Unique recording  Bon Jovi 15 October 1988 Somerville, New Jersey 🏟️ warm-up for New Jersey Syndicate Tour 🎛️🎶🎧-> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BPmfEXYejvg On July 10th 2020, the hAnD90 channel uploaded a remastered audio of a Bon Jovi concert that up until that point had only been available being wrongly labeled, as the band’s New Jersey album premiere at the Roseland Ballroom in New York, in September. It had also been completely unlistenable. Summer 2020 hAnD90 fixed both ailments, by adding it to his channel remastered, reworked and AI reconstructed if needed; And provided with the correct specs and labels. Yet from June 2022 to June 2023, when I created my playlists with all pre-1997 Bon Jovi recordings I could get my hands on, I had not included the October concert, not even in a wrongly labeled version. This is because of a simple reason: Although tour lists are provided by multiple sources (for example Google “New Jersey Tour Wikipedia”) pre-tour schedules are the work of specialists. Specialists, of which we have very few. And the only one I know, is the site BJ tours, and they have not covered the New Jersey Tour yet. At the time of writing this post, October 2023, their page New Jersey Syndicate Tour covers the first leg of the New Jersey Syndicate tour (Europe 1988), but nothing prior to that and nothing of the 14 months of concerts that would come after; Starting with Japan 31 December 1988 all the way up to the two shows (afternoon and evening) in Guadalajara, Mexico on the 17th of February 1990. In fact, for the site’s last finished project/ fully mapped out Keep the Faith Tour 1993, the pre-tour/ off-tour section has not been created yet either. And for good reason. My estimate is that creating one pre-tour/off-tour page, is about the same amount of work as covering an entire tour, including deciphering wrongly labeled locations. The latter being a hiccup that can occur due to an astonishing variety of reasons. The two most common reasons for wrongly labeled shows, are Jon calling out the biggest city nearby, instead of the actual name of the area the venue is at. Or it can be caused by the band visiting the same city twice in a year, and the bootlegs getting wrongly labeled as a result of it. But even untangling that is relatively easy, compared to researching off-tour concerts. The September/October mix up of the Somerville (Raritan Manor) recording, is due to the entire pre-tour period being poorly documented, and cannot be blamed on the same reasons as regular concert mix-ups can. And I will definitely not be the only one, who missed this entire section of this tour. Whatever Bon Jovi did off-tour, between the New Jersey album release party on the 19th of August 1988, and the first official concert on the 31st of October; We may never fully know. Although the hAnD90 description box indicates September’s unrecorded Roseland Ballroom gig, was one with all the balls and whistles! 

“where the venue was filled with both fan club members and press, the whole room was decorated like a beach with bikini waitresses, bars, sand and everything there was to it” 

source: description box from the 15 October 1988 concert

So although the list of concerts I have missed in my first 2022-2023 round of creating playlists, will probably have no end to it; In this case? The reason I missed Somerville (Raritan Manor), was an obvious one! It’s undocumented, meaning it doesn’t/didn’t show up on any of the lists I printed. 80s Bon Jovi off-tour concerts are quite simply uncharted territory. Off-tour concerts in general are notoriously poorly documented, and the BJ website has done an amazing job including those sections, on all tours 1995 and up!  To create a 1992-1993 off-tour list for the Keep the Faith Tour, but in particular getting an off-tour record for the even older tours like the New Jersey Syndicate Tour 1988-1990, is going to require obscene amounts of resources from the most dedicated fans, working together completing this puzzle. I would say it is unsure if all of them will ever see the light of day. But having said that, the Somerville (Raritan Manor) gig does illustrate, why these are really the diamonds in the rough, of 80s Bon Jovi fandom.

Once upon a time, off-tour in Somerville, New Jersey 1988

👩🏼‍💻 the story 16 October 2023

 

15 October 1988 Somerville (Raritan Manor), New Jersey 🎛️🎶🎧-> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BPmfEXYejvg

. We hear Bon Jovi opening with the cover Helter Skelter, which they would keep on the setlist until the These Days Tour in the 90s. Next up is the tried and tested party starter Wild In The Streets (Slippery When Wet album, 1986), but not before Jon has welcomed the crowd, including the legendary words:

“This (night) is a little preview of the New Jersey Syndicate Tour.”

Third is their breakthrough hit Runaway (1983), which although definitely no-frills, still stands out for its quality. In the early 90s they would outgrow the song but at this point they can still make it work, although no doubt not without effort. Then they go straight into the first song from the new album New Jersey , Homebound Train, which Jon introduces by:

“Want to go for a ride? Want to go for a ride with me? How about I take you home.”

Homebound Train follows, a song that would become a staple on the setlists of this tour, yet it was dropped after the Jersey Syndicate era. Homebound Train opens with the characteristic haunting intro; Richie’s howling guitar, Jon playing harmonica, and singing in a slow, sulky  way. Until there is a “Woo, woo!”, mimicking the sound of a train, and the fast-paced new song kicks in. Then it is, to quote Jon, “audience participation time”, where the crowd is offered the opportunity to sing You Give Love a Bad Name, but doesn’t know the first verse. At which it is unceremoniously skipped, and Jon picks it up and leads the way, from the first chorus and up. “As you may or may not have heard by now, we have a brand new album out, and it’s called New Jersey. And the rest of the world is just trying to understand why in the world I named this album New Jersey. Well, I guess they just have to come here, and find out.” The concert was played in Somerville, New Jersey, and with the new album being called New Jersey, Jon Bon Jovi could of course not NOT mention its name! The New Jersey album was released one month before this concert, so people could know the songs, if they had bought it. “This is something of the new album,” Jon Bon Jovi says before the upbeat Na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na of Born to be my Baby sets in! Another staple for the setlist, although unlike Homebound Train this one  would become a single and an evergreen. Born to be my Baby, with Jon chipping in with harmonica at the end of the song, has been played up until the end of the final months of the This House Is Not For Sale Tour (2019). Raritan Manor 1988, was one of the first times it was ever played live. Wanted Dead or Alive, opens with Richie Sambora solo on guitar. Although catchy and captivating, as Sambora would always manage to make these guitar songs, in this case it seems more like a filler in a bit of a low, unorchestrated moment of the show, than the strong intentional guitar song it is without fail, on a regular tour. Wanted Dead or Alive is performed acoustically, and the latter half in the album version, which gives it a best-of-both aura. Without missing a beat, the drums move into Living In Sin, another one from the New Jersey album. And what a song it would be! The song would end up being slowed down, dragged out, toyed with and lived through. It would become a center piece, the most intense song of a New Jersey Syndicate Tour show! You can already hear Jon improvising in the melody, screaming, and adding lyrics to this song, here in one of its very first renditions. Blood On Blood is played (new from the New Jersey album) and Bad Medicine (Slippery album 1986) These final two songs are cut-in, so incomplete, and we don’t know how many more songs were played that night in Somerville, New Jersey. But we do know what would follow: 16 months of touring the world, 31st October 1988 in Dublin, all the way to Guadalajara, Mexico on the 17th of February 1990. The wheels of New Jersey Syndicate Tour where already spinning, rolling, and rumbling, underneath the songs. And no one, would be going home for a very, very long time.  

Newly added

Bon Jovi’s pre-tour concert of 15 October 1988, in Somerville (Raritan Manor) New Jersey, has been added to: New in Bon Jovi concerts before 1997 And to the playlist: “Part I: Bon Jovi concerts on this day 10 June – 5 December (before 1997) https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLiGoDE3C06ScAo9UN4GyhtQWYfl3d6jMT” at October 15.