Bon Jovi News

(9/5/02, 12 p.m. ET) -- To say that New Jersey rockers Bon Jovi (Jon Bon Jovi, Richie Sambora, Tico Torres, and David Bryan) have a full day ahead of them on Thursday (September 5) would be an understatement.

The band will start the morning with a visit to NBC's Today show, where they will discuss the day's NFL Kickoff Live From Times Square, among other things. Bon Jovi is expected to appear on the program between 7 a.m. and 8:15 a.m. ET. In addition, the Today show will have cameras following the band throughout the day for a segment to air on Friday (September 6).

Immediately following the Today show, frontman Jon Bon Jovi will join NFL Today sportscasters Deion Sanders, Dan Marino, Boomer Esiason, and Jim Nantz at the New York Stock Exchange to ring the opening bell at 9:30 a.m. ET. Financial networks such as CNBC, CNN-FN, and Bloomberg will carry the event live.

Later that day Bon Jovi will headline the NFL season kickoff in Times Square. Also scheduled to appear are DJ Skribble, Enrique Iglesias, and hip-hop artist Eve with Alicia Keys, and the cast of the Broadway musical Rent, including *NSYNC's Joey Fatone. The event will begin at 4:30 p.m. ET and end at 8 p.m. ET, and it is free to the public. The proceedings will also include recognition and support of New York City's September 11 memorial events. During the Times Square extravaganza, a giant NFL football will drop from the traditional site of the New Year's Ball, and an NFL-themed fashion show will round out the festivities.

The world premiere of the music video for Bon Jovi's new single, "Everyday," will take place on VH1's Playback Bon Jovi at 6:30 p.m. ET. Immediately following the premiere, the network will cut away to Times Square at 7:30 p.m. ET for 2 Minute Live: Bon Jovi Live In Times Square.

Immediately following the event, the New York Giants and the San Francisco 49ers will kickoff in the NFL's first-ever Thursday night season opener at Giants Stadium in nearby East Rutherford, New Jersey. The game will air on ESPN starting at 8:30 p.m. ET.

Bon Jovi will travel from New York to New Jersey via helicopter to perform for the game's halftime show, which will also air exclusively on ESPN. At the Times Square event and during the halftime show at Giants Stadium, Bon Jovi will perform the single "Everyday" for the first two times in front of a live audience.

In addition, the CBS television network will film the entire day and create a package for a one-hour primetime special on CBS dubbed Countdown To Kickoff: The NFL Times Square Concert, which will air on the following night, Friday (September 6), at 10 p.m. ET.

Bon Jovi's new studio album, Bounce, is due out October 8 in the U.S. When beginning to write the album last year, Sambora told LAUNCH that much inspiration was coming from the life-changing events of September 11. "We always wrote a good love song and a good ballad, but they don't seem to be coming out at this point--now we're writing about unity and real-life situations," he said. "Jon and I are really becoming pretty proficient storytellers as songwriters now, and we're trying to really write stories about the human experience, I think, and the human experience obviously has been jolted by what has happened on September 11."

-- Jason Gelman, New York and Neal Weiss, Los Angeles

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