A Christmas Miracle...

Bon Jovi on the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame: 

'It's a Christmas Miracle'

Almost no band that started after the 1970s has been more successful than Bon Jovi. They have sold a reported 130 million records and packed just about every stadium in the world many times over. Their songs are inescapable on classic-rock radio (not to mention karaoke bars) and their last four new albums hit Number One on the Billboard 200. Despite all that, they only appeared on a single Rock and Roll Hall of Fame ballot before finally getting in this year, nearly a decade after first becoming eligible. Frontman Jon Bon Jovi shared his views on why that happened with Howard Stern last year, but presumably all is forgiven now that they are finally in. We spoke with drummer Tico Torres and keyboardist David Bryan a couple of days after they heard the big news.

How did you first hear you were in?
Tico Torres: Jon called me. It's something that's iconic in a sense. A lot of my friends are in it. It's pretty prestigious. The fact that it covers all types of music is a beautiful thing. Of course, there's so many other people that have yet to be in there like [John] Coltrane. Elvin Jones was my drum teacher for God's sake.

How about you, David?
David Bryan: The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame carrier pigeon dropped by my house and delivered the note. [Laughs]

What were your first reactions?
David Bryan: It was great. There's a lot of people that are in it. There are a lot of people that aren't in it and deserve to be in it. There's a lot of people that are going to be in it. It's a nice recognition of 25 years after 1984, which is when our first record came out. We're what I call a current classic. We still have a Number One record and we're still out there touring the entire earth and selling out stadiums everywhere, and yet we're still a classic. It's a great thing.

Tico Torres: And we're old!

Did the news surprise you at all?
Tico Torres: I was elated. It was nice to tell my mom and my son. He was the first one. He's 13. I told him right away. I had to tell my mom. We grew up annoying our parents, making noise and having band practice. For me, it's been going on since '67. If anyone deserves the first mention, it would be my mom. Our parents.

David, what does this mean to you on a personal level?
David Bryan: When you look at it, its almost a journey of your peers. You're in with people you grew up with. They were my heroes, the reason why I play rock & roll. It's an honor to be amongst them. It's a nice nod from the industry. We've been eligible since 2009, so it's nice to be recognized.

Did it ever bother you that it took this long?
Tico Torres: There's only so much room. Again, David mentioned this, there's a lot of people that should be in before us that have since passed, like Joe Cocker, guys that made statements in life that we grew up with. It's an ongoing adventure of music. It also brings to light a lot of music of people that gets passed to younger people, people just getting into music. They can actually go backwards and research and learn from it.

David Bryan: We were at the inaugural, way before the Hall of Fame was built, we played that concert in Cleveland. We had Eric Burdon with us. There were so many greats that night, from Al Green to Little Richard to Jerry Lee Lewis. It was a pretty special event and it's wild that this many years later we're amongst them and there's a building now. It's all good.

They're taking in the two of you, Jon, Richie Sambora and Alec John Such. Do you think those are the right ones? Did they miss anybody?
Tico Torres: That pretty much covers the band when we started.

David Bryan: That was us guys living the dream, getting on a bus with no guarantees in any way shape or form or anything. It was, "Let's go out and make this happen." And we actually did. For me, it's a Christmas miracle.

Tico Torres: It's funny. You grow up listening to these great musicians and then you get a certain status in your environment as a musician where you actually get to play together and meet each other and jam. You always think, "Gee, I was born too late." But then you get better and better and fall in line and you're almost in the same schoolhouse even though you're younger. You get to hang out and play with your peers.

It's going to be you guys, the Moody Blues, the Cars, Dire Straits and Nina Simone. There tends to be an all-star jam at the end of the night. Can you think of any song that would work everyone?
David Bryan: That has to be the hardest part of the night because everyone has great songs. You can do a standard blues song or something. I don't know. I guess we'll figure it out when we're in the room.

Bands usually get three songs. Can you take a guess at which three songs you'll do?
Tico Torres: I guess we'll figure that out. It's kind of new to us. You have to include the songs that got us to this point. It's a hard pick. We'll figure it out.

David Bryan: We're trying to wrap our heads around it now and figure it all out.

Bands often play with former members at the induction ceremony. Are you down to play with Richie Sambora and Alec John Such that night?
Tico Torres: Absolutely.

David Bryan: Yeah. Why not?

Tico Torres: They are a huge part of us. We'd love it if they played with us.

Do you keep in touch with Alec?
Tico Torres: Honestly, he's a mystery sometimes. The hard part is finding him.

David Bryan: Alec is definitely a moving target.

He played with you guys in 2001. The fans are always very curious about him. He's the mystery man of Bon Jovi to so many people.
Tico Torres: He's always been the mystery man of Bon Jovi, even then he was like 007.

Do you think he'll show up?
Tico Torres: I think so.

David Bryan: I would hope so. The idea is that it's a celebration of what we were and what we are, so that was definitely what we were and we are what we are now. I think its a celebration of both those things. You'll see the current lineup and then see the original. It should be a fun night.

Many people will argue that Hugh McDonald should be inducted since he's been there for so long.
Tico Torres: He's a big part of the band. They should acknowledge that.

What are the future plans for Bon Jovi?
David Bryan: We're going to keep touring. That's what we do. We love to make records and we love to tour. We did a handful of shows this year down in South America and played a bunch of big stadiums and Rock in Rio. Next year, we're putting plans together and we're going to do some shows, do what we do.

So few bands are able to play those soccer stadiums you guys headline. 
Tico Torres: The hardest thing about those soccer stadiums is trying to find room in the soccer schedule since that takes precedent. We're lucky in South America that there wasn't much soccer that time of year. But it's incredible to still fill houses. A lot of it is because we try to stay current. We come up with new material and songs and try to reinvent ourselves. It's a journey of a lifetime. I'm glad we're able to do that as a band and keep creating and expanding our limits.

I think a lot of fans in America don't realize that you're just as popular overseas, filling stadiums in Asia, Europe – it's a real global thing.
David Bryan: The fans realize the hell out of it. It's been something we always set out to to from the beginning, which was play the world. We'd go out and play 50 countries. We've done 50 concerts 30 times. They're familiar with us and we're familiar with them. It's a big world out there. One of the greatest things about our band is that we bring the American dream to the world. Here's a bunch of kids that were living in nowhere New Jersey and we made it through a lot of practice and a lot of work and a lot of luck. It shows the world, "If we did it, you can do it." It's that whole dream of "you can make it" that we bring to the world.

David, you've won Tony Awards. The band has won Grammy Awards. How does this compare to those honors?
David Bryan: Any honor is an honor. You can't really say which one is better than the next, but it's always wonderful when you're honored by your peers for your work. There's the Tonys and the Grammys we won and were nominated for. The Tonys were an amazing evening and this will be another amazing evening. It's wonderful to be recognized by our peers, and the fans. This was one of the biggest fan votes. Almost 2 million fans voted for us, which was huge.

I'm sure the night will be very emotional. 
Tico Torres: For me, I live in the present, in the moment. It's one of those experiences I look forward to without a preconceived notion other than I'm excited.

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And, They're In...

Bon Jovi Leads 2018 Rock & Roll Hall of Fame Inductees: ‘It’s About Time’

Can one million Bon Jovi fans possibly be wrong?

The formerly huge-haired New Jersey group leads the 2018 class of inductees into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame, the organization announced on Wednesday, an accomplishment that may have at one time been thought impossible. Long a commercial juggernaut, if scoffed at by music snobs, Bon Jovi also won the Rock Hall’s fan poll, receiving more than a million public votes, which counts as a single vote in the overall judging.

Asked about its inclusion, Jon Bon Jovi, the band’s lead singer, stammered a bit. “Well. I mean … we’re very happy about it,” he said in an interview. “And um, you know. It’s great.” He paused. “I really want to say it’s about time,” he added, using a colorful adjective omitted here.

The band will be inducted along with Nina Simone, the Cars, Dire Straits, the Moody Blues and Sister Rosetta Tharpe, who will receive an Award for Early Influence, at the 33rd induction ceremony on April 14 at the Public Auditorium in Cleveland; the show will be broadcast later by HBO and SiriusXM.

More than 1,000 industry figures, including artists and historians, cast ballots for induction. The Rock Hall takes into account “an artist’s musical influence on other artists, length and depth of career and the body of work, innovation and superiority in style and technique,” according to the criteria. Artists become eligible for the Rock Hall 25 years after the release of their first recording.

“Am I relieved? Yeah,” said Mr. Bon Jovi, whose group has been eligible since 2008. “Am I pleased? Absolutely. But,” he repeated, “It’s about time,” using the same colorful adjective.

Starting with its self-titled debut in 1984, Bon Jovi has released 13 studio albums, including “This House Is Not for Sale,” which topped the Billboard chart last year. The group’s hits like “Runaway,” “You Give Love a Bad Name,” “Livin’ on a Prayer” and “It’s My Life” have led to more than 100 million records sold (hence the 2004 box set titled “100,000,000 Bon Jovi Fans Can’t Be Wrong”).

Still, the band’s place in the pantheon — especially this one — has remained an open question. In “Sticky Fingers: The Life and Times of Jann Wenner and Rolling Stone Magazine,” a juicy new biography by Joe Hagan about the publishing mogul, who also co-founded the Rock Hall, Bon Jovi receives a special kind of scorn.

“I don’t think he’s that important,” Mr. Wenner, who remains chairman of the foundation that oversees inductions and was himself inducted in 2004, is quoted as saying in the book. “What does Bon Jovi mean in the history of music? Nothing.” Mr. Wenner also noted that Mr. Bon Jovi enlisted the billionaire investor Ron Perelman to help his case. (The band had been nominated once before, in 2011.)

Mr. Bon Jovi declined to respond directly to those slights. “There’s no reason to get into mudslinging,” he said, adding of the voters: “The truth is that they all came around and said, ‘You can’t deny the facts.’”

He continued: “We’re not on the ‘where are they now?’ tour. My last three tours were the biggest-grossing tours in the world. We’ve been blessed that people come and see us and there’s a big catalog of music. I wasn’t surprised, but I was pleased.”

The rest of the Rock Hall crop varies from more straightforward — Dire Straits and the Moody Blues, which both got in on their first try — to slightly left of center.

Though the Rock Hall has been criticized in the past for its lack of diversity, five of the nominees this year were acts led by women, while six featured nonwhite performers. Ultimately, two prominent black women — Ms. Simone and Sister Rosetta Tharpe (both deceased) — made it in as first-time nominees.

Other less down-the-middle rock ’n’ roll acts to receive their first look this year — including Kate Bush, Rage Against the Machine, Eurythmics and Radiohead — did not make the cut this time. Members of Radiohead publicly expressed ambivalence about the honor and booked a tour date in South America on the night of the induction ceremony.

Overall, this class of inductees also stands out for lack of acts especially popular with Gen X: Pearl Jam, Tupac Shakur, N.W.A, Nirvana, Red Hot Chili Peppers and Public Enemy have all been inducted in recent years. Additional nominees passed over this year included Depeche Mode, Judas Priest, J. Geils Band, the Zombies and LL Cool J, who would have been the seventh hip-hop act inducted.

Mr. Bon Jovi said he was looking forward to the ceremony, though he was not aware that all the groups present traditionally participate in an all-star jam at the end. “I really don’t watch award shows and get caught up in all that,” he said.

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New Music is Coming...

From USA Today

Coming in 2018: New Bon Jovi music

ASBURY PARK, N.J. — The new year means new music for Bon Jovi, said frontman Jon Bon Jovi during a Facebook Live on Thursday.

“We’re going to put out a couple of new songs to share with you for the new year,” said Bon Jovi. “I think they’re pretty good. Just two tracks to support what we hope to be sharing with you in 2018.”

Bon Jovi then gave a telling wink.

The new music will be the band’s follow up to This House Is Not for Sale, which debuted at No. 1 on Billboard’s album chart when it was released in November 2016.

Later in the broadcast, Bon Jovi said that current events will inform one of the songs.

“The current news has obviously been filtered for the past year to a place where I’m able to process some of it and put melodies to it, so there is some mention without being too opined,” Bon Jovi said. “It’s definitely prevalent in one of the two new songs.

“The world’s gone crazy — I’m looking to you guys, the next generation, to reinvent the wheel,” Bon Jovi said. “Be the future you want to be because we’re counting on you. It’s not being political if you’re worried about taking care of the planet that we live on and the people around you. We’re all more alike than we are different.”

Bon Jovi took a handful of questions that were posted to the band’s Facebook page and answered them for about 15 minutes. He spoke about maybe someday bringing the story of Tommy and Gina to Broadway, his growth as a songwriter and what the band has been rehearsing as of late.

Bon Jovi is expected to tour in 2018.

Songs from “These Days and a lot of the album tracks form ‘Keep the Faith,” Bon Jovi said of the rehearsal material. “We’ve been playing Dry Country again and Blaze of Glory, These Days and Hey God, so the rehearsals are feeling really great.”

The current lineup includes David Bryan on keyboards, Tico Torres, drums; Hugh McDonald, bass; Everett Bradley, percussion and backing vocals; and Phil Xenidis and John Shanks on guitars.

Bon Jovi also thanked fans for the more than 1 million fan votes they’ve received for possible induction into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.

“I came here to say thanks for exceeding a million votes with another week to go,” Bon Jovi said. “It’s really nice that our friends out there who supported the band for such a long time are having their voices heard. It’s been fun.”

Bon Jovi is one of 19 nominees for the Rock Hall’s Class of 2018. The top five fan voted acts will compose a fan’s ballot that will count as one of the ballots.


Radiohead, Rage Against The Machine, Depeche Mode, Judas Priest, Kate Bush, the Cars, Dire Straits, Eurythmics, J. Geils Band, LL Cool J, MC5, the Meters, the Moody Blues, Rufus featuring Chaka Khan, Nina Simone, Sister Rosetta Tharpe, Link Wray and The Zombies are this year’s other nominees.

The 2018 inductees will be announced later this month and inducted on April 14 in Cleveland. Fans can vote once a day for their favorites through Tuesday at the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame’s web site, rockhall.com/vote.

“Fingers crossed,” Bon Jovi said. “We’ll find out in the next couple of weeks.”

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An Evening with Richie and Orianthi

All you Richie lovers, if you're in the New York City area, you might want to check this out.  Click on the source link below, tickets are $25...

Backstory: An Evening of Music and Conversation w/Richie Sambora & Orianthi (RSO)

Join us for a unique opportunity to be part of the studio audience at this intimate conversation with Richie Sambora and Orianthi. The pair has joined forces for a new, genre-spanning musical project under the name RSO that sees these two platinum-selling singer-songwriters and world-class guitarists teaming up as a duo. They recently released a five-track EP called Rise, and there will be more music coming soon. The evening features a long-form interview, short performance, and opportunity for audience questions.

Richie Sambora and Orianthi will be interviewed by author and journalist Brad Tolinski. The event is part of the BackStory Events online series and will be live streamed by Guitar World magazine.

About Richie Sambora and Orianthi (RSO):

American rock icon, Songwriters Hall of Famer, and founding member of multi-platinum, Grammy-winning band Bon Jovi, Sambora (who has sold over 130 million albums worldwide and has co-written over 20 Top 40 hits and 11 Top 10 hits) and Australian guitar virtuoso Orianthi (who has shared stages with the likes of Michael Jackson, Santana, Prince, ZZ Top and was the first female member of Alice Cooper’s band) have both written chart-busting singles, toured the globe extensively, collaborated with superstar artists, and released three solo albums each. Their new collaboration, RSO, sees Sambora and Orianthi teaming up as a duo for a genre-spanning musical project encompassing elements of rock, blues, pop, R&B and country. They have plenty of stadium-ready melodies, uplifting lyrics, and top-notch musicianship, and the Rise EP is just the first taste of a lot more music to come from RSO. The harmonious blend of Sambora and Orianthi’s voices and guitars are front and center, putting a fresh spin on male-female duets. RSO displays the combustible chemistry that Sambora and Orianthi have both onstage and off. 

Find out more at http://www.rsoofficial.com

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Jon Bon Heart Breaker...

Who doesn't love carpool Karaoke?!  P!nk was awesome!!

Pink Admits Jon Bon Jovi Broke Her Heart As She Belts Out Hits With James Corden For Epic ‘Carpool Karaoke’ Skit

It’s long overdue, but Pink has finally belted out some of her classics in an epic “Carpool Karaoke” segment.

The 38-year-old joined James Corden for the much-loved “Late Late Show” skit, with her singing along to the likes of “Let’s Get The Party Started,” “Raise Your Glass” and “What About Us” in the 11-minute long clip.

It didn’t take long for Pink to open up about her major crush on Jon Bon Jovi when she was younger, with her admitting he even ended up sending her his leather pants.

The hitmaker said, when asked about when her obsession with the rocker first began: “Like 7 or 8, I still remember coming home in the car from singing lessons and they said on the radio that he’d married his high school sweetheart, Dorothea. I almost threw up in my mouth. I ripped his posters off the wall and threw them out and didn’t come out of my room for days.”

“I was devastated, it was the first time someone ever broke my heart,” Pink admitted.

Corden then asked the singer what had happened when the pair first crossed paths, to which she laughed: “I told him the first time I met him, we did a radio station in New Jersey, I think I was like 22, and I was like ‘how are you guys? Are you happy, you and Dorothea?'”

She continued, “And then he sent me a flower arrangement with a pair of leather pants. The flower basket was life-size and there was a note that said ‘now you can finally get into my pants.’ Carey [Hart] threw them out!”

Pink also spoke about her first ever tour gig being the opening act for N’Sync.

The star recalled: “I was 19 and they were really sweet. Joey Fatone used to come into my dressing room every day and visit with us,” as Corden replied: “He had a bit of a crush, right?”

Pink said: “We went on a friendly date, not a date date. We’re in the friend zone,” as Corden joked: “I think he thought he was making it to the end zone!”

The pair then ended the hilarious clip by singing upside down, before disaster struck and Corden got stuck.

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25 Years Ago Today...

Bon Jovi's Keep the Faith, which arrived in stores on Nov. 3, 1992, signaled a new era for the Jersey rockers.

In many ways, this was inevitable. After spending most of the '80s on the road, the band had taken a break after the touring cycle wrapped up for 1988's juggernaut New Jersey. During this break, music trends had moved on from the kind of glossy hard rock and metal at which Bon Jovi excelled. Separately, the members of the band explored different sonic avenues. Jon Bon Jovi landed a solo No. 1 hit, the twang-tinged "Blaze of Glory," from the movie Young Guns II; guitarist Richie Sambora released a solo album, 1991's Stranger in This Town, featuring guests such as Eric Clapton; and keyboardist David Bryan dabbled in soundtrack work.

In a 1993 interview with The Georgia Straight, Sambora credited this break — and the band's individual creative detours — for rejuvenating Bon Jovi. “We needed to find ourselves individually,” he said. “The Bon Jovi situation was extremely successful, and I was very happy to be in a band of that stature, but there was almost nothing left to write about at that point — we were all just so tired and so burnt out. All we were writing about was bein’ on the road and bein’ in a hotel room and bein’ lonely and talkin’ to your girlfriend on the phone. They miss you and you miss them — that was what our lives were about at that time.

“So to actually take a step back and see what was happening in our lives gave us some more stuff to write about. Plus, all of a sudden I was working with people like Eric Clapton and Tony Levin from Peter Gabriel, and Jon was workin’ with Elton John and Jeff Beck, so workin’ with all these different artists gave us different influences, which we brought back to Bon Jovi. It made it fresh and brand-new, and we were excited to be with each other again."

Still, in the time between New Jersey and Keep the Faith, the members of Bon Jovi also nurtured their emotional and personal lives — and addressed the fissures and strains that contributed to the band's exhaustion. Jon Bon Jovi fired manager Doc McGhee and took control of the band himself, forming Bon Jovi Management. More notable, after chatting with Aerosmith manager Tim Collins, Jon Bon Jovi decided to enlist the help of an outside, unbiased mediator to help get to the bottom of the act's deep-seated disagreements.

"That was a saving grace for the band because we finally had a place where we could be honest and talk to each other about what was good, what was bad and what was indifferent," he told NPR in 2009. "And when you cleared the air and you realized, 'Wow, that was nothing, let's just go and make the next record,' everybody came back with a clear head. We went in two years later and made Keep the Faith."

Making Keep the Faith was a leisurely process that involved going back to their roots by spending time wood-shedding in Bon Jovi's basement. Later, the band decamped to Vancouver to work with Bob Rock, who had engineered and mixed Slippery When Wet and New Jersey. Asking Rock to produce Keep the Faith was an inspired move: The studio guru was fresh off Metallica's Black Album, and so had experience helping hard rock bands navigate the grungier '90s landscape.

And Bon Jovi assimilated quite well, mainly because they stuck to what they did best. "Little Bit of Soul" and the Desmond Child co-written "I'll Sleep When I'm Dead" are laid-back, bluesy struts, like the Stones playing a dive bar in Jersey; "Blame It on the Love of Rock & Roll" is a glammy mash note to (what else?) rock 'n' roll; and "Woman in Love" is a classic Bon Jovi barn-burner with blazing guitars, stacked harmonies and slippery grooves. On the mellower side is "I Want You," on which a protagonist pines for an ex and all but begs her to rekindle their relationship, and "In These Arms" is a soaring pop-rocker that's not too far off from U2's sky-high anthems.

Yet Keep The Faith also took some rather impressive risks. "If I Was Your Mother" starts off like Black Album-caliber thrash, and quickly segues into a quieter section with strings and distorted vocals. The title track is a ferocious mission statement with a propulsive back beat that hewed toward contemporary Top 40. (It's no accident that then-popular electronic band Jesus Jones remixed the song — the seemingly weird pairing made perfect sense.) And the album version of "Dry County" — a mid-tempo power ballad with moody piano, scorching electric guitar and desert-blues acoustic accents — is nearly 10 minutes long.

But Keep The Faith's biggest hit, the Billboard Top 10 hit "Bed of Roses," was the most dramatic departure of all. A power ballad bolstered with Hollywood-caliber melodrama — waltzing piano, seagull-cry guitars, an anguished chorus — it provided a blueprint for the band's move into adult contemporary circles. Not that Jon Bon Jovi was necessarily thinking that far ahead when he wrote it.

"I think that the best songs that come out of honesty are the ones that you're quick enough to write down," he told Cosmopolis in 2002. "For instance, 'Bed of Roses,' when I was writing that song in `92, was in no mood to be writing a song due to the circumstances, and instead of putting the pen down and walking away from the piano, I sat down and wrote, 'Sitting here wasted and wounded with this old piano ... ' and the hurt that I was feeling physically that day."

Keep the Faith peaked at No. 5 on the Billboard chart, but only went double platinum, a far cry from the band's '80s sales milestones. Still, in the U.K., the album was even more successful; six singles landed in the Top 20 of the chart. And, more important, the record showed Bon Jovi that they could survive anything — changing musical trends, business turmoil, personal dust-ups — and come out ahead.

"The genre of music that we were a part of was now going away and, you know, here was this sign of faith, which is all we really had to go forward with," Bon Jovi told NPR in 2009. "We went into the '90s with a clear objective, and that was to believe in each other and have in what it was that we were all about."

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Happy Halloween

Have a Very Scary Day everyone!!!

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Jon Bon Photo-bomber

I kinda have to agree with one of the commernters on the article that, because one of the mom's asked him to be in the pic, he didn't really photo-bomb the shoot.  Still, it's cute.

Musician Jon Bon Jovi photobombs LI mom’s company photo shoot

In an unexpected “epic photo bomb,” musician Jon Bon Jovi jumped into a photo shoot with kids modeling rock and roll clothes for a Long Island mompreneur’s company, making bunny ears above one boy’s head.

Sabrina Drazic of Manhasset, co-founder and owner of Kamari Kids, was with six children taking photos in Manhattan’s West Village on Oct. 8 for her 2-year-old online-only boutique’s fall...

Q Note:  You can read the rest of the article here, as I seem to have used up all the free article visits to this page, dammit!

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The Daily Bitch...

Relevant today?

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Jon Bon on the Move...

Jon Bon Jovi lists stunning West Village duplex at 150 Charles Street

The rock legend bought the glorious spread back in 2015

It was just two years ago that one of New Jersey’s finest, rocker Jon Bon Jovi, bought a three-bedroom spread at West Village celebrity magnet 150 Charles Street. But it looks like the musician is moving on: His apartment just hit the market (with Corcoran’s Robby Browne team as the broker) asking a cool $17.25 million.

That’s a pretty decent upgrade from Bon Jovi’s purchase price of $12.95 million. Per Corcoran, the duplex apartment has plenty of luxurious touches: There’s an enormous great room with Hudson River views, three bedrooms with en-suite bathrooms (the master also has a walk-in closet), and a den area that could be converted to a fourth bedroom. There are windows everywhere, so the place gets plenty of light.

The best part, however, is undoubtedly the outdoor space: The apartment comes with a 1,500-square-foot terrace with stunning views of the city, along with two smaller, less over-the-top patios (including one off the master bedroom). Not too shabby at all.

Bon Jovi has had quite the real estate journey in the past few years: After listing his gigantic Soho penthouse for a staggering $42 million in 2013—and getting no takers—the rocker cut the asking price not once, but twice. The palatial apartment finally sold in 2015, though the buyer ended up re-listing it last year; it’s now going for $38 million.

But his departure from 150 Charles won’t leave too big of a celeb-shaped hole at the once-controversial West Village development: Ben Stiller and model Irina Shayk are two of the big names who’ve bought in the building.

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Jon Bon Commencement Surprise...

Bon Jovi surprises students at Fairleigh Dickinson University's graduation ceremony

Bon Jovi surprised 2,600 students with an acoustic performance during Fairleigh Dickinson University’s commencement ceremony Tuesday at MetLife Stadium in New Jersey.

The unsuspecting graduates, who were the winners of a nationwide contest to have Bon Jovi crash their commencement ceremony, screamed and shouted in their seats as the singer walked on stage.

"Today marks the end of one chapter in your life and the start of another," Jon Bon Jovi told the proud graduates. "Enjoy the book. You're the one writing it."

Jon Bon Jovi announces contest to crash a college graduation

“Our student response was incredible and thanks to their participation, FDU was the national winner,” the university’s president, Christopher Capuano, said after Bon Jovi’s performance of his new song, “Reunion.” “I’m sure that is something that we will all remember for a very long time.”

The singer appeared on “Good Morning America” today as he was gearing up for the big surprise, hiding inside the MetLife stadium locker rooms.

“We had a nationwide contest to have Bon Jovi perform at your graduation,” he explained. “I had written a song for a commencement I was giving, and since then it had turned into a record, a song on our new album called ‘Reunion.’ And so we’re going to pop up and surprise the school who had the most votes to get us to come.”

The song's chorus includes the lyrics, "Write your song, sing along, love your life ... Learn to laugh, dare to dance, touch the sky ... Take pictures each step of the way ... Make this the best of the rest of your days ... Start your revolution and I'll see you at the reunion."

Bon Jovi caught up with "Good Morning America" co-anchor Michael Strahan before the surprise performance, where the rock icon offered his graduation advice, saying he would tell the former students to "be careful of the words that you say, not only to others, but to yourself."

"Don't take any criticism too heavily, but don't accept the praise too loudly either," Bon Jovi added. "Be humbled in your approach to things."

He said that he hopes his song "Reunion" will be "a song that you’ll be able to sing and relate to, and hear on the radio, and go 'That was a part of my graduation.'"

The contest, which partnered with MTVU, asked college seniors to share their best college moments on Twitter using the hashtag #JBJReunionContest.

Bon Jovi is no stranger to celebrating college graduations this week.

“Two of my kids are graduating college this week,” he said on “GMA.” “Stephanie has got her film degree and Jesse’s got his political science degree, so daddy’s going to two graduations.”

As he was exiting FDU’s commencement stage after his performance, he wished the class of 2017 “Good luck.”

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Postponed...

I'm sure by now you've all heard the news...
(Where's the Bad Medicine when you need it?!)  ;)

Bon Jovi Postpones Madison Square Garden Tour Stops: Exclusive

Frontman Jon Bon Jovi has been fighting bronchitis since the weekend.

Based on doctors' recommendations, Bon Jovi’s concerts at Madison Square Garden on Friday and Saturday will be rescheduled to next week, Billboard has exclusively learned.

The postponement is due to the bronchitis that frontman Jon Bon Jovi has been fighting since last Saturday.

"The decision was difficult to make, but made in the interest of delivering the full, powerhouse performance for which Bon Jovi is known," according to a band spokesperson.

Tickets purchased for Friday's show will be honored on April 13, and Saturday's tickets will be honored on April 15.

For more information on the rescheduled dates, visit BonJovi.com, the Madison Square Garden website and LiveNation.com.

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