Bon Jovi live on South Street - Ripley's Music Hall March 3, 1984!

0:05 SPEAKER_00: Hey everybody, welcome back to the concert room. I'm your host, Bob Hill. The concert room is a podcast session dedicated to concert performances, performers, bands, and artists who played on the stage at the legendary Philadelphia Spectrum Arena and all the surrounding venues in the Philadelphia area back in the heyday years of concerts and shows. And thanks for joining and tuning in. I've got a great show lined up for us this podcast session. I always like to go back and visit a band in their infancy.

0:38 SPEAKER_00: They're young and hungry, they're kind of crawling out of that uh club circuit, if you will, in the bars. And uh really their early history. I love looking at bands like that, especially successful bands. And in this case, today we're gonna do just that with Vondrevi. And I have a really early show to feature today. Uh first a little short blurb on how we will get there, of course. Pon Jovi was formed in Famerville, New Jersey in the early 80s. His first performance in our area, which I consider obviously Philadelphia.

1:14 SPEAKER_00: Also Falcons. Um and uh he performed at a local rock club called the Galaxy Night Club in South Jersey, that's located in Somerdale, New Jersey. The Galaxy in itself was really legendary for hosting local metal band. Was actually held in 1982, and that was built as John Bongiovi and the Wild One. And Bonjoyovi is uh you don't give any last name. Uh he later changed it to Bon Jovi uh when he and the record company were trying to come up with a kind of a band name. Kind of a play on his last name.

1:55 SPEAKER_00: But the galaxy film, 1982, John Von Jovi in the Wild One. And the song Runaway was actually played. You know, a year, a year and a half later, with King Von Rovi out of the clouds and the bar. And now he's doing this little mini tour of music halls and venues. And the very first date of this little tour was in Philly. So on March 3rd, 1984, Vond Rovi and his band rolled in Philly. And they played the legendary venue, Ripley's Music Hall, which was a legendary 500 capacity live music venue located on uh South Street, 608th Street in Philadelphia.

2:44 SPEAKER_00: Um Ripley holds a lot of significance in Philadelphia's cultural uh music history.

3:00 SPEAKER_00: In the 80s it was uh popular as a live music venue hosting a variety of music genres. Um it was a cornerstone of the health free music scene in the early eighties, and uh featured really an eclectic mix of rock loose punk and new wave order. Ripley uh hosted like uh YouTube, Ray Volume, video and uh and also of course finding before closing its doors in uh year later, 1985. I think the building was later demolished and uh building uh later used in our tower records location on Fell Street, which was pretty cool, but talk about the show here and riplease.

3:55 SPEAKER_00: Not sure if you're familiar with it. Um Ripley was part of a uh the club scene on Fell Street. Um revive with clubs like uh GDR.

4:13 SPEAKER_00: Uh on the street uh is actually the theater of the dictionary in 1988. Uh there was a Bohemian thing, like club called and uh of course Ripley Call of the Food Free was pretty cool.

4:49 SPEAKER_00: We're getting back to the Ripley game. Again, it was the first show like a musical tour. They went on the play that's a music hall. Then they hooked up with the scorpion and the tour. I think they started in April of 1984. Opening for the Scorpion. And um actually for Pond Jovi. I was living out in LA at the time. And uh I was down at the LA forum that night. They were recording uh Worldwide Live, which was very exciting. Um and uh I actually never heard of Pond Jovi at that point. I thought he was great.

5:32 SPEAKER_00: He was he was running around, a lot of energy, uh great songs, great hooks. He played a lot of the songs off his first album, uh the debut album, which uh was released in January of 84. So basically a recap, we're going from 1982, he's playing, you know, the galaxy and uh rock nightclubs. He comes back now, he's playing uh music halls with five, six hundred, seven hundred feet capacity, more professional stage, more lighting, you know, bigger venues. And his first album is out, and then all of a sudden he's hooking up with the scorpions on a major tour.

6:13 SPEAKER_00: The next time. I told Bond Romie was actually in 87 at the track room, Cinderella opening, great 92 there. Um I think he went on to play the track room about ten more times. You know, after the 84 show, uh slippery when wet comes out, and now he's just absolutely you know with MTV, great hooks, the great songwriting, the great band, uh the great image. I mean just everything was just the perfect point uh with that video.

7:13 SPEAKER_00: Very, very impressive.

7:17 SPEAKER_00: In the beginning, like to see where they were and uh they were really hungry. The show had ripped. And uh let's get to it. Uh the show had Ripley lasted a full hour consisting fully of material from his debut album, including the Nid Runaway, I think that was the encore that night. The show uh was also recorded and used for promotional distribution. Really instead of picking and choosing one song of the set like I usually do when I feature a band and artist at a spectrum or the surrounding venues, a little bit under an hour.

8:04 SPEAKER_00: And I think it's just really great to hear uh Bon Jovi from start to finish this particular night. Um really just captured a young and hungry band and they're serious about their playing, the presentation, their live shows. I think they were at this point really already a cut above local metal bands at this point. So let's sit back and enjoy this. It's early Bon Jovi on the Ripley's music hall stage, March third, nineteen eighty-four, playing in front of a sold-out billing crowd.

22:02 SPEAKER_02: When it's a black one when you are going to be able to do it.

26:13 unknown: I got a joke too.

26:29 SPEAKER_02: I dream you should mind. I truly walk in that life.

26:44 SPEAKER_02: Maybe we don't truth. It's so many things that we do.

26:52 SPEAKER_02: Maybe you give me a chance.

27:04 SPEAKER_02: She don't care.

27:08 SPEAKER_02: She can't hear that.

27:12 unknown: She don't want to get a little bit more.

31:11 SPEAKER_02: I give you a thing to hear the color.

31:19 SPEAKER_02: As I leave him in the dark, you don't want to be coming here to see yourself.

31:43 SPEAKER_02: I just don't know who you're talking to.

31:55 SPEAKER_02: But I don't know, now I'm over you.

32:08 SPEAKER_02: You go up to the world by what you never learn.

41:33 SPEAKER_02: Walk in these streets. So true inventions.

41:40 SPEAKER_02: And I am to time goes on.

41:51 SPEAKER_02: We're all broken. First of all times, we know the reason. I get too valid.

42:04 unknown: You can see that we do.

55:57 SPEAKER_02: On the streets where you live, girl, don't forget to socialize. You need a little bit to see the eyes. Oh, you like, oh your face, put your dead on the top of you.

56:15 unknown: Put you a little bit of message to you.

57:35 SPEAKER_02: That is gonna be the good day.

57:43 SPEAKER_02: She's a little run away.

1:00:51 SPEAKER_00: And there it is. That sounded great. Listen, if you're a fan of um early hard rock, metal, hopefully you enjoyed this because again, this is conjuring in the early days before the video.

1:01:35 SPEAKER_00: Feel free to leave a comment for uh good performance. I really hope you enjoyed the uh really performance.

1:02:08 SPEAKER_00: Uh really thing you're gonna in your uh local venue. So again, I have a lot of stuff explore for us, thanks again. I look forward to seeing you again in the country on the hill. Take care.