Giving love a bad name: Bon Jovi fan fined for blasting out band's tracks 'to help cope with divorce'

A heartbroken householder made her neighbours' lives a misery by constantly blasting out Bon Jovi songs during her divorce.

Amanda Durkin, 35, claimed playing tracks including Livin' On A Prayer and Bad Medicine helped her cope with the break-up of her marriage.

Ms Durkin played the tracks from 11pm until the early hours of the morning for six months.

Her stressed-out neighbours eventually installed recording equipment to monitor the noise levels.

Hull Magistrates' Court heard that complaints first began last year on April 14th after Ms Durkin's husband left her.

Council chiefs tried to tackle the noise nuisance by seizing her stereo system twice, issuing fines and eventually re-homing Ms Durkin.

Prosecutor Vincent Blake Barnard said: 'This is a noise nuisance issue over quite a period of time.

'Recordings were obtained and confirmed there was a nuisance by music being played in the early hours.

'We seized equipment from the premises and it was thought that would resolve the problem, but shortly after that there were further complaints.

'She was interviewed under caution and confirmed that she had received all of the warnings, but, due to personal problems in her life, chose to ignore them.

'The council attempted to resolve it, but to no avail and it has been brought to court.'

One neighbour, who asked not to be named, said: 'It got worse when her partner left her, and became intolerable. We complained because the noise was making our lives a misery.

'The booming music made it impossible to sleep. We were getting to our wit's end with the noise.'

Speaking at her new address,Ms Durkin said she was 'going through a divorce', adding: 'I didn't know what I was doing.'

Despite a summons being issued, she failed to attend the hearing.

Kenneth Richardson, chair of the magistrates bench, ordered that all her stereo equipment should be confiscated.

Bon Jovi fits D.C.

Older and wiser aren't adjectives ordinarily associated with rock bands, but the Bon Jovi that will hit the stage at the Verizon Center on Monday has certainly changed and matured over the years.

Take the group's current album, "The Circle."
It's got songs such as "Work for the Working Man," which could almost be described as an economic policy anthem, "economic policy" also not words often associated with rock 'n' roll.
Still, guitarist and songwriter Richie Sambora said, "The Circle" isn't about "being on the road and girls and, you know, cars and things like that."
"We couldn't have written this album if the world wasn't in the state it was in," Sambora said in a conference call with reporters last month. "Jon and I were really conscious of what people were feeling around the world, you know, with the changes that were happening, especially in our world."

"The Circle," released in November, wasn't even supposed to be the next record for the band.
Sambora and Jon Bon Jovi started to write some new songs for a greatest hits album.
But then they were inspired by President Barack Obama's election, Sambora said, and rattled by the economic recession.

"And, I mean, I related to it particularly because my dad worked in a factory," he said, "and he got laid off periodically where he had to go find a job."

Paying attention to current events—and even just literally to the world around them—has helped Bon Jovi keep out of songwriting ruts, Sambora said.

He said the band's single, "Superman Tonight," is really the only song on the new album that could be called a "boy/girl" tune.

Bon Jovi show, staying power awes

About halfway through his band's near-capacity show at the Pepsi Center on Monday night, Jon Bon Jovi did something only he could do. He covered Leonard Cohen's iconic ballad "Hallelujah" in his own signature style — with an emotive growl, arms outstretched to the sky and a shell necklace topping off a graying pattern of chest hair, which was glistening above four unfastened snap buttons.
Some might consider the Cohen song a contemplative meditation. Bon Jovi sees the song as an arena rock ballad, not unlike his own jams "I'll Be There For You" and "When We Were Beautiful."
As over-the-top and ridiculous as Bon Jovi can be, his staying power is something to be admired. He and his band have been writing hit songs for decades, and their show at the Pepsi Center — celebrating their latest CD, "The Circle" — was an energetic showcase of their ever-growing catalog.
The band got started quickly with "We Weren't Born to Follow," an album-perfect take on "You Give Love a Bad Name" and a KYGO-friendly "Lost Highway." "Born to Be My Baby" is as predictable as late-'80s rock songs get, but it had the female-heavy audience singing along and dancing in the aisles as if it were a modern Top 40 hit.
Especially impressive about Bon Jovi's stage show: The video screens that soared above the stage were among the coolest — and most easily manipulated — in arena-rock history. They created their own spectacular light show and ensured that everybody, including those behind the stage, got a great show.
Most impressive about the crowd: Its amazing youth. Sure, there were some hilarious mullets and butt-rockers in attendance. But the floor also was littered with really young, beautiful men and women — people who could have easily been in the same, expensive position at a Lady Gaga concert.
In "Bad Medicine," Jon appeared to favor stage left, and sure enough, it seemed like he was singing to former Broncos quarterback John Elway, who was prominently positioned in the front rows of the arena's bowl. In the middle of the aging, if still vital, hit, Bon Jovi joked about being in a bar band with a few standard rock covers.
"I ain't in a bar band no more," Bon Jovi said with a hip twist. "I'm here on business — the business of pleasure."
Elway sang along as he finished "Bad Medicine," and so did everybody else. Highlights in the rest of the set included a heartfelt "Someday I'll Be Saturday Night" and a righteous "Livin' on a Prayer."Read more: