Disney+ is offering the documentary from April 26 Thank You, Good Night: The Bon Jovi Story. The opportunity to discover the underside of this legendary group and also to look back on its chaotic beginnings, at Madison Square Garden in 1983.
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Forty years since the group formed around its singer Jon Bon Jovi has released albums and tours. In the documentary Thank You, Good Night: The Bon Jovi Story on Disney + members look back on some of their best anecdotes in four episodes that mix testimonials and archive images. We thus discover from the inside their first steps on stage and especially the hiccup which almost cost the group its career.
18 very long seconds
Madison Square Garden, 1983. The group scheduled to open for ZZ Top cancels. Bon Jovi, then at the beginning of his career, jumped at the chance and offered to replace them at short notice. The newly formed group goes on stage and there, disaster, nothing happens as planned. Jon Bon Jovi, the singer and leader of the group, and Richie Sambora, his sultry guitarist remember: “Richie was supposed to start with a song we wrote together“, explains Jon Bon Jovie. Richie Sambora adds: “I said: listen, I’m going to go, it’s an audience of rockers, give me 20 seconds, I’m going to rock it!” And there’s the tragedy, his guitar doesn’t work. The stress is at its peak but the group tries to put on a good face. Jon Bon Jovi continues: “Polite applause gave way to silence, then they shouted ‘ZZ Top, ZZ Top ZZ Top’. And I was like, “Oh, it’s over before it started.” Later Richie Sambora continues: “It was the longest 18 seconds of my life, everything was in slow motion.” Finally Jon Bon Jovi gives his guitar to Richie, who begins to play. “It was the fastest set we’ve ever played,” jokes Jon Bon Jovi.
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Thank You, Good Night – The Bon Jovi Story: the underside of a legendary group
From this first experience that their manager Doc McGhee himself described as “disaster“, to the many, much more successful ones that followed, the documentary aims to retrace 40 years of presence on the musical scene. The success encountered with the public, but also the criticism received by professionals, the underside of the writing their hits, as well as their separations and their solo projects stemming from the legendary rivalry between Jon and Richie. But the strong point of the documentary is to approach the daily life of a group capable of bringing together 20,000 fans for two hours. and how to manage the aftermath of a family life when you’re a group? How does notoriety endure when Jon breaks the hearts of thousands of young women by marrying his long-time girlfriend, Dorothea? and the descent from a star career when life must return to normal?
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