Came across this while researching for my philosophy project.
Bully Photo Essay: The Horrors Of A Bon Jovi Concert
Photos by Richard Anthony | Text by Ken Wohlrob
"It was like equivalent of fat Elvis, all those overweight women clawing and fighting just to reach out and touch a bloated icon of their lost youth."
A while back our staff photographer Rick Anthony sent me a request via e-mail for some photo passes to several concerts in the Washington DC area. I promised to help on three of the requests, but refused on the final - the Bon Jovi/Poison package tour. I just couldn't bring myself to do it for fear of losing my credentials as a heavy music head.
Rick persisted however, claiming he was into an 80s retro kick, and that regardless of my taunts of "poser boy," he would go to the show to check it out.
Needless to say, after his return he's never been the same. I received an e-mail with a zip file of photos attached from him with only a two-phrase message: "The Horror! The Horror!" We've since sent him for psychiatric evaluation and below are the photos he sent to me. Enjoy.
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If anything is apparent, not much has changed from the Bon Jovi concerts of the early 80s. Lots of screaming, drunken, poofy-haired, middle- to lower-class, white women jumping up and down and praying Jon and the boys will play "I'll be there for you." Okay, maybe there's more stone-washed and less acid-washed jeans, but it's still pretty much the same.
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Yeah not much has changed at the ol' Bon Jovi show, except for maybe the 90-100 extra pounds that their die-hard fans have put on since the release of Slippery When Wet way back when. This really reminds me of that film Elvis Presley made before he died with the split screens ala Woodstock. There were all these haus-fraus in bad bee-hive hairdos and pattern dresses jumping up down, trying to grab Elvis' cock every time he kneeled down by the front of the stage. I still have nightmares about those women every once in a while.
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Of course, a Bon Jovi show is really about family. There's just nothing more touching than a daughter going to her first concert and watching her mother yell out "JON, I WANT TO BLOW YOU!" every time Jon Bon Jovi comes to their side of the stage. Ah, it almost brings a tear to your eye. Do you think the moms sit around and tell stories about what they did before the show the last time they saw Bon Jovi in the '80s.
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Unfortunately for these nice ladies, they got all gussied up for the big "Office Night Out." Yup, they broke out the dresses, the makeup and the Jacquelyn Smith cologne baby. Too bad for them, the show was mostly women. Not a guy in the joint who wasn't there because his girlfriend or wife didn't drag him. Of course the second one from the left looks real happy in spite of that...hmmmm....
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And amazingly, it was all for these guys...a couple of cheesy yahoos from New Jersey who actually wrote a song that has the line "I'm a cowboy, on the steel horse I ride, I'm wanted, Dead or Alive," even though the closest they ever came to being outlaws was watching Young Guns at the Perth Amboy Multiplex. Look at them...just like their audience, haven't changed a bit.
http://www.bullymag.com/7.23.01/photo-72301.asp