Originally Posted by Supersonic
I remember seeing a gig on Thursday, needing to go to work on Friday very early in the morning but because we breathed Bon Jovi we were in such a rush that none of that mattered. We ended the tour in Hyde Park, had a holiday of 3 days together, both had a girlfriend at that time who went with us, it was all brilliant. Apart from Bon Jovi, who performed a terrible show in front of 120.000 people. Sure, it had been a wonderful experience, but this was mostly due to it being such a big event. When we got home, we both lost a bit of interest in Bon Jovi, the shows in America weren’t as fantastic as our last great show in Amsterdam, and there weren’t any exciting things happening in Bon Jovi land either. Later the release of TLFR followed, me and Thierry still had a lot to talk about, but I started to get my kicks from another band; Oasis. They were actually fun to follow because of all the great interviews they did, and they showed me a side of being in a band I really missed when seeing Bon Jovi; fun.
Then came the HAND album. Another disappointment and with the Norht American leg of the HAND tour being absolutely terrible I didn’t expect much of the tour in Europe either. I hadn’t saved any money for Bon Jovi (it was going to my soon to be girlfriend) and I just went to Dusseldorf with the hope that at least the first show in Europe would be great. And it was, as many of you know. Dry County was played and Jon was on fire the entire show. Richie was half drunk though, but still. The show was ace and it restored a lot of faith in “my” band. I still remember phoning my love interest and saying “you’re missing so much, they play Dry County now” and even though I was in Germany and she was at home we both knew that we had that same feeling of getting something special. After Dusseldorf I was broke and my brother and my girlfriend both payed a part of my ticket for the show in Holland, which turned out to be the worst Bon Jovi show I had ever heard or seen. As much as they repaired about my faith in them during the show in Dusseldorf, they all threw it away in Nijmegen with Jon’s attitude of not giving a **** about the entire show. I even stopped buying CD singles, I just didn’t care anymore, and when tickets went on sale for their country project I thought it was all garbage. I bought a ticket for Gelsenkirchen and that was it. Gelsenkirchen was alright, nothing special, but then the band started to shake things up. Living In Sin in Stuttgart, Wild Is The Wind in Hamburg, and they convinced me to buy a ticket for the show in Frankfurt. Once again I got on the road with Thierry, asked another friend of mine to join me again and we did not regret this at all. This was the band I had fallen in love with back in 2001. This was what I loved about Bon Jovi, and this was what convinced me to do another show because one show like this wasn’t enough. The next show was Amsterdam, which got us on an even bigger high. I remember having a sports tournament the next day and getting home at 4 in the morning, but because once again we were on such a high me and a friend did the sports tournament without any trouble. The thing with Bon Jovi nowadays is that they more often do not deliver than they actually do deliver. I can live with not finding The Circle as good as you think it is, I can live with that. What I have trouble with accepting, and what I always have trouble with is that this band can do so much better, yet we always have to settle for less because they can get away with it. Like Tom (letitrock) said recently, I think many have lowered their standards so much after every release that they fail to see how it really isn’t that good. I don’t want Bon Jovi to release an album that you can play just for fun. I want Bon Jovi to release an album that you can feel, with guitar solo’s that mean something, with vocals that rip through the song and with a band that’s actually feeling the song while playing it instead of coming across as a bunch of session musicians. The same goes when playing a show. I want them to be into the show, and for this Jon is mostly to blame. When I became a fan of Bon Jovi back in 1998 there was nothing but talk of how good this band was. After the Crush tour there was mostly talk like “they’re no longer as good as they used to be”. The Lost Highway tour proved that they actually can be as good as they used to be. They, and mostly Jon, most of the time just doesn’t care. And if a singer doesn’t care, why should a fan care?
When Bon Jovi plays a good show, they’re untouchable for me. They deliver something I can’t do myself and I look up to them. However, I’ve become a better guitar player ever since I became a fan, I’ve started composing my own songs and I just know that if I could tweak their songs a bit they’d be so much better. Yet it all feels like “yeah, that’s good enough, that’ll do”. The same goes with the guitar solo’s, I can do better now, and would Bon Jovi release The Circle as their first album it would tank, so yes, I can do better when given the opportunity. It’s not a matter off bluff or big talk, I just know it, and I’m sure there’s other people on this board who also know that they could create better stuff than what Bon Jovi has released the past few years.
As you have read by now, Bon Jovi has been of influence for a large part of my life. Travelling, meeting people abroad, growing up, jamming together, Bon Jovi often played a part in that, and for that reason alone I like this band. I don’t love this band, they’re not in my blood (anymore). Me and Thierry still meet a few times per year, both of our lives have become different yet when we’re talking about Bon Jovi we’re always on the same page. I think that they’re like a sports team that loses more than they win. You talk about the loss of the game with your friends, complain a lot about the trainer, yet you go see the next match with the hope they’ll do better. And when doing so you see a lot of the world. This tour I’ll be seeing New York and maybe even South America in 2011 if my finances allow me to. Sure, I can go visit both countries without seeing Bon Jovi but everyone here who’s been to another country and has seen Bon Jovi there knows that it’s the icing on the cake. With all the money I’ve spend on this band, with all the travelling I’ve done, with all the copies of CD’s I’ve bought and with all the shit shows I’ve seen you can say I’m a bigger supporter of this band than any of the people who tell me to go to hell every time I post a rather negative opinion about this band. When I play any album before Crush, and especially Keep The Faith, it reminds me of a hungry band. As as long as I see that band perform at least once on a tour there’s a reason for me to keep believing in Bon Jovi. If the passion is completely gone, my passion for this band is over.
So that’s why I am a fan.
Salaam Aleikum,
Sebastiaan
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11-12-2009, 06:24 PM
