How Bon Jovi Came to Play at My Pub

Anyone who works as a music journalist for any extended period has the opportunity to meet a few rock stars, but these meetings are usually fleeting and notably impersonal. A series of interviews are arranged and each journalist sits down asks their series of questions (usually a very similar series of questions to every other journalist), exchanges a few pleasantries and leaves. By the time the next journo has entered the room the memory of his or her predecessor has already started to fade in the oft limited attention span of the artiste.

Every now and then though an interview leads to something more interesting and memorable. Such was the case when I sat down to interview Jon Bon Jovi.

I was an unashamed Bon Jovi fan. Their early big, bombastic stadium rock albums had been a guilty pleasure but I thought they had grown out of the poodle hair and spandex stage quickly and with a fair amount of dignity. By the time their Keep The Faith album had been released I actually thought they were a band of some substance.

It helped that they were a band from New Jersey. Whilst they were still a long way from Bruce Springsteen in my personal music pantheon they had seemed to have matured into a solid outfit who had a fair degree of integrity to go with their multi-platinum status. They still had an eye to the commercial charts but a song like Dry County had proved they were capable of more than just MTV hits. It seemed to me that they had embraced the heartland roots of the New Jersey music scene that had been the province of Springsteen and others like Miami Steve Van Zandt and Southside Johnny Lyon.

The interview started really well and it was clear that Jon really appreciated my recognition of his growth as an artist, and in particular my knowledge of the Jersey music scene and the influence that it had had on him. I think it helped that we were almost exactly the same age, having been born only a few months apart and hence having a similar set of musical contemporaries. The interview was more like a conversation between two blokes with a lot of interests in common than the traditional stilted interviewer/interviewee dynamic.

We chatted for as long as we had and then a little more and eventually the record company rep had to call a halt to proceedings.

“So what do you do for fun around here?” asked Jon as I was packing up my tape recorder.

“What are you looking for”, I asked. “If you are looking for a place to have a drink, I actually own a bar that I reckon you might like”.

“Really?”, Jon quickly replied. “Does this bar have a band playing tonight by any chance?”

“Sure does”, I responded. “It’s just a covers band but they are pretty good”

“Do you have a card or something with the address of the bar?” he asked.

I produced a card and gave it too him. “Are you staying at the Como?”, I asked. “Cos, if you are the bar is about five minutes from your front door”.

“I think that is the name of the hotel” he replied. “Well, maybe we will see you tonight”.

I went back to the newspaper office comfortable in the knowledge that I had a great interview on tape. As for the likelihood of Jon turning up at the Saloon, well lets just say I wasn’t planning my night around it.

Thursday night was my night at the Saloon and it was a night I always enjoyed. The band was good fun. They were called All The Young Dudes and featured a couple of good blokes in Chris Doheny and Sean McVitty. They played some good commercial rock tracks and never failed to put the crowd in a happy mood. It was a reliable night and slightly less intense than Fridays and Saturdays. I had a group of regulars that were unique to my Thursday and it was my favourite night of the week.

It was a reasonably busy night and I arrived around 8pm. Not long after this I was told there was a phone call for me from a man named Patrick Prendergast. Pat was a security guy, an Australian, who I knew had been working with Bon Jovi for several years. Even as I got the message I wasn’t too excited. Pat was a good guy and one of the best security people in the business  and he might simply be calling to let me know that Jon had made different plans for the night.

The news was better than that.

“Jon and Richie are thinking of coming down there tonight”, said Pat. “So what have you got going on?”

I told him about the band, gave him an idea of the sort of crowd we had in and which security we had working that night. The Saloon’s security had a good reputation in the business and this would be an important factor to Pat. The ability to trust the venue security to run a tight ship was always a consideration to the personal security of celebrities. Pat would have been well aware of the Saloon’s reputation as a secure haven for visiting stars.

“Sounds good” he responded. “They are having dinner right now, so plans might change after they have eaten, but Jon seemed pretty keen to get out for a while. I’ll call you again in about an hour.”

I told security what was on the cards and advised the bar staff to keep an eagle eye on the phone and to let me know the moment Pat called back.

It wasn’t till around ten that Pat called back. He didn’t waste any time in relying his news.

“We’re on our way”, he explained. “We’ll be there in about 10 minutes”

“OK”, I responded. “Do you want me to cordon off an area in the restaurant?”. This was often the way we dealt with celebrities at the Saloon, not so much to isolate them from the patrons but to confine the excitement to a limited area and ensure the rest of the venue operated as normally as possible.

“Don’t worry about that’ replied Pat. “The only area we are gonna need is the stage. The whole band is coming and they want to play. We basically want to come in and get straight on stage”.

Now things were going to get interesting.

I quickly alerted security to the impending arrival and organised the car parking area out the front to be vacated. I then jumped behind the back bar which was adjacent to the stage and motioned to Chris Doheny.

“Mate, trust me on this one “, I began. “We’re gonna cut the set short tonight. When I signal to you, finish the song you playing as soon as you can and get off”.

Understandably Chris was a little taken aback. “What have we done wrong?” he asked.

“Nothing mate, just trust me.”

It seemed like only a couple of minutes later and the band arrived. Expertly guided through the crowd they quickly congregated behind the bar. Chris and the band quickly vacated and he smiled at me as he did.

“Good support act”, he laughed.

Initially Jon and Richie Sambora took the stage and jammed on an old blues tune. Their drummer Tico Torres at in while keyboardist David Bryan stayed behind the bar enjoying the hospitality. Tour promoter Michael Gudinski was also around.

They did four or five songs including an acoustic version of their hit Blaze of Glory and the crowd were loving it. This was before the days of everyone having a mobile phone and the line at our public phone was about ten deep with people spreading the word.

At one stage Jon turned to me behind the bar and asked “Do you mind if we do one more?”.

I could only wave back in a “go right ahead” motion.

“We’d like to thank Andrew for letting us play in his bar. This one’s for him”, he announced before playing Wanted Dead or Alive.

Letting him play? Letting him? – like I was gonna stop that from happening!

After finishing Jon and the band hung out for only a few minutes before being hustled into the waiting van. As he was leaving Jon back tracked a few metres and approached me.

“I hope that was OK”, he said. “We had a great time, thanks for having us. And thanks for a cool interview today. I knew your bar was going to be a cool place. See you soon.

Um, no problem Jon, no problem at all!