Meeting Jon Bon Jovi

I've written here before about my childhood affection for Bon Jovi.  Their ponderous poodle rock stirred the New Jersey steel worker in my middle class Midlands soul.  So imagine my excitement on Friday evening when I came across a Jovi-mentary charting their progress through a recent mega tour.  Already well-refreshed, I was thrilled at the thought of howling along to a few Keep The Faith era classics.  The slammed door and angry footsteps stomping up the stairs suggested that my girlfriend didn't share my enthusiasm, but no matter.  I had a can of lager to keep the evening alive - bring it on!  "Mother mother, tell your children....(FAITH!)"

It wasn't quite the blast I was expecting.  Shot in arty black and white, it was more a testament to Jon Bon Jovi's self image as a Very Important Business Dude than a hearty compilation of the classics.  The majority was images of huge empty arenas, stagey pre-show motivational shouting and the post-show scramble for hot towels and a nice comfy seat in a limo.  But it was all made worthwhile by JBJ's posturing as a deeply serious man, rather than (for example) a very silly man who wrote If I Was Your Mother, the creepiest love song ever.

"I've been the CEO of a multinational corporation for twenny years" he snarls down the phone in the lounge of his private jet, perhaps underestimating the contribution of the band's management and record company in the BJ 1980's heyday when his daily schedule was:

12.00:  Wake up
13.00 - 16.00:  Do hair
16.00 - 19.00:  Photo shoot with Playboy models and a hosepipe
20.00 - late:  Sing silly songs to packed arena, eat swan burgers with Playboy models

Even better is the part where he corners Tico Torres, the band's resolutely blue collar drummer, to moan that the US baseball authorities are prevaricating over letting him buy a team.  Like one businessman talking to another, he gives Tico his most earnest face.  "Thing is, man, it's not that they're bein' hostile or stoopid, they're just being naive, know what I mean?".  "Yeah, bawss, naive is what it is" replies Tico, eyes darting from side to side as he considers whether a fart gag or opening a bottle of beer with his teeth will lighten the mood.

All this reminded me of the time a few years ago when I met the band, sort of. I was at my previous company's global marketing director's meeting, spending a few days in a windowless hotel meeting room feigning enthusiasm for the finer points of online marketing stategy whilst filling an A4 pad with ever more complex doodles.  In the way of all lower-middle management droogs we hit the town in the evening, thirsty but ever-wary of saying something career-destroying, and eventually bowled into the entrance of a Knightsbridge hotel for some post-closing time drinks.

Due to some massive security failure that CEO Bon Jovi probably fired someone for, we stormed the entrance at exactly the moment that he and the band stepped out of their limo, meaning that for a few seconds we marched through the atrium as a little gang.  One of my US colleagues grabbed Jon's hand, claimed shared New Jersey heritage and got a stoney faced "How you doin'?" before the well trained hotel staff swung into action.

The boys from the band were ushered into a perfumed inner sanctum of champagne flutes and sticky sausages.  One look at our half-mast TM Lewin ties consigned us to a separate bar comprising two glass tables and no chairs in the corridor that led to the gents.  I don't remember much about the rest of the evening, except that I came home in a fug of £6-a-bottle beer fumes and while arranging my clothes for the next day treated my girlfriend to a noisy rendition of Living On A Prayer with new lyrics ("Ironing In My Pants").

I can't say I noticed any obviously envious glances from the band that night.  But, having seen the documentary, the thought occurs - JBJ was actually thinking "Wow - business guys.  These dudes have worn suits and talked about ROI and hit rate for the whole day and all I've done is eat caviar on the Concorde.  Where did it all go wrong?".