Bon Jovi are back in the headlines again.
The “Forever” Tour.
The big announcement.
And, as always, the internet did what it does best, split down the middle.
Half the fans were ecstatic: “They’re back! Jon’s finally bringing the band around again.”
The other half were grimacing at the live clips, whispering the kind of thing you never want to say about your heroes: maybe the forever part should’ve ended a while ago.
That’s the heartbreak of watching icons age in public. We want the fire without the fallibility, the 1986 Bon Jovi frozen in amber, talkbox wailing, hair on fire, fists in the air, not the version that’s grown reflective, too polished, and painfully human.
But for me, this whole “Forever”discussion takes me back to 2007.
To “Lost Highway”.
I was a diehard then. Still am, I guess. The kind of fan who buys the record before hearing a note, because “Slippery When Wet”, “New Jersey”, and “Keep the Faith” were practically scripture. So when the band leaned into country-rock, I wanted to believe in it. But you could feel the calculation. You could feel the intention.
“Who Says You Can’t Go Home” worked because it wasn’t supposed to. It was an accident, a crossover that caught fire because it felt genuine. Then Jon, the businessman, doubled down. And when you chase authenticity, you lose it.
But buried under the Nashville polish was one song that didn’t care about charts or categories.
“We Got It Going On.”
“Is there anybody out there looking for a party? Yeah!!
Shake your money maker, baby, smoke it if you got it.”
That opening riff hits like swamp water and motor oil, sleazy, sexual, bluesy. Sambora’s talkbox returns like a ghost, resurrected not for nostalgia but for sheer noise. You can almost see the lights dim, the crowd swell, the camera pan across faces that just want to feel something again.
This song wasn’t written for critics. It was written for the night, for bodies pressed together, beer in the air, the scream that shakes the workweek loose.
“We Got It Goin’ On
We’ll be banging and singing just like the Rolling Stones.”
That line nails it. The nod to the Stones, the eternal road dogs, still out there rattling bones decades later.
And the truth is, I’ve left concerts sore, half-deaf, heart syncing with the subwoofers. That’s what great live music does: it inhabits you. You don’t walk out the same.
It’s all there, the “Ah ha ha” chant, the “ticket to kick it” call to arms, the invitation to ditch your suburban restraint.
“Everybody’s getting down, we’re getting down to business
Insane, freak train, you don’t wanna miss this.”
That’s Primal Scream energy. Nikki Sixx said it best:
“Primal scream and shout, let that mother out.”
That’s what “We Got It Going On” captures, not country, not crossover, but catharsis.
And it kills me that it never became a setlist regular. It tore through “Live at Madison Square Garden” and proved it belonged beside their classics.
But now, watching the new “Forever” performances, I can’t help but think about that title.
Because say what you want about the voice, the image, the years, when that talkbox hits and the crowd still roars, for a few minutes at least, they really do got it going on.
Bon Jovi’s strength was that mix of optimism and blue-collar defiance that said, we’re gonna shake up your soul, we’re gonna rattle your bones.
The challenge now isn’t pitch or range, it’s rediscovering the part of themselves that still wants to party like it’s dangerous again.
With presales kicking off October 27–28 and general sales slated for October 31, fans were ready.
Hungry. Hopeful.
But within hours, that excitement curdled into outrage.
Across X (Twitter) and fan forums, the stories were brutal: hours-long virtual queues, endless errors, “these tickets are no longer available” messages that mocked you after two hours of waiting.
One fan said they spent their entire last day of vacation fighting Ticketmaster’s glitch-riddled system.
Another logged in early for presale, only to find seats instantly gone, calling it “a joke” where real fans lose to bots every time.
Queues hit 160,000 people for UK shows like Wembley.
Some fans swore the platform was holding tickets back to manufacture demand. Others pointed to instant resales, the same seats appearing online minutes later, inflated beyond belief.
And they weren’t exaggerating. Prices hit $900 for single seats.
VIP “Legendary” packages, front row, tote bag, lanyard, mocked for charging hundreds extra for souvenirs no one asked for.
One fan summed it up perfectly:
“It’s not the Forever Tour because of Bon Jovi’s career — it’s because we’ll be paying it off forever.”
That’s the reality of fandom in 2025. We want connection, not corporate friction.
We crave the “Livin’ on a Prayer” moment, but we get login errors and resale markups instead.
Some fans did score tickets, celebrating in disbelief, hoping maybe, just maybe, Richie Sambora will reappear and make it all feel whole again.
But the dominant emotion across social media isn’t excitement. It’s exhaustion.
This is the paradox of legacy. When the dream outlives the danger, the machine takes over.
Bon Jovi were always about inclusion. Blue jeans, big choruses, stadium-wide singalongs. They weren’t supposed to be exclusive.
But the modern ticketing system turned “forever” into a commodity, a limited edition for those who can afford it.
And maybe that’s the real tragedy of this era: we can still sing along, but we can’t always get in the door.
Bon Jovi built a career on songs that made ordinary people feel invincible.
Now, the fight is to make those people feel included again.
Because the legacy doesn’t live in the hits, or the sales, or the streaming stats.
It lives in the noise, the sweat, the singalong, the place where “We Got It Going On” still means something.
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