Jon Bon Jovi masterminded one of the biggest and biggest-selling bands of his era, and became one of its biggest rock stars. But there's more – so much more

Jon Bon Jovi wearing sunglasses - studio portrait.

November 7, 1979. The Atlantic City Expressway are on stage at the Stone Pony club in Asbury Park, New Jersey, performing a cover of Bruce Springsteen’s The Promised Land, when an audience member jumps on stage, grabs the mic and begins singing the second verse. It takes Atlantic City Expressway’s vocalist John Bongiovi a beat to recognise the interloper as the man who wrote the song. 

“I’m a seventeen-year-old kid and suddenly I’m sharing a microphone on stage with the biggest rock star in New Jersey,” he – now Jon Bon Jovi – marvels, 45 years on, looking back on that night while seated on a sofa in an upmarket London hotel room. “I’ve got high school in the morning, and the teacher just sounds like ‘Wah wah wah, wah wah wah’, because I’m thinking Bruce will probably want me to come over to his house tomorrow, now that we’re friends. I had rainbows and unicorns in my head, like an acid trip, because now I had seen the world in colour.”