Thank You, Goodnight: The Bon Jovi Story consists of four one-hour-plus episodes, and in all that time the documentary doesn’t get around to answering the burning question that any old-school fan worth their salt should be yelling from the rooftops: when the fuck is Richie Sambora coming back?
That’s all I care about, and it’s really all that matters. Unless and until that issue is resolved, the 40-year legacy that this career-spanning retrospective intends to celebrate is and forever will be tarnished — each further Bon Jovi release a new nadir as well as a slap in the face of fans who remember what made this band great in the first place.
The miniseries wants to sell us the idea that Richie left of his own volition, and that “A lot of energy was spent on getting him back;” I ain’t buying it, though. It’s like the ending of Schindler’s List; whatever Jon Bon Jovi did to bring Richie back (and which obviously wasn’t enough), he could have done more, and still could do more.
I mean, has he tried literally getting on his hands and knees, crawling on his belly, and begging ‘come back, pretty please with sugar on top’? If he hasn’t, he should, because the band’s current lineup is a fucking travesty.
Consider this: John Shanks, who co-produced What About Now, the last Bon Jovi album to nominally feature Sambora, and the first to unofficially feature Shanks himself as a musician — he has since performed on every subsequent BJ record — is now the band’s touring guitarist. Coincidence?
To be fair, though, Thank You, Goodnight is not a one-sided, ‘history is written by the winners’ kind of deal. Richie gets a chance to tell his side of the story, and his account hits closer to the truth for the simple reason that he isn’t afraid to call it like he sees it.
Maybe Jon has a point when he says, “John [Shanks] and I end up writing [and recording] What About Now” because Richie didn’t “show up.” And perhaps Sambora is exaggerating when he claims that Jon “had the whole thing kind of planned out, which basically was telling me, ‘Hmm, I can do it without you’” (although I wouldn’t rule that out, either).
Richie’s assessment of What About Now, however, is right on the money: ‘Don’t sound like Bon Jovi.’ It just didn’t sound like us because I wasn’t there.” It’s Jon’s last name on the album covers, but there is no Bon Jovi without Richie Sambora.
And if you don’t believe that “There was [sic] not a lot of people in [Jon’s] life, and probably still isn’t [sic], that would be an honest mirror. Like I [i.e.. Richie] would tell him … ‘You’re gonna sing that, really? People are gonna throw shit at you,’” then just go and listen to Bon Jovi 2020 (worst BJ album name ever) and “its heavy-handed rhythms and earnest murk” (and such embarrassing, barf-inducing lyrics as “Although I’ll keep my social distance/What this world needs is a hug/Until we find the vaccination/There’s no substitute for love.” Ugh).
Moreover, Jon had already pulled kind of the same shit with original bassist Alec John Such — crediting him on albums that he didn’t play on before finally kicking him out. “Alec played to the best of his ability, but in truth, the man behind the curtain was Hugh [McDonald]. The reason we became … such a better band by the third album was because Hugh was the one playing the bass.”
Says McDonald, “The work that was coming out was stuff that I was proud of. That was hard because I couldn’t really say, “Yeah, that’s me.’” That lends support to Richie’s assertion that “half of my job was to not say that,” in addition to being “just the hired gun guitar player” that he feels he was perceived as, he would “write lyrics, melodies, [and] come up with concepts for songs.”
So yeah, Jon screwed up big time. He had one of the best guitarists in history, and he blew it. And it’s not like Jon isn’t at least as good a songwriter as Richie, and a better singer; that said, Jon needs Richie more than Richie needs Jon because more is expected of Jon, seeing as how he’s the one committed to dragging the band’s carcass on (he once released a song titled “Never Say Die,” and he meant it).
Both men have pretty good solo stuff to their names (Jon’s Blaze of Glory and Destination Anywhere, Sambora’s Stranger in This Town, Undiscovered Soul, and Aftermath of the Lowdown), but no one is ever going to demand prime Bon Jovi-level material from Richie (though, paradoxically, his output easily blows Bon Jovi Mark II right out of the water — as do, for that matter, Blaze of Glory and Destination Anywhere).
It’s very noble of Jon that he feels he has an obligation to drummer Tico Torres and keyboardist David Bryan (the other two founding members), but he might have been better off going, and staying, solo until all the Bon Jovi pieces were back in place. Either that or hold off the documentary until Jon is good and ready to ride off into the sunset once and for all, not unlike Paul Stanley and Gene Simmons in A&E’s KISStory.
Thank You, Goodnight doesn’t skimp on the historical material, via archival footage and recordings and oral recollections — and the saga of the one glam metal band (for lack of a better term) that not only survived unscathed but even thrived during the grunge period cannot not be of interest —, but it would resonate more and we could reflect on it better if it were a finished thing (finished as in ‘complete,’ not ‘stick a fork in it, it’s done’).
Because let’s face it, as much of a ‘you ain’t seen nothing, the best is yet to come’ vibe as Jon strains for, the future doesn’t look to be of the ‘gotta wear shades’ variety (I know that was a song about nuclear disaster, but you get the idea).
Much is made about whether the band, especially Jon, is up to par following the pandemic, and insofar as it isn’t, Jon attributes it to physical and vocal wear and tear. Thus, he goes to great lengths, including surgery, to shape up.
What he’s too deep in denial to see is that all the acupuncture and chiropractic in the world do nothing to address the elephant in the room (being pseudosciences, they do nothing in general, but that’s neither here nor there); the band’s latter-day sharp, steady, and ongoing decline (contrasting their own early meteoric rise), artistically and performance-wise, began with the Jon-Richie divorce, and it won’t bounce back up until they make up.
But by stubbornly and half-blindly forging ahead (to his credit, he does mention a couple of times that he can’t help getting blinders on), all that Jon is doing is not only allowing the damage already done to metastasize, but actively contributing to it.
While convalescing from surgery, Jon spent most of his time tending to the massive BJ archives. Maybe he should fully embrace that ‘gatekeeper’ role, helping to consolidate the body of work, rather than diluting it.
Make no mistake, though; on a personal basis, I get it. Nobody should be beholden to someone else for life. Then again, we’re not talking about just two people here; we’re discussing something that’s bigger than Richie and Jon individually, but it’s the two of them together who make it larger than life.
Counterintuitively, I would recommend Thank You, Goodnight to casual Bon Jovi fans — the ones who “didn’t know anything existed before ‘It’s My Life;’” the people who “thought that Crush was the first record.” They won’t know or care who’s playing guitar.
Diehards like me, though, might not be able to get over the Brundle-fly in the ointment, inevitably turning what ought to be a celebration into a living wake. All things considered, the title may be unintentionally appropriate; perhaps it’s time to finally put this once-great rock ‘n’ roll band to sleep.
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