I am finally writing a post about Bon Jovi. I grew up in New Jersey; and was living there when Bon Jovi first hit the national scene. I was a fan of Bon Jovi's music and style regardless how commercial they became. I have seen them a couple of times in concert over the years; and my wife is also a fan of Bon Jovi. I remember listening to the "Slippery When Wet" cassette in the late 1980's with Deniz, my wife and other friends out by the pool in Miami Springs. My first romantic dance with my wife, Deya, was to the song "Never Say Goodbye" by Bon Jovi. As I mentioned in a previous post, and out of pure coincidence, my wife and I were married the exact same day as Jon Bon Jovi and his wife were married back in April 1989.
Now to December 31st, 1988 where Bon Jovi had their Legendary Performance from the New Jersey Tour in Tokyo, Japan on New Years Eve at the Tokyo Dome: My opinion is, that at this time when the Album "New Jersey" was originally released, Bon Jovi was at the peak of their career. I don't mean at the peak of their success because Bon Jovi is still going strong today and continues to sell millions of albums and grow their fan base crossing generations. I am referring to their live performances, which I believe they were at their best in 1989.
There are literally tens of thousands of music videos, concert videos, pics and information floating around the Internet on Bon Jovi. By being consistent with the theme of my other posts, you can see two live music videos of Bon Jovi performing on New Years Eve in 1988 in the Tokyo Dome. Fittingly the first video is "Tokyo Road" from Bon Jovi's 1985 album 7800° Fahrenheit. Richie Sambora does a great guitar solo during this performance. Since this is the "New Jersey" album tour, I choose to slow it down a little by putting the video of Bon Jovi performing "I'll Be There For You" from their new album at the time, which was also a big-hit-single. Later that year Bon Jovi joined other hard rock groups at the 1989 Moscow Peace Music Festival in Russia. You can read about it in the post from last month.
Bon Jovi came over to "Heat Beat Live '89" which was held on 12/31 and 1/1 in the year 1989 at the Tokyo Dome. They also had five more live shows in Japan in January. See the concert dates and venues in Japan listed below. For those of you who are addicted to the signature anthems of Bon Jovi, I didn't want to disappoint you, so I added a third video from the Tokyo concert, "Livin' on a Prayer". Even back then the Japanese fans knew all the words to the song. Kenny Leibow
Tour Japan 1988-1989
12/31 Tokyo (Tokyo Dome)
1/1 Tokyo (Tokyo Dome)
1/5 Osaka (Osaka Castle Hall)
1/6 Osaka (Osaka Castle Hall)
1/9 Osaka (Osaka Castle Hall)
1/10 Nagoya (Rainbow Hall)
1/11 Nagoya (Rainbow Hall)
Band Members:
Jon Bon Jovi (Lead Vocals, Guitars)
Richie Sambora (Lead & Rhythm Guitars, Backing Vocals)
David Bryan (Keyboards, Backing Vocals)
Tico Torres (Drums, Percussion)
Alec John Such (Bass, Backing Vocals)
Hugh McDonald (Bass, Backing Vocals)
Bon Jovi - Tokyo Road
(Live in Japan 1985)
Bon Jovi - I''ll Be There For You
(New Years Eve in Tokyo 1988)
Bon Jovi - Livin' On A Prayer
(Live in Tokyo 1988)
No comments:
Post a Comment