Jon Bon Jovi gets naked like never before in the documentary of more than five hours in length that premieres on 40 years of one of the great bands in historywith confessions for example about the loss of his voice or the departure of Richie Sambora.
“Ten years later I still haven’t come to terms with it,” he acknowledges in the fourth and final chapter of this production, which has been available in the catalog since this Friday. Disney+ under the title ‘Thank You, Goodnight: The Story of Bon Jovi’.
From the band’s humble origins in New Jersey (USA) to the reflections from its vocalist just a few months agoa year after his operation on his vocal cords, few details escape in a narrative so exhaustive that in some moments it will only be to the taste of his most staunch followers.
One of its greatest attractions is undoubtedly the fact that it has had the fundamental voices of that story much more collective than some might think, including a Sambora who, at one point, claimed that he was “more than just Bon Jovi’s hired guitarist.”
One of the great engines of the narrative is his stampede in 2013 of the ranks of the band that he had helped elevate with his contributions to lyricsmelodies and voices and as one of the most virtuoso six-string musicians in history: without explanation, he left the group stranded on the plane that was to take them to the first of the 80 concerts of their imminent tour.
“I don’t regret having left it, but I do regret how I did it,” he admits more than a decade later in this documentary series, before asking apologies to his colleagues and the “fans” of the groupmany of whom never accepted the incorporation of Phil X to replace him.
He states that “Jon and the group knew why” he didn’t get on that plane and goes on to quote the wear and tear on a 30 year marriages with his classmates and how difficult it was for him to have spent all that time away from home just when his only daughter was coming of age.
Faced with this testimony, the group leader admits that for a long time he thought that Sambora’s escape was It is his fault and he assures that in all this time they have not spoken about the issue. “And look, I’ve tried!” he exclaims, before confessing that he still hasn’t lost hope of his return.
It is not the only moment of vulnerability exhibited by the charismatic vocalist, who from the first chapter shares with frustration that since that fateful year of 2013 sHis throat again did not live up to expectations.
Then came a crisis of several years in which he was not able to “even look at the guitar” and a pandemic that stopped the world in its tracks. When things seemed to be getting back on track, His wife Dorothea confronted him after a concert in Nashville that he thought had gone out perfectly: “It hasn’t been great and it’s time to quit.”
He then decides to undergo an operation, “a kind of lifting for the vocal cords” which took him three months without singing anything but which gave him time to look back at a lot of discarded material that can be heard at times in this footage.
From maturity and without omissions, it thus celebrates all of Bon Jovi’s experiences with his colleagues David Bryan, Tico Torres and Hugh McDonald, among others, milestones such as the making of the album ‘Slippery When Wet’ (1986) and less pleasant moments such as the addictions that forced, for example, the departure of Alec John Such, to whom the documentary is dedicated.
Precisely against drugs they came to participate in a historic first concert in the Soviet Union with Motley Crue and Aerosmith. According to testimonies, they did it to free their former manager Doc McGhee from jail, who had been accused of marijuana trafficking, and they all flew together on a plane to Moscow… which was not exactly lacking in narcotics.
