Back in 1983, Bon Jovi had yet to release their first album. Despite their infancy, the chance to open for the sharp-dressed men of ZZ Top at Madison Square Garden provided the young upstarts with the perfect opportunity to put themselves on the map.
It was very much a David and Goliath pairing with Billy Gibbons and company riding high on the enormous success of their eighth album, Eliminator, and their support act desperate for a taste of their success.
The two shows on September 24 and 25 at New York's historic venue were the perfect opportunity for Bon Jovi to make a big splash. And they did — just not the way they had hoped.
“The first Bon Jovi record was in the can but hadn’t come out yet,” guitarist Richie Sambora tells Guitar World. “We had no management. We were just brazen kids who wanted to play Madison Square Garden. We probably had no business doing it. Not that the band wasn’t ready, but we had no road crew, no infrastructure.”
An eagerness to impress and inexperience can be dangerous bedfellows, and Sambora quickly learned that the hard way, in front of nearly 20,000 people.
“I knew this was a heavy blues-rock crowd, so I told the guys, ‘I’ll go out there and blow for about 60 seconds, then we’ll go into the first tune.’ I hit the first chord and my Marshall blew up.
“I had a spare head, but it took about 45 seconds to switch and get the tubes warmed up. The crowd started chanting, ‘Z-Z-Top! Z-Z-Top!’”
That left its mark on the band, whose surging excitement had transformed into fear in a matter of moments.
“We played a 40-minute set in about 19 minutes,” Sambora adds.
Despite living through a guitarist’s worst nightmare, Sambora was able to look past the embarrassment and focus on the lesson it offered.
“Getting through moments like that is what shapes you as a pro,” he says.
It was soon behind him anyway. Bon Jovi’s debut LP was released four months later and was soon followed by the monumental Slippery When Wet. The group were soon able to rival their Texas blues-playing peers in popularity, and Sambora's amp-blowing memories were exiled to the past.
Four decades later, Bon Jovi are still going strong. Their newly released 16th album, Forever, features a song written on John Bon Jovi’s first-ever guitar, which he was recently reunited with 45 years after selling it.
As for Sambora, he left the band in 2013. “I had to do as a man for my family," he tells Guitar Player, "and I don’t regret leaving.” But he added that he is tinged with regret regarding “how it happened.”
Jon Bon Jovi confirmed Sambora left by his own choice, telling Classic Rock, “He wasn’t kicked out, he quit. And he hasn’t made any great overtures about coming back.”
