It’s fitting that after Bruce Springsteen and The E-Street Band closed Giants Stadium, tomorrow night Bon Jovi will open up The New Meadowlands Stadium in East Rutherford, NJ. Throughout the shiny new facility I’m sure there will be vendors galore selling swag, thongs, cds, hats, bumper stickers, and whatever else they can slap a Bon Jovi logo on, especially T-Shirts.
Recently on a trip down to Atlantic City, I stopped into the Hard Rock Cafe because I read about the exclusive Bon Jovi t-shirt only available at Hard Rock Shops. It’s the 26th edition in a line of Signature tees that Hard Rock began in 1990. The girl behind the counter showed my girlfriend and I the shirt, but it wasn’t impressive.
Since the Have a Nice Day Tour, Bon Jovi shirts have been extremely lame. During the bands heyday their shirts were just as cool as other hairbands of the era. Now all you see on the front of their tees are crosses, flowers, smiley faces, hearts, and yes…GRAPES! This is not a joke, that is what makes up any Bon Jovi t-shirt you see for sale, unless it’s vintage from eBay. The band opted to veer away from skulls and gangsters in favor of more women and children friendly designs which are frankly, WEAK. All of the characteristics of a typical Bon Jovi shirt are here, mainly the one that screams “If you’re a dude you should NEVER be wearing this shirt!” To add that extra special something that your wardrobe of other Jovi shirts may not have, there’s a silkscreen of Jon’s autograph on the bottom right of the logo!
Out of the $26.00 dollars you’re asked to shell out for this tee, 15% of the profits will go to the Jon Bon Jovi Soul Foundation, which will help create “affordable housing to those in need.” The Soul Foundation concentrates on serving the greater Philadelphia area rather than New Jersey, the state that provided the title for the band’s 4th album. There are still plenty of run down, low income parts of New Jersey, but no that’s fine Jon, go help the people in Philadelphia, the city that you didn’t grow up in.
www.jonbonjovisoulfoundation.org
Other Bon Jovi T-Shirt Tuesday Installments:
NJ T-Shirt Tuesday 13
NJ T-Shirt Tuesday 48