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Tokyo, Japan (Bad Tour)

NOTE: Zack Greenburg / Hollywood Reporter is incorrect, since Richie Sambora met Michael when they were “playing two nights in the Tokyo Dome”, which only occurred on December 31, 1988 - January 1, 1989. Since Bon Jovi was performing in Munich on December 19, 1988, the only Bad Tour dates Bon Jovi could have attended was December 24-26. The only inconsistency is that Sambora says that Michael’s performance was only a day before theirs, which was closer to a week.

 

Richie Sambora, Bon Jovi lead guitarist, Eddie Trunk Podcast (March 9, 2017)

Richie Sambora: Such an insane showman. I saw [Michael] in Japan for the first time, going back many years now, and he just blew me away.

Eddie Trunks: Did he ever come or connect with Bon Jovi shows back in the day at all?

Sambora: It was the day before [our Tokyo Dome performance]. We were playing two nights in the Tokyo Dome and he played the night before. So Frank Dileo, at that point, was managing me too, who was Michael's manager at the time, and so we get invited to the show, and I go see the show and I was like, "Are you kidding me? To be able to dance like that, and sing like that, and command all those people and then turn on 80,000 people in front of you." I was very moved by his performance. So then I got back to the hotel, we were staying at the same hotel, so Frank said, "Come on up and sit down, and talk to Michael"

Trunks: Oh, so you met with him?

Sambora: Yeah yeah... I asked him if he wanted to come out and jam with us at the Tokyo Dome the next night, the same place that I just saw him at, 'cause we were doing two nights the next night. And that's not this thing. He needs it all [snaps his fingers].

Orianthi: Yeah, he's a perfectionist, for sure. We rehearsed intensely.

Sambora: He said, "That's not my thing. That's not my thing, I just don't do that, you know?" I'm the Jersey guy, I said, "Michael, come out, and have a slice of pizza and a beer. We'll learn anything you want to learn."

Orianthi: No. No, no, no, no, no [laughs]

Sambora: No no, but it was true, and he was very, very sweet. That evening, he said, "I'll think about it". And the next day, I get a call, he said "I can't do that, you know?" But he was very, very sweet about it. But, I mean, as a performer and a showman, my Lord…

Zack O'Malley Greenburg, Hollywood Reporter article

One night, [Jackson manager Frank] Dileo called and asked if Bon Jovi would like to meet Jackson, an invitation the rocker gladly accepted. The hotel was shaped like a hand, with the palm containing an elevator bank. The fingers radiated outward, each its own wing with multiple rooms; on the top floor, one wing was blocked off for Jackson and his inner circle.

Dileo led Bon Jovi and his bandmates down a long corridor to the singer's suite, pausing to slick back his hair and extinguish his cigar before opening the door.

"The room had been ripped to shreds and redecorated," says Bon Jovi. "They put up mirrors against the wall so [Jackson] could practice his dancing, and a wooden dance floor in there. And they took over a wing of this hotel. Needless to say, spending money was not really an issue."

Jackson, however, was nowhere to be found. So Bon Jovi and his pals waited on the couch. When the singer finally arrived, he made quite the entrance, decked out in one of his trademark outfits from the Bad Tour: all black leather and buckles, a spandex shirt, belts draped over his shoulder. "When he entered the room, your eyes sort of had to focus again," Bon Jovi remembers.

The Jersey rockers, fresh from a string of tour dates in Australia — and new to the trappings of superstardom — immediately began regaling Jackson with tales from their trip. They were so big Down Under, they told him, that they had to buy wigs and fake mustaches to avoid paparazzi; the only way out of their hotel was in the laundry van. Jackson smiled and nodded, never giving away the fact that he'd been doing the same since his Jackson 5 days.

"So we made small talk, and he couldn't have been nicer," Bon Jovi says. "We kept saying, 'Michael, you're sitting up here by yourself, man, we're down two floors below you … we're all here, on nights off we're hanging out, come on down.' "

Again, Jackson smiled and nodded. Eventually Bon Jovi and his band bid their new friend adieu and headed back downstairs, hoping they might get to party later on with one of the only acts in the world bigger than them. But with each passing minute, they grew more certain that Jackson wouldn't be coming. Imagine their surprise when Jackson sent down Bubbles the chimpanzee to entertain them.

"We proceeded to get very drunk, have a bunch of water fights, knock on doors, typical classic rock star things to do in the '80s," Bon Jovi recalls. "And [we] blamed it all on Bubbles."

Jackson never came downstairs. And despite the fact that Bon Jovi showed up at Jackson's show, the singer didn't return the favor.

It wasn't out of any personal animosity but rather an unstoppable focus on his work.

"We were having a blast two floors below with Bubbles, and he was up there practicing his dancing," says Bon Jovi. "While we were being goofballs and enjoying our success, he was practicing even after the shows because he was just so ultra-uber-focused on being Michael Jackson. The blessing was the curse."

 

Benny Collins, production manager on Bad Tour, Dangerous Tour and first part of the HIStory Tour, “L.A. Watts Times” (June 24, 2010) (archived)

I have a picture from Christmas in Japan when I was dressed up as Santa Claus, and he sat on my lap and took a picture pulling down my beard. Michael just being Michael and doing the things he loved to do with an energy that was uplifting and energizing.