Backstage with Bon Jovi
By Kendis Gibson
CNN Headline News
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Jon Bon Jovi performing at a February 10 show.
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(CNN) -- Bon Jovi, one of the world's most popular bands, invited me and some other journalists into their world.
While there for the sound check, we peered into the guitar pit. "How many guitars today?" inquires Richie Sambora of his tech, Lumpy. "Twenty-eight, we have 28 guitars," Lumpy replies. All those guitars for just one concert.
We also got a chance to sniff around their small, 8x8 dressing room. "Now you know, there's tea and Gatorade here, but in the old days there was lots of good stuff and beautiful women in my backstage dressing room," says Sambora.
This rare look behind the scenes came in the early stages of Bon Jovi's "Bounce World Tour."
"This is kinda like my office," Sambora says while staring out at the empty Phillips Arena in Atlanta, Georgia, prior to that evening's show.
The U.S. leg of their tour is taking them through some 30 different cities, and is in support of yet another successful release, their 13th and latest studio album, "Bounce."
Bon Jovi, which has sold more than 50 million albums, made "Bounce" as a partial tribute to September 11, 2001. "It's a well rounded record," says lead singer Jon Bon Jovi. "So that when you can put that day off your mind, you can be entertained, or when you need something a little more socially conscious there are those songs. Its not a 9/11 album per se, because there were 364 other days in that year."
Richie Sambora: "Now you know, there's tea and Gatorade here, but in the old days there was lots of good stuff and beautiful women in my backstage dressing room."
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Twenty years after a young John Bongiovi recruited a group of fellow friends from Jersey to join his band, the group is still rocking. After forming in 1983, Bon Jovi ruled the late 1980's music scene, scoring hits such as, "You Give Love a Bad Name" and "Livin' on a Prayer." After some breaks for solo projects in the 1990s, the group is back together with its latest hit, "Bounce."
How many more years can the group go on? "I'll never be the fat Elvis," says Bon Jovi, but he still does consider Frank Sinatra, who performed into his 80s, the benchmark.
That's good news for the fans who sometimes border on the fanatical. Sambora recalled one of the more colorful stories from their recent tour through Asian-Pacific countries. "One of the fans got excited and jumped into the water off Sydney Harbor and swam to our barge. Obviously the cops arrested him and we felt sorry for the guy so we went out and bailed him out."
No doubt, the sort of swimming devotion the group hopes will continues into its third decade.
