Jon Bon Rockin' the Vote

Saturday, October 6, 2012

Is this heaven? No, it's Iowa.

Jon Bon Jovi was in Iowa yesterday imploring Iowans to get out and vote.

I suspect the presidential election doesn’t hinge on pretty-boy rocker Jon Bon Jovi strumming an acoustic rendition of “Livin’ on a Prayer” on a chilly autumn night in downtown Des Moines.

Bon Jovi performed the same four-song set in two different city parks Friday, in Iowa City and Des Moines, on behalf of President Barack Obama’s re-election campaign. Friday’s nightcap in Western Gateway Park, in the shadow of the downtown insurance industry, was a “concert” only by the most generous definition of the word.

Let’s label these things for what they are: cattle calls to sign up waves of voters and harvest as many early ballots as possible. Forget the quaint notion of Election Day in Iowa. This time of year is becoming a full-blown election season, with our swing-state undecided voters constantly in the campaigns’ cross-hairs.

Maybe the Department of Natural Resources should begin to share oversight of elections with the secretary of state.

You can’t “just hope for change” this time around, Bon Jovi implored fans. “You can effect change.”

Iowans seem to have a fondness for letting guys from New Jersey tell us how to vote. Bon Jovi rallies Democrats, while New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie fulfills a similar role for Republicans.

Friday night’s fresh meat was an estimated 2,500 to 3,000 people. Anybody could get a ticket as they walked up. All they had to do was fill out complete information including their name, email address, phone number and ZIP Code.

The crowd appeared to be dominated by middle-age fans for whom the Cold War meant the 1980s, not just Friday night’s weather.

LeAnn Larsen of Des Moines was pressed up against the barricades with her 18-year-old daughter, Michelle.

Larsen, who enjoys a view of Western Gateway Park from her own downtown insurance office, is one of those coveted undecided voters who’s passionate about taxes, jobs and housing. Those issues will sway her more than the words of her idol Bon Jovi.

Michelle, meanwhile, registered to vote for the first time upon entering Friday’s gig. But mother and daughter will wait until November to vote.

“I like the feel of putting the ballot in the machine,” Larsen said.

Bon Jovi performed while flanked by an acoustic guitarist and violinist, with “Wanted Dead or Alive” — not applying to voters, I presume — as his final tune.

You can read the rest of the article here

You can find all the photos in my photobucket.

JonBon on the Campaign Trail

Thursday, October 4, 2012

Yep, our favorite front man will be out on the campaign trail, stumping for Mr. President this weekend.

From Press-Citizen.com

Jon Bon Jovi will play in Iowa City on Friday as part of the Obama campaign’s early voting push.

The acoustic show will take place on the University of Iowa’s Hubbard Park sometime on Friday afternoon.

Free tickets will be available starting Tuesday at the Obama for America office, 321 Market Street. Tickets are also available at the Obama offices in Coralville, Cedar Rapids, Marion, North Liberty, and Washington.

The show is also expected to feature politicians and other leaders, but the full lineup has not yet been released.

Bon Jovi will also play a show in Des Moines later on Friday.

And from The Republic:

LAS VEGAS — President Barack Obama's campaign is planning a get-out-the-vote event in Las Vegas featuring singer Jon Bon Jovi.

The campaign says the Early Vote event is set for Saturday morning at the House of Blues inside the Mandalay Bay resort.

It'll focus on the issues of the presidential election and encourage Nevada residents to vote as early as possible.

Jon Bon Jovi will perform a free acoustic show. Tickets for the concert are available at some Obama campaign offices on a first-come, first-served basis.

Actors Aisha Tyler and Jesse Williams will also be at the event.

Review: Aftermath of the Lowdown

Wednesday, October 3, 2012

From the Weekender:

ALBUM REVIEW: Sambora makes statement with new disc

The past few years had seen some personal hiccups for Bon Jovi guitarist Richie Sambora. After some well-publicized substance and relationship issues, not to mention a smattering of discontent with songwriting partner Jon Bon Jovi, Sambora’s fortunes looked to be in decline.

On this, his third solo album, Sambora shakes his demons with hard-wrought soul, a subjective songwriting pen, and guitar squalor not seen since Bon Jovi’s 1988 rock masterwork, “New Jersey.”

Perhaps the most consistent work within his solo discography, this record is noticeably ripe with a sense of rebirth. A detour from the recent Bon Jovi trend of country-influenced safety, Richie instead takes on cuts like the Deep Purple/Hendrix groove-machine “Burn The Candle Down,” his guitar fuzzed out like it’s 1970 all over again, while pumping Hammond B3 organ slathers the track to upper echelons of heaviness.

“Take A Chance On The Wind” is similarly thick in sonic structure, Sambora using the soul in his voice to proclaim he’s a man no longer mired in life’s quicksand.

Any Sambora project would be remiss without the ballads. The delicate, acoustic musical lace of “I’ll Always Walk Beside You” is as sentimental and beautiful as anything he’s written for Bon Jovi, showing us why Sambora has sold a few hundred million albums. “Weathering The Storm” continues Sambora’s newly crystalline headspace, the guitarist testifying “you just shed your skin and start back up again.”

This is Sambora using all of his musical vocabulary to rock off the chains of a bottomed-out recent past in what is easily his most expressive solo outing.

Putting a little distance between the Bon Jovi machine provokes a sweet-sounding, creative healing.

And a link to Tony K's review over at AntiMusic.