You know..... this would boggle most minds here...but I'm having an extremely delayed arrival at appreciating this song. New Jersey was a slow burner that never engulfed in flames fully. At the time of release...it was Blood On Blood followed by Lay Your Hands On Me followed by a tolerance set for the rest of the album. From my point of view, the album definitely demonstrated the creative and artistic growth of the band, but a bit overly saddled with the demands of their position at the time.

So despite the fact my gag reaction upon initially hearing Bad Medicine on MTV during the Premiere with "Bon Jovi Is Back." You could hear Jon's voice was maturing, you could hear some good stuff going on in parts of the song...still the obvious formulated attempt at Bad Name II did not go over well with me at all.

Born To Be My Baby.... oh jeez. It was an improvement over Medicine, but just like how some of you have issues with Sha La La's....I have a revulsion to Na Na Na's. Since they smack you in the face with that right off the count of 4. The chorus was just plain boring. The most exciting part being the last verse following the chorus.

Without going on and on.....Homebound Train I usually reached for the needle to skip forward during the first chorus. The "Whoo Hoo!" bugged me for some reason and the rest of it just wasn't my groove. It was Richie's groove. It sounded like he may as well have been the one singing it. It pretty much became habit to skip it...meaning I wrote it off as a throwaway.

So here we are 23 years later and they are doing it live night with Richie on lead vocals. I've been going back and listening to the catalog alot lately, giving more attention to things I hadn't before. Obviously I'd check out Homebound Train and I'm really starting to love it. I did check out a bit of one You Tube clip and some of the Arizona show audio, but I'm trying to save it for in person.

Homebound is going to be a highlight on Saturday no doubt. After honestly being bored during his I'll Be There For You spotlight..... this is honestly some exciting shit that really makes him shine in one of the coolest spots of the entire set. Just the few lines of the first verse he grabs that song with a vengeance.

Somehow I knew this coming album and tour was going to be the time to come back home.