
18. Dublin - RDS Arena

Essa tour foi realmente muito especial e consegui muito mais do que sonhei ou imaginei. Vi a banda no melhor de sua forma, em grandes estádios e até num pequeno anfiteatro. Presenciei também shows muito sofridos como Saratoga ou Edinburgo, em que o Jon sentia muita dor por conta das duas contusões. Muito frio no Chile, calor insuportável em Chicago, chuva torrencial em Manchester, pancadaria em Buenos Aires...e em cada momento de dificuldade eu via uma banda que sempre respeitou seus fãs e sua música. Sim, os ingressos são caros. Mas valem cada centavo. E os momentos "extra show" também foram memoráveis. Pude rever todos os lugares importantes da banda em New Jersey, voltar pra Vancouver e viver o melhor fim de semana da minha vida e ainda conseguir minha foto com Jon, Tico, Hugh e Bobby Canabrava(hahaha!). A foto com o Richie ficou para a próxima. Preferi deixar meu grande amigo realizar seu sonho e registrei este momento aqui. Valeu ou não a pena?! 

King & Celinho

O capítulo Brasil então, nem se fala. Foi certamente o mais nervoso, mas o melhor momento de toda a tour, por ser no nosso país e por ter divido tudo ao lado dos meus melhores amigos. Vocês sabem quem vocês são, amo vocês! Estou devendo a review dos shows daqui, devo fazer em breve. Fiquem ligados!

Slippery When Wet - 25 anos

Esta era a foto da capa original

E no dia 18/08/86 era lançado o disco que mudou a carreira do Bon Jovi (e provavelmente as vidas de todos que lêem este blog!). Em homenagem a isso no mês de agosto vou escrever posts com histórias curiosas sobre o álbum que eles mesmos definem assim:

SLIPPERY WHEN WET

Bon Jovi's 3rd album, released in 1986. This was the breakthrough album that lead to massive superstardom for the band. The album title was taken from a combination of two things: a road sign on the road from the mountains down to Vancouver, where the band was recording the album… and the visual of two semi-naked strippers dancing underneath showers, soaping themselves up at the legendary No.5 stripclub in Vancouver. The album cover was originally a busty woman in a wet t-shirt… when the artwork wasn't approved by the band, there was little time to re-do it. Jon Bon Jovi went to a photographer's studio, grabbed a black Hefty bag, sprayed it with water and wrote the words "slippery when wet" with his fingers. This is the album cover to this day.

<><><><><><><>

O álbum foi gravado em Vancouver, Canadá, onde a banda se divertiu muito num strip club que existe até hoje. Vejam um trecho da matéria que saiu na revista Playboy em 1987: “We gave Bon Jovi the best table in the house. They made this place their headquarters while they recorded Slippery When Wet,” says Eric Polson, 23, manager of Vancouver, British Columbia’s leading strip joint, the No 5 Orange Street Showroom Pub and Hotel on Main Street.

“In spring ‘86, the guys would come in every night, order hamburgers and a drink from our (insert commercial jingle here) 30 different kinds of Scotch and 60 imported beers,” Polson elaborates, proudly gesturing around the oak-and-brass-appointed night club. “We made them feel at home. The Number 5 is not like the unpleasant strip clubs you see in the States. Our strippers are recruited from the finest dancers in Canada and our clientele includes the best Vancouver business people and visiting foreign dignitaries who are in town. The girls take the stage from an elevated area that leads directly to the dressing room, so there’s a great view from everywhere in the room but normally, there’s no mixing with the customers.”

Normally?

“Well see, the girls would come out before and after their acts to hang out with Jon and the band, help them unwind.” Which is a polite way of saying that Norma-Jean, Jessey, Cybelle, Laurie, Jamie and Evelyn went out of their way in every blood-rushing sense, to help these boys reach their avowed end zone with all pistons firing. Whenever they appeared on the raised strip platform to spotlight their attributes, the darlings put an extra half-twist of zeal into their peel to please the randy rockers crawling over the front table. Afterwards, they nuzzled with the lightheaded lads over cocktails, reacquainting them with a time-honoured tenet of the rock life: What you don’t see, ask for.

If Jon and his colleagues somehow lacked imagination when it came to informal application of these girls’ vocational verve, they were suitably galvanised, Eric Polson assures, “by Evelyn and Laurie, who do the shower act.”

The shower act?

“You don’t know about the shower routine? We have a special performance every evening with Evelyn and Laurie. An illuminated glass ladder comes down from the ceiling and they ascend as our custom-built light system goes into action. The girls dance for about ten to fifteen minutes and strip completely. The girls hop in and soap up, get a nice lather going.

Jon and the band were checking all this out, having a wonderful time and they got the idea for the album from Evelyn and Laurie - slippery when wet!”

No 5 Orange @Vancouver

Back in Florida, as the 1987 Bon Jovi tour Without End bumps and grinds onward, Bon Jovi confirms, “That’s more or less how it was. We had done an old-West style album cover photo with this tough little five-year-old tomboy, who was dressed in dirty jeans and a cowboy hat. We put her in a corner with her punk-tomboy attitude and shot that for the cover, thinking we’d call the album Wanted Dead Or Alive.

We took the Polaroids of the cover back to the No. 5 Orange and I was sitting there with my drink, looking at ‘em, thinking they look too cold and stiff. And, as I’m thinking, the shower routine starts and the two girls begin dancing to a Bon Jovi song, In And Out Of Love.”

“Young and wired

Set to explode in the heat

You won’t tire

’Cause baby was born with the beat...”

“I wasn’t paying a lot of attention, just waiting for the girls to get off from work so we could all get out of there.

So I’m looking over my shoulder at the girl and I’m listening to Richie complaining about something, and then I’m watching the girl soaping herself up.

We started talking, nasty things, saying, ‘I’ll bet that’s wet! Soap it up! Slippery when wet - just like the road sign!‘

Everybody thought it would be a great album title but we wondered, How do we take this shower act and get in onto record shelves across Middle America? Big problem.”

While Jon Bon Jovi wrestled with that marketing quandry - ultimately settling for a photo of a black plastic trash bag splashed with water, the words written on it in his own fingertip script - the girls had dropped the soap, left the stage and had towelled off for a night in and/or out with the band. The after-show line-up would vary, Evelyn and Laurie sometimes going along for the ride, plus Norma-Jean, the Marilyn Monroe lookalike; Jessey, a sandy blond with a frizzle halo; Cybelle, a gorgeously ripe brunette; and Jamie who’s dark-haired and dramatically athletic; plus a few friends from the No 5‘s sister strip spa, the Marble Arch.

The entire troupe would usually gravitate to the condominium Bon Jovi had rented for the more than two months it took for the band to complete its recording at little Mountain Studios. Jon ushering the women into makeshift weight-training rooms to pump ironies until the sun came up over the surrounding mountains.

<><><><><>

“We’d put the girls into Jolly Jumpers,” Jon says, referring to a spring-supported exercise harness to keep tots upright while providing happy bounce-ability. “They have amazing muscle tone. It certainly was an education,” he summarises.

Quer saber como a segunda capa foi criada? Leia aqui o depoimento do fotógrafo Mark Weiss:
http://www.weissguygallery.com/press.php?page=press-OLD_BRIDGE_MOMENT

All photos by Mark Weiss

Quiero tener tu amor entre vino y rosas...

E 18 anos depois, em terras espanholas, eis que uma banda de New Jersey cria uma noite mágica para 45 mil felizardos. Com um set list absurdo de deixar qualquer fã doido! Como pode?!