Cowboy Diaries - a Jon Bon Jovi fan fiction

47: Showtime

19. March 1993, Ottawa Civic Centre Canada

Richie's  POV

We all were sitting in our dressing room, waiting rather nervously for our first show of our current tour to start. I played my warm-up scales for like the 100th time today. Even though my hand was fully healed by now, I still had the feeling it got a little stiff from time to time, something you couldn't need as a guitarist at all. This was my biggest fear in that moment, that I would mess up my playing because of my past injury. 

I guess we all had to fight our demons at that day. It was strange actually playing together as a band after all the time that had passed between our last tour. Some small appearances on TV we did over the last year could not be compared with a big live show with an almost two-hour set.

While I was worried about my playing, I knew Jon worried about his voice. I saw no reason for that, he sang better now than he did just last year, it seemed like his throat had finally recovered from the grueling days of the New Jersey tour. But just some days ago he had caught a cold, which was really the worst moment possible for that, because singing could get really painful with that, but you had to give your all to not let the fans down. 

And another problem was that Alec still wasn't too fond of playing our new songs. He said they didn't fit our style and we would betray ourselves when trying to deny our 80s roots. It had been really difficult for us to come up with a set list for tonight, as everyone requested something different. 

To be honest, everyone had expected our return to the road as a somewhat happier experience. Instead we all were here worrying, not only about our upcoming performance but about ticket sales too. This venue could fit nearly up to 10 000 people. A number that was laughable compared to the arenas we used to fill. 

And still there were over 500 tickets that hadn't been sold. Canada had always been a welcoming place to us, we recorded Slippery in Vancouver for instance. So we thought it was best to start our tour here, but numbers didn't look very welcoming at the moment. 

While we all tried to stay optimistic -we had been away for years so of course it would take time to re-establish our reputation- it was Jon for the most part who couldn't stop worrying. It looked like he even regretted starting this tour in the first place. I suspected there was another reason for that. 

He was awaiting his twins in less than three months, and he was constantly drawn between being at home with Dorothea or being here with us. He was the first one to found a family, I had no doubt he had become the most mature of all of us, but with that he was the one who worried the most. That childlike excitement he always had had seemed to be gone and I feared if it would ever come back.

I usually didn't want to drink before a show, but I needed a beer right now to ease my mind and get into performing mood. Just looking at Jon made me nervous. He rested his head on his left hand, running his fingers through his hair from time to time while he released nervous sighs and tried to focus on a piece of paper. He scribbled something onto it with his other hand. As he noticed I was watching him, he turned his attention to me. 

"I don't know if I can sing Bed Of Roses today." 

So apparently he was re-working our set list that we already had agreed on again. 

"I know I won't hit the high notes with my voice being in that condition. It would be embarrassing." 

"Are you kidding? It's our greatest hit we had in years. People are waiting to hear that. Don't be stupid, of course you can hit the notes, I heard your rehearsing. And I can back you up if you want to."