"Night of the Reverend" by Jack Ponti

  There is one night that stands out in my 25 years in this business. I call it "Night of the Reverend".

During the Bon Jovi Slippery When Wet Tour, we used to go to all the local shows, me, Snake from Skid Row (the next year Snake was a star!), Vic (who worked with me), Joe Lynn Turner, all of us Jersey guys. At the Philadelphia show it was a night of insanity.

It began with me, Vic and Snake going out to the limo ramp and teasing the girls with backstage passes. You know the old; "Show me your tits routine." Vic picked out his girl and me and Snake were going inside when all of a sudden I heard this noise. Snake and I turned around and the kids broke through the barricade and were running down the limo ramp. Snake and I got inside and Vic was caught in the crush. What was really funny is his pnats were down because he couldn't wait to go inside for some "fun". Snake and I ran into Jon's dressing room and all Hell was breaking loose in the tunnel. Security running around and everything. We made believe we had nothing to do with it.

We didn't find Vic for hours. When we did, he then took his little friend into a small room and began to have "fun" again until me and Snake found you could move the wall to reveal them to all the press and guests! If that wasn't enough, we all went to the hotel for the after show party. We were downstairs at the bar, when Jon sent for us to come to his room. Joe Lynn Turner was hitting on some chick and she was begging him not to go. Joe said: "Here, hold my jacket for me so you know I'll come back" We went to hang with Jon for about an hour. Joe had indulged in some, uh,,,libations. He was a little lit up to say the least. It all kind of hit him at once.

We said goodnight to Jon and went downstairs to leave and Joe started freaking because the girl left with his coat! We were laughing our asses off but Joe was losing his mind. He started knocking on doors at the Four Seasons hotel at 4 in the morning. People were freaking. Joe was screaming: "Where's my fucking coat!!??"

Security came, so we yanked Joe into someones room to calm him down. He was out of control, talking about everything from his fucking coat to Blackmore to Madonna. Ranting and raving like a lunatic. Some kids in the room were just staring at him in disbelief, like "Oh My God! It's Joe Lynn Turner and he is insane." We were saying: "Joe promise you'll shut the fuck up so we can go home." This went on for hours. Everytime we calmed him down, he started freaking about the coat and Madonna and Blackmore and being Italian...It was insane.

We finally went downstairs to leave. It was sunlight outside and we were burnt. As soon as we got to the lobby, JLT sees this security guard and jumps on the table in the lobby ranting again about all this weird shit. Telling this gigantic black security guard how sorry he was about slavery and shit, it was getting too crazy! Vic went to get the car, me and Snake were apologizing to the guard. Vic came in and grabbed Joe and ran him through the doors in a headlock. We threw him in the car. Snake was sitting in the back with Joe dying laughing as JLT wouldn't shut the fuck up the entire drive home for 2 hours. Poor Snake.

We got to my house and I made Joe sleep on the porch outside. Now check this out: Joe's manager Larry Mazur calls my manager and Snakes manager the next day, screaming what bad influences me and Snake were on Joe!! Fuck Larry.

We named Joe "The Right Reverend Turner" that night and I think that name is still used today when he gets drunk.

I have a million stories, I could write a book...maybe one day!

Jack Ponti

Let's all give a big hand and say thank you to Jack Ponti for his Beast Side Story. It was really a Beast one! As for the book: we (ever being part of the music biz) all have thousands of stories, don't we? To be honest the initial idea of starting this column came because *I* wanted to share my stories with the public but then who cares for them? So we decided to give the chance to people our readers are more interested in. One day - when you all run out of your stories - my time comes then! (an evil laughter heard all over the hills...)