Thank You, Goodnight: The Bon Jovi Story, coming to Hulu

Aloha !

I'm not counting time off the road. I'm counting from the moment the band played their last show up to the first point Richie was involved in writing for a subsequent album.

The Bounce tour ended in july 2003. The band had a couple of months off, worked on This Left Feels Right for a few weeks, did a promo show for the album and then did nothing until writing for HAND started in the summer of 2004. That's more than half a year off.

The first leg of the HAND tour started in november 2005, lasted for 3 months, then 3,5 weeks off, then 2,5 months of touring, 3,5 weeks off, 2 weeks of touring, a month off, 1 month of touring, 1 month off, half a month of touring and then the band were off again.

Here's Richie's "grueling" HAND tour:



Travel was usually done on the day of the show, not on seperate days, meaning for most of the days off, the days off are really days off.

In the span of nearly a year he claimed to be on the road he had nearly 4 months off. And no, there was no work done in between those legs. No rehearsing, all of that happened during soundchecks before the show.

Richie subsequently went to Nashville in september for a few weeks to work on the record and then recorded the first batch of songs somewhere from october to november. From november to early march Sambora had little to do with the recordings.

That's a month off, 2 months of work, then 3 more months off. Jon did most the work for Lost Highway in regards to promo, mixing and producing.

Also, "taking care of everyday life stuff"... like what? His entire life is run when he's away. From the moment he gets out of that plane and drives home all he needs to do is adjust to the right timezone again.

Salaam Aleikum,
Sebastiaan

Watched it. Thought it was decent but nothing in it to hook in anyone who isn't a fan. They aren't the most rock and roll of bands to be fair.

Thought the stuff on Richie's departure was interesting. I don't know why people want to pin blame or responsibility on them. They are just two guys making very reasonable decisions that meant they went their separate ways. Neither party did anything stupid or crazy. The way Richie did it was poor but I came out of it feeling a bit more sympathy for him especially as a dad myself. In fact, while it seems there was more to it than family issues, fair play to him for putting his daughter first.

They grew apart. Richie was being sidelined a bit so you can understand his frustration. Jon wanted to plough on and felt Richie wasn't reliable. You can understand that. They just grew apart. That's life.

It sounds like he only has himself to blame. He was asked to be involved in the writing and demoing sessions for WAN and repeatedly failed to show up. When he did show up, some of the songs were written and the guitar parts were played. And he felt sorry for himself. Wallowing in self-pity while being an unreliable drunk. Sorry, I don't have any sympathy for him.

Oh you know like his dad dying, his parents getting older, the mother of his child having a mental breakdown, bringing up his daughter...not everything in life can you just pay someone to take care of - you have to be there and present for a lot of it.

The rest of it, is just speculative. When you are in a band things don't just stop when you are not on the road or playing a show. It's constant. Especially when Jon is your boss.

If you can watch the whole documentary and come that that conclusion then you must have a pretty skewed view on things in my opinion. Richie is not blameless of course. But neither are Shanks and Jon by a long shot. Jon even admited that.

I agree to an extent but why is there a need for blame. Grown man leaves a rock band to take care of his daughter and deal with his demons. Other grown man keeps going and doing the thing he loves.

It is what it is. They were together 30 years and their priorities became incompatible. That's life.

I get your point, but the fans have spent the last 11 years throwing blame around and the documentary dealt with this is depth so of course it's gonna get discussed.

Yeah fair enough. Maybe I was a bit of that mindset for a bit and put more responsibility on Richie but having watched the documentary, I just don't think there is any need for blame or animosity. While I'm sure there is some noses out of joint and egos dented over it, there doesn't seem to be any animosity at all. They're all fairly mature about it so fans probably should be too.

Well that's kinda what I was saying though, sure Richie has to take some responsibility, but so does Jon and so does Shanks. Saying "It's all Richie's fault" or "It's all Jon's fault" is just nonsense.

i ve seen the documentary all 4 episodes last night and here are my first thoughts...

1. Shanks comes out like a prick...when you produce a legacy band and you are a serious producer you dont eye the lead guitarists place...you can write a couple of songs with them but you must also understand you must work the BAND not use it as a platform to jump on the stage...that stage wasnt for him...jon obviously allow it BUT Shanks undermined and replaced Richie...(All those years he hasnt make a nice comment about his contributions and that hand remark was a cheapshot imo even if it was truth). Would he replace a member of Van Halen as well ? is Richies role in BJ expendable??

2. Both Richie and jon are responsible for the present situation. they cant communicate as they should and grew apart. at least its obvious there still is some love and respect in there..

3. i d really like to know why Richie asked to make the second interview with Chopra...he apologised which was great, his mafia remark i ll take it as tongue on cheek ...i wondered what happened in the meantime though..

Overall i liked it, there were a couple of moments that were highlights for me. i ll watch it again. i d like to spend more time in the 90s, these days era for sure and have a couple more recent interviews instead of the old footage available on youtube..that i found a bit tiring..
overall great though...jons dedication is evident, Richies hurt feelings as well...

ps. Phil X was very nice portayed as the rest of the guys...
Tico is great!!!
Shanks is gonna receive a lot of negative comments from his presence in the doc..