Bon Jovi
I have a confession to make.
I love hair bands.
I’m serious.
Bon Jovi is the root of this problem. Their penultimate album Slippery When Wet was released when I was in third grade. I have a distinct memory of trying to choreograph a dance routine to Living On A Prayer in music class with several of my girlfriends. “Our movements shouldn’t match the words, we’re not dancing for deaf people you know.” Don’t make the steeple with your hands on the word “prayer”, don’t hold out your hand in front of you on the line “Take my hand, we’ll make it, I swear.” How lame would that be? Just swing your hair round a lot, there you go.
My older sister was wise to my deviant musical ways, and for my thirteenth birthday she bought us tickets to see Bon Jovi play at Giants Stadium for their New Jersey tour. Oh. My. God. I knew what this meant. This meant that this was my chance, that out of a crowd of 44,000 screaming fans Jon Bon Jovi (easily 15 years older than me, by the way) would sense my soul crying out for him and recognize himself in me, climb into the crowd and carry me away to hair band nirvana where we would live our days on a tour bus raising adorable hair band bandana-wearing babies. I prepared for weeks. The outfit was picked out, including a forbidden black mini skirt and a bolero jacket (hey, they were all the rage in 1987). In those weeks I shaved my legs for the first time. And then, catastrophe struck.
I wiped out on my bike and tore up both knees.
My mother held me and rocked me back and forth after picking the gravel out of my flesh and thoroughly disinfecting my wounds, and I’m sure she thought my tears were due to the pain I must be in. Actually, I was crying because I could not possibly wear that forbidden black mini skirt to the concert with scabby knees, and if I did not wear the forbidden black mini skirt then obviously the soul connection between JBJ and myself would be blocked.
By the time the concert came around the knees had pretty much healed, I wore the skirt, and JBJ still didn’t hear the call of my true love despite at one point being directly in front of my on the catwalk circling the stadium. A true tragedy in the life of a newly teenaged girl.
It wasn’t just Bon Jovi I loved, but they were at the top of the list. Bring on Winger and Warrant and Firehouse and Whitesnake and Motley Crue and Poison, baby. When a radio station I worked for offered me the chance to interview Kip Winger a couple of years ago, I jumped at it. And although I did not and would never have taken him up on the offer, I was secretly a little delighted that he propositioned me when we met. How metal is that?
My musical taste has evolved. I promise I listen to The Shins and the Juliana Theory and PJ Harvey. I’m listening to Paul Weller right now, I swear.
But I’ll tell you what. The amazing first date man from “French Martinis”? One night only a month into our relationship he brought me down into the bar in the basement of his house, poured me a glass of wine and said, “I want you to hear this CD”. You had better believe that the CD he put on was “Monster Ballads”, and with that, he sealed the deal.
You can’t take the metal out of the girl.
I love hair bands.
I’m serious.
Bon Jovi is the root of this problem. Their penultimate album Slippery When Wet was released when I was in third grade. I have a distinct memory of trying to choreograph a dance routine to Living On A Prayer in music class with several of my girlfriends. “Our movements shouldn’t match the words, we’re not dancing for deaf people you know.” Don’t make the steeple with your hands on the word “prayer”, don’t hold out your hand in front of you on the line “Take my hand, we’ll make it, I swear.” How lame would that be? Just swing your hair round a lot, there you go.
My older sister was wise to my deviant musical ways, and for my thirteenth birthday she bought us tickets to see Bon Jovi play at Giants Stadium for their New Jersey tour. Oh. My. God. I knew what this meant. This meant that this was my chance, that out of a crowd of 44,000 screaming fans Jon Bon Jovi (easily 15 years older than me, by the way) would sense my soul crying out for him and recognize himself in me, climb into the crowd and carry me away to hair band nirvana where we would live our days on a tour bus raising adorable hair band bandana-wearing babies. I prepared for weeks. The outfit was picked out, including a forbidden black mini skirt and a bolero jacket (hey, they were all the rage in 1987). In those weeks I shaved my legs for the first time. And then, catastrophe struck.
I wiped out on my bike and tore up both knees.
My mother held me and rocked me back and forth after picking the gravel out of my flesh and thoroughly disinfecting my wounds, and I’m sure she thought my tears were due to the pain I must be in. Actually, I was crying because I could not possibly wear that forbidden black mini skirt to the concert with scabby knees, and if I did not wear the forbidden black mini skirt then obviously the soul connection between JBJ and myself would be blocked.
By the time the concert came around the knees had pretty much healed, I wore the skirt, and JBJ still didn’t hear the call of my true love despite at one point being directly in front of my on the catwalk circling the stadium. A true tragedy in the life of a newly teenaged girl.
It wasn’t just Bon Jovi I loved, but they were at the top of the list. Bring on Winger and Warrant and Firehouse and Whitesnake and Motley Crue and Poison, baby. When a radio station I worked for offered me the chance to interview Kip Winger a couple of years ago, I jumped at it. And although I did not and would never have taken him up on the offer, I was secretly a little delighted that he propositioned me when we met. How metal is that?
My musical taste has evolved. I promise I listen to The Shins and the Juliana Theory and PJ Harvey. I’m listening to Paul Weller right now, I swear.
But I’ll tell you what. The amazing first date man from “French Martinis”? One night only a month into our relationship he brought me down into the bar in the basement of his house, poured me a glass of wine and said, “I want you to hear this CD”. You had better believe that the CD he put on was “Monster Ballads”, and with that, he sealed the deal.
You can’t take the metal out of the girl.
posted by Caroline at 12:35 PM
5 Comments:
You just wrote the story of my life, or at least a version thereof. My musical taste has evolved some as well, but I have to admit that some of that is just for appearances.
A few years back, I happened to be hanging out with the band, Slaughter (not as famous as your Winger, but IT in my eyes several years prior to this meeting). I even did the drummer's (Blas Elias was his alias) hair! While driving him back to meet the rest of the Slaughter boys at Steak N' Shake, Blas wanted to listen to FIONA APPLE! I love her now, but at the time, I couldn't fathom this human whirlwind settling in for a night of Fiona... I still find that interesting, actually. I guess I was naive enough to think that metal/glam rockers listened to others of their kind. Now I know.
Loved this article. I adore any trip I can take down that memory lane. (P.S. I think I had a similar outfit to your forbidden mini around the same year/same age when I saw Bon Jovi at Farm Aid!)
I was totally getting worked up until the scabby knees. I bet you can get Richie Sambora now?
Poor Richie; his own daughter is approaching the scabby-kneed, rock star-infatuation age now. And just how does one 'replace' Heather Locklear? (Although, now at this point, she's broken the heart of 2 rock stars (2!) after 2 long term marriages (by rock star standards), and one has to wonder what's her deal?
Actually, who cares? I just wanna ROCK!
Caroline--you just wrote my life as a devout hair band worshipper. I met all of Poison a couple of years ago, drank some beer with CC on the tour bus, looked through their CD collection (which, like SilverSonic said, opened my eyes a bit), and *ahem* did some "stuff" with, well, someone in the band. GROUPIE!!!!!
And Jon Bon Jovi is one of the hottest men alive. I'd still lay him down on a bed of roses and give love a bad name and show him a blaze of glory...okay, I'm done.
Metal 4-Eva
i have one thing to say, though please note i may deny any knowledge of having said this:
CC, pick up that guitar an'-a talk to me!
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