Thank You, Goodnight: The Bon Jovi Story (now streaming on Hulu) features plenty of participation from band members old and new as it follows the group’s preparations for a round of shows to ring in their 40th anniversary. But 40 years is a long time – or in singing terms, a whole lot of high notes – and while this four-part series directed by Gotham Chopra celebrates enduring hits like “Runaway,” “You Give Love a Bad Name,” and “Livin’ on a Prayer,” Thank You, Goodnight also puts a spotlight on founder and lead singer Jon Bon Jovi as he confronts challenges to his rock ‘n’ roll longevity. He doesn’t hope he dies before he gets old – he just wants his overworked larynx to hold up for the next two-hour live show. Featured here are extensive interviews with the band – including former guitarist Richie Sambora, parsing the drama of his high-profile 2013 departure – as well as appearances by Bruce Springsteen, Southside Johnny, and Bon Jovi’s extended musical family of producers and recording engineers.
Opening Shot: An echoey, vocals-only version of Bon Jovi’s debut single “Runaway” is heard over footage of New Jersey, the band performing live back in the day, and the call sign for 107.5 WMGM, “Atlantic City’s rock station.”
The Gist: The state of New Jersey is a main character in the Bon Jovi story, as much as the band’s namesake, who Thank You, Goodnight follows in 2022 as he prepares his mindset and his singing voice for a new round of live shows. Now in his early 60s, Jon Bon Jovi is in Handsome Dad mode, possessed of an easy charm, and able to tell the story of his band with the chapter headings and laugh lines built in. As they take over the Meadowlands for arena-sized tour rehearsals, JBJ impersonates his younger self, a “showboatin’ fucker” spinning his mic stand around and running up and down catwalks. In this current Bon Jovi era, he says, it’s no longer about adulation. “That’s not what fuels me. It’s changed with time, and a better understanding of who you are, and why you did things, and why you continue to do things when you get to a level that’s much deeper than girls and guitars.”
The Asbury Park music scene that birthed Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band figures heavily into Bon Jovi’s formative mythology, because seeing those guys on stage at legendary local clubs like the Stone Pony made a young JBJ’s own ambitions touchable. By 1980, he’d quit his own cover band to focus on writing original material, learning his craft as a singer and frontman, and making music as a career happen, which it did with the breakthrough 1984 single “Runaway” and the twenty-million seller Slippery When Wet two years later. Fast forward a few decades, and he still loves it. But as Thank You, Goodnight makes clear, the Bon Jovi of now is as full of hugely singable choruses and giant solos as it is healthy band meals, complaints about creaking joints, and vocal cord maintenance with a four-barrelled laser machine. “You realize how easy it came to you, and then it changes as you get older.”
Band relationships change, too. There are new or new-ish players in Bon Jovi now, alongside the singer and original members David Bryan (keys) and Tico Torres (drums). It’s an evolution, and one JBJ is cool with – he made the decisions he had to as Bon Jovi’s de facto CEO. But everyone knows who’s missing, who’s shoes are being filled, and Thank You, Goodnight will address the question of what went down with Richie Sambora leaving by letting the band’s original guitarist tell the story himself.
What Shows Will It Remind You Of? Thank You, Goodnight isn’t the first time Bon Jovi has gotten the documentary treatment. The 2009 film When We Were Beautiful, centered around the band’s 2007 world tour, also featured interviews with each member, while No End in Sight, which premiered in 2022, streams on Prime Video. And if you’re looking for a straight-up rock concert from the boys, Peacock streams Bon Jovi: Live in New York, which repackages the 2008 concert video Live at Madison Square Garden.
Our Take: Thank You, Goodnight includes the fast fact that actually naming the band Bon Jovi was in part a record company decision. Back in 1984, when they first got signed, Van Halen had already broken through as a major rock act, and a catchy two-part band name with personal ties felt like the way to go. Which is interesting, because even in the first episode, Jon Bon Jovi himself is very clear about how he founded the band, established its direction and sound, kept it focused on achieving success, and made all the calls on personnel decisions throughout its four-decade history. In Thank You, he’s even Bon Jovi’s chief archivist, seen cataloging a stack of cassette tape demos. (“This is a song for the Tom Cruise movie Days of Thunder, and i wrote on it, ‘Not Good.’”) He’s not just the lead singer, principal songwriter, and frontman. He’s the absolute shot caller.
“There was no way I could live and die on someone else’s decisions,” JBJ says of his early years, when he was employed as a singer in somebody else’s group. But it’s Bon Jovi’s own decision-making that figures into the biggest dramatic hook in Thank You, which is the whys and hows of Sambora’s departure, and that will certainly keep us watching.
Sex and Skin: Well, there is some cut down T-shirt action in footage dating from the band’s 80s heyday, and maybe a little bit of flouncy scarf and glittery stagewear abuse. But that’s it.
Parting Shot: There is an absence in the early going of Thank You, Goodnight – a thing not talked about, a void not initially addressed. And that’s why the final moments of its first installment sizzle, because Richie Sambora sits down for a formal interview. “I’m excited,” says Bon Jovi’s former lead guitarist and backing vocalist, still the picture of a rocker in his necklaces and unbuttoned shirt. “Are we talking truth, or are we gonna lie? What are we gonna do? Let’s figure it out.”
Sleeper Star: Interviews with Bruce Springsteen feature pretty heavily in this docuseries, and that’s OK – The Boss was a formative influence on Jon Bon Jovi, he’s the favorite son of New Jersey, and an always thoughtful rock ‘n’ roll quote machine. “John’s great talent is these big powerful pop-rock choruses,” Springsteen says, “that just demand to be sung by 20,000 people in an arena.”
Most Pilot-y Line: Longtime keyboard player David Bryan is pretty quotable on the subject of Bon Jovi and rock music, too. “There’s two different kinds of frontmen,” Bryan says in Thank You, Goodnight. “There’s guys who’d just stand there and go ‘Here’s the next song, here’s the next song, thank you.’ And there were the guys like [Jon] that go ‘Tip your bartenders! How you doin’ tonight? Put your hands together! Hands up! Clap!’ – which was more of a Jersey school, like, you know, a banter between you and the audience. And then make the whole thing one.”
Our Call: STREAM IT. Nigh on their 40th anniversary as a band, Bon Jovi are now officially way more than halfway there. But as Thank You, Goodnight: The Bon Jovi Story makes abundantly clear, they’re still a band happily living on a prayer. These days there’s just a little more drama, and it takes more time to prep.
Johnny Loftus (@glennganges) is an independent writer and editor living at large in Chicagoland. His work has appeared in The Village Voice, All Music Guide, Pitchfork Media, and Nicki Swift.
