Still ‘lovin this holiday weekend! On today’s agenda, I’m meeting up with a friend of mine who will be driving me to an eye exam where I’ll finally get new glasses. Getting new glasses has been on my agenda for about a year now, and I decided to have her come along to be my style consultant on the purchase.

About a year ago, she was at my house, and noticed a pair of glasses on one of my stereo speakers.

“Whose glasses are those?”

“They’re mine.”

“Oh no.”

Read: those glasses suck.

There’s a bit of a humorous story connected to this pair of glasses. I got them a few years back while visiting my parents, who were at the time, living in Florida. Okay, make that five years ago, because I was in Florida for the holidays, unemployed, and feeling crummy about it all. My parents offered to take me for an eye exam to get glasses, knowing that I was sick of wearing contacts. Somewhere in the whole process, I managed to forget that they dilate your eyes before an eye exam. I hadn’t picked out frames prior to this, and had to squint like hell afterwards to pick glasses. It was pretty horrible.

I don’t blame the incident for the apparent lack of cool attached to these glasses. I liked them at the time, and was okay with them until they got pretty scratched up over the past couple of years. At that point, they just became annoying to me, and that’s been the status for the past year.

I’ve always thought that Yayhoo/Del-Lord rock and roller Eric Ambel had cool specs. Speaking of that, wouldn’t you know it, “Roscoe” has his own signature guitar now. Hopefully he can bring that guitar back to Cleveland soon for a show at the Beachland!

Of course none of this has anything to do with the subject line, as you’re probably thinking. But here’s the connection: I’m thinking I’ll be able to see these laserdiscs on my HDTV that much better, with the new glasses.

How about that for a connecting point? Please, don’t throw things at me for such a shaky transition – ya’ll should be used to that by now!

I’m continuing to make my way through some lasers in my collection that I either haven’t watched, or haven’t watched in a long time. In fact, I just picked up the laserdisc of the famous 1985 Hall and Oates “Liberty” concert off Ebay the other day. Those of you that heard the MP3s will understand how much I’m looking forward to receiving the LD when it shows up at some point next week.

The other day, I was watching Bon Jovi’s Keep The Faith: An Evening with Bon Jovi. This was one of my favorite MTV broadcasts from “back in the day,” with one of the other ones being Springsteen’s Plugged. We could mention Eagles Hell Freezes Over, the Don Henley Unplugged, and the list goes on and on.

I was pretty stoked when I got my hands on the Jovi laserdisc a few years back. I think I paid about 40 or 50 bucks for it, which was well worth it in my mind for the set. The Keep The Faith broadcast is probably the last live show from Bon Jovi that I REALLY enjoyed. The setlist is eclectic – an acoustic/electric mix of hits and covers performed in the round. They really were at the top of their game, and they really shine in this stripped down broadcast which is impeccably mixed.

Bon Jovi – Fever/We’ve Got To Get Out Of This Place/It’s My Life

That last song in the medley was in the setlist at a time before Jon had completely ripped off the entire Bruce playbook. By the time I saw the band on the Crush tour several years ago, the transformation was nearly complete.

I forgot about the Ross Perot shout-out prior to the mellow version of “Living On A Prayer.”

Bon Jovi – Living On A Prayer

Bon Jovi – With A Little Help From My Friends

Love some of the Youtube comments on the above video:

biglebowskir: thats a cover of a cover, thats a double cover

BloodOfObsession: It’s kinda amusing..because you have the gall to say that Bon Jovi made this better because HE slowed it down and made it rock’n’rollish….well, do your research. It was originally done by the Beatles but this version is more like Joe Crocker who started the whole “slowed down/ soulful rock” version. So, Bon Jovi rocks. The Beatles rule. And Joe? Crocker owns. I think they’re all amazing and this is a classic, wonderful song. Long live rock’n’roll.

SexualTourettes: I would call this an “attempt” One of the worst singers in the world ringo starr did the original – and its better than this. Sgt Pepper was named the greatest rock album ever, so basically beat bon jovi as his own game, even the beatles are more rock than he is.

Keep The Faith: An Evening with Bon Jovi is yet another laser title that remains unavailable on DVD. I’ve got a list of lasers building up that I’ll hopefully be able to ship off to a friend to have them transferred to DVD.

As long as we’re talking about Bon Jovi, my buddy Chris was THRILLED to find out that I have a DVD copy of the Japanese import LD Tokyo Road ’85. We all have those killer musical moments locked in our memory banks, even if it’s been years since we’ve seen/heard them. For Chris, he had a photographic musical snapshot in his brain, of Sambora’s guitar solo leading into “In and Out of Love.”

Richie Sambora guitar solo

Bon Jovi – In and Out of Love (Tokyo ’85)

What are some of your favorite live performances – officially released, bootleg, etc?