Remembering Bon Jovi’s Last Missouri Show with Richie Sambora

Sometimes you witness history and you have no idea until much later. That's what happened to everyone that saw Bon Jovi perform in St. Louis 12 years ago when they saw Richie Sambora play with Bon Jovi in Missouri for the very last time.

I can't prove it, but I'm fairly certain that I was the first disc jockey to play Bon Jovi on the radio in Missouri. I remember when their debut album landed in our studio and I immediately knew "Runaway" would be a hit and played it on my weekend show that I did at the radio station I started at when I was still a junior in high school. That was the winter of 1983/84. Fast forward to March 13, 2013 when Bon Jovi played the Scottrade Center in St. Louis, Missouri. This was the set list for that night.

What no one realized that was at that Bon Jovi show in St. Louis was that it would be one of the final shows Richie Sambora would ever perform with the band. He stopped showing up for the band's concerts on April 2, 2013.

Bon Jovi would continue on, of course, with Phil X taking over the guitar slot for the band, but true fans will tell you that the band would never be the same. No disrespect meant for Phil X as he's a fine guitarist and no one would blame him for jumping at the chance to join Bon Jovi, but the chemistry between Jon and Richie was always part of the magic formula that helped Bon Jovi become superstars.

I met Bon Jovi at a show on their "Keep the Faith" tour in 1993 and even then I could sense a little tension within the band. At that time, it was Alec John Such who was about to leave the band. I had heard that the constant touring during the Slippery When Wet and New Jersey era had made things uncomfortable between Jon and Richie. To their credit, they managed to keep things together for another two decades after "Keep the Faith", but the Because We Can tour in 2013 would mark the end of Richie's time in Bon Jovi. Everyone that was at that March 2013 St. Louis concert was witnessing Bon Jovi history even though no one knew it at the time.