Bon Jovi Tour in New Jersey Area...

Bon Jovi tour comes back to the New Jersey area

WHAT: Rock.
WHEN: 7:30 p.m. Thursday, Friday and March 5.
WHERE: Madison Square Garden, Seventh Avenue and 32nd Street, Manhattan; 212-465-MSG1.
HOW MUCH: $41.30, $52.90, $69.40, $94.50, $175.35, $331 (fees included in all prices).
FOR MORE INFORMATION: bonjovi.com.

He is not the first musician to view albums as artwork, vinyl collections as galleries. Richie Sambora stares at his own collection, knowing many would think that 99-cent downloads have rendered this hobby impractical.

"I mean, the album experience is now dead," the Bon Jovi guitarist said during a conference call with drummer Tico Torres. "And it's an unfortunate thing, because that was something that was a piece of art in a way."

Well, vinyl has been limping around for a while, followed by tapes, then CDs …

And yet Bon Jovi is not limping around. The band members are not scrounging for musical crumbs, even as more and more musicians are reportedly chasing fewer and fewer dollars.

In 2010, no band on the planet grossed more money on the road than Bon Jovi, according to Billboard. If the album well has run dry — and let's be honest: the band's "Greatest Hits — The Ultimate Collection" did debut at No. 1 on several charts late last year — the road has not.

If Sambora's record collection belongs in a museum, the band that funded that collection does not.

"Things always change," Sambora said, "and we've got to keep ourselves interested. And I think that's the reason that we've been together for almost 30 years now, because we keep each other challenged. We challenge our production team. We challenge everybody to just keep it going and moving in an evolutionary direction. That's really the truth. And it makes us all happy. Those three hours or 2 1/2 hours onstage every night is what we live for."

So get ready for three more nights around here before the band vanishes for a while. Bon Jovi plays Madison Square Garden Thursday and Friday, then has a third show on March 5 before the money train exits these parts.

"We're going all the way to August 1 this year," Torres said. "When we're done with the States, we're going to the rest of Europe. And I think we need to take a break. I mean, it's a long, expensive tour since last February. And not only just the tour, but putting it together, doing the records … it's a long process."

The process featured those four reserved-for-the-archives gigs at New Meadowlands Stadium last year, a series of shows during which Jon Bon Jovi injured his leg.

"Yes, we carried him off the stage, man," Sambora said. "Put him on a gurney."

The band did not cancel any tour dates. Sambora called the incident "inspiring."

"It was amazing because two days later we had a bunch more gigs," he said. "And you know what? They fixed him up and he walked out there and for the first gig he looked like a Civil War unit, but sang his [butt] off.

"I broke my arm at one point and I still played 20 stadium shows with a broken arm," Sambora said. "And he looks at me and he said, 'If you could do that, I can do this.' "

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