Bon Jovi was honoured with the inaugural Icon Award at the 2018 iHeartRadio Music Awards. They also performed "It's My Life" and "You Give Love a Bad Name". I was at work when the award ceremony was taking place so I had to catch up later.
After reading people's comments about how awful Jon sounded, this actually wasn't as bad as I was expecting. Not that it was particularly great, either. I don't know if he's done permanent damage somewhere along the line, but he appears to have a vocal coach again so I'm hoping he can get back to sounding consistently good.
I did, however, renew my Tidal subscription just so I could watch the new "When We Were Us" music video, which dropped exclusively on Tidal today. If you're a subscriber, you can watch it below.
The video features shots of the current lineup interspersed with footage from previous tours (mostly Lost Highway and The Circle/Greatest Hits tours from what I can tell). When it's up on YouTube (probably in two or three weeks, if the previous THINFS videos were any indication), I'll update this post with the link.
Bon Jovi's performance of "When We Were Us" on The Late Show with Stephen Colbert also went to air. In my previous blog post, I referred to the iHeartRadio performance as the live debut of "When We Were Us". Technically the Colbert performance was the live debut, because it was recorded back in January, but the iHeartRadio gig was the first chance anyone who wasn't at the Colbert taping got to hear "When We Were Us" live. I reckon Jon sounded better on Colbert than he did at iHeartRadio, but you can be the judge of that.
Bon Jovi played a gig for iHeartRadio in New York which was streamed live on the web. It was a Thursday where I am and I was at work so I couldn't watch it as it was happening, but I did catch up later on. "When We Were Us", which will be on the re-release of This House Is Not For Sale, made its live debut.
Jon said he's had contact with Richie Sambora and Alec John Such and they're looking forward to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame induction.
It was also announced Bon Jovi will receive the iHeartRadio Icon Award at the iHeartRadio Music Awards on March 11.
Here's the full concert:
The set list was as follows:
New York City, NY, USA - iHeartRadio Theater - February 21, 2018
RSO has dropped some more new tunes. One is a Richie Sambora-led original, "Forever All the Way", which I really liked on the first listen. The other is a cover of Sonny & Cher's "I Got You Babe", which RSO has been teasing for a long time, even describing themselves as "Sonny & Cher on steroids" on numerous occasions since getting together. Given Richie dated Cher after she divorced Sonny Bono, I always found the comparison a little odd but that's not my thing to judge. 😉 I will say that I enjoyed RSO's version of the song a lot more than I'd expected to.
The new tracks came out on February 9 and were billed as a Valentine's Day present to fans, presumably because they're both love songs.
Jon Bon Jovi was just on The Late Show with Stephen Colbert two nights in a row (January 16 and 17). First to do this interview, in which he discussed:
meeting Colbert at a pre-Grammys party hosted by Clive Davis;
I read somewhere that they also recorded a performance of their new song "When We Were US" that's slated for broadcast around the time the single is officially released, but maybe someone can confirm this?
Jon Bon Jovi appeared on The Howard Stern Show on Sirius XM Radio on January 17. During the show, it was announced that Howard Stern will be the one to induct Bon Jovi into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in April. "When We Were US", a new Bon Jovi single that will be released on February 23, was also played for the first time on the show. Here's the song in full, recorded from the broadcast:
Jon Bon Jovi was recently interviewed by Brian Koppelman for his podcast The Moment. The episode aired on January 9, 2018.
In the hour-long interview, Jon talked about:
getting his start playing in bar bands as a teenager and working at Power Station Studios;
how "Runaway" came to fruition;
burning out and gradually learning to appreciate special moments in his career;
how the original Bon Jovi band was formed;
his songwriting process, including how he and Richie Sambora complemented each other as songwriters;
the importance of the arts;
the gaping hole left by Richie on the Because We Can Tour and 2015 Asian Tour and how others, especially David Bryan, stepped up;
Bon Jovi's influences versus the hard rock bands they opened for early in their career;
collaborating with Desmond Child and later Billy Falcon;
the validation of finally getting into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame;
his upcoming business venture: making wine with his son Jesse.
Jon also said Bon Jovi intends to play 30 shows in March, and is planning to tour on a smaller scale from now on (long breaks, fewer stadiums). They still haven't announced tour dates though, so if it's going ahead in March, they're leaving it pretty late. (The interview was conducted in December, I believe.)
This was Jon's first podcast interview (not including radio interviews that were later made available as podcasts) and I thought it was pretty good. Jon seems more relaxed and candid than he has been in the past. And there's some swearing but nothing you haven't heard before. 😉
