Jon Bon Jovi and Joan Baez would never be allowed to sing in Iran, but are showing their strong support for the protesters there.

In videos that can be found on YouTube, Bon Jovi and Baez perform songs, including some lines sang in Farsi, calling for peace.

In “Stand By Me, Bon Jovi sings with Andy Madadian, an Armenian-Iranian pop musician. Bon Jovi adds a line sung in Farsi proclaiming “one voice, you and me.”

Richie Sambora, Bon Jovi’s guitarist, supplies the licks in the video from June 24th. The video opens with the image of Bon Jovi with a sign in his hands written in Farsi that says “we are all one.”

Bon Jovi was thanked for his performance in comments posted on his website on Saturday, expressing hopes that Bon Jovi would some day be the first American singer to preform in Iran.

Joan Baez, American activist and folk singer, sang “We Shall Overcome,” singing parts of it in Farsi. The 68 year old singer, is seen sitting in her kitchen strumming on an acoustic guitar on the song that was the anthem and made famous by the Civil Rights Movement in the U.S.

Baez, in a message on her website to the people of Iran, proclaims that the world sees the power of nonviolence in you and thanks them for their courage and sacrifices.

Other musicians provide soundtracks for the slideshows and videos of the protests of the alleged fraud from the June 12 election which gave President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad a landslide victory.

One set of photographs has late pop superstar Michael Jackson’s song “Beat It,” with the key lyrics in red overlaying images of Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and Ahmadinejad.

Rage Against The Machine, the politically minded rock band, provides the soundtrack for a video that splices political protest photographs with video of the pre-election debate where Ahmadinejad is holding the intelligence file of Mir Hossein Mousavi’s wife, who was a rival candidate.

Bon Jovi arrived in Milwaukee in high spirits, kicking off this year’s Summerfest with a sweaty, sticky sold out opening day performance at the Amp. Bon Jovi really should be given credit for a lot more than their ability for making guys rock with their anthems or making women swoon with their ballads of endless love and nostalgia.

These qualities are definitely what helps the band to sell out arenas, but it isn’t everything. The band has accomplished something greater, something that is a lot more rare within rock-n-roll stardom under the spotlight. Jon Bon Jovi has been able to transcend space and time by somehow managing to retain relevancy for over two decades that are quite musically diverse and emerging even better from the experience.

Who else from the era of head bangers with hair spray would be able to say that?

This is probably Bon Jovi’s crowning achievement, although if you were to ask the band members they might have another milestone on their minds.

Bon Jovi arrived in Milwaukee on the heels of being inducted into the Songwriters Hall of Fame, where they joined fellow New Jersey rocker Bruce Springsteen. Their sweaty and sticky sold out opening night Summerfest performance at Marcus Amphitheater showed them to be in high spirits.

The Big Gig’s main stage serves as an ideal venue for the band, known for checking all political opinion and pretension at the door and delivering all hopeful songs with strong spirit and good attitude. There is a place and time for meaningful metaphors and artful arrangements, but opening night was a moment for the crowd to just indulge in some familiar, simple pleasures as they sung along to the songs, line by line.

Bon Jovi’s music sets the perfect tone for making people unite in the struggle and feel good without feeling the need to place blame or point fingers or celebrate the downtrodden. It feels like when Jon Bovi Jovi is smiling, that the world just smiles back at him. What choice do you really have when the opening song is an upbeat versions of the classic Dave Clark Five’s tune “Glad All Over?”

Even when Jon and Company follow things up with the quasi angst 1987 hit song, “You Give Love a Bad Name,” it’s hard to see them as anything but America’s sweethearts, even if the band members are all close to 50. Jon has the energy and playfulness of a 23-year old while on stage, with his shirt partially open and feathered hair bobbing up and down as he leaps around stage and then settling perfectly into place with every dramatic pose. The women, who made up the majority of the 23,000 person crowd, were squealing and hanging on every word of Jon’s all night.

Jon noted that the band was only playing four shows for the year, with this performance being number three. He said when they were offered the opportunity to play Summerfest that he said “hell yeah.”

When they band played “I Love This Town” from the 2007 album “Lost Highway,” the crowd took it to heart. They also played some of their “newer” hits, including “Who Says You Can’t Go Home,” “Have A Nice Day,” and “It’s My Life, but really seemed quite eager to bring everyone back to the early 80’s. First there was “Runaway,” followed up with “Bad Medicine,” “Raise Your Hands,” and several other tunes which peaked well before grunge came onto the scene.

Oddly enough, when Bon Jovi digs down deep it doesn’t necessarily feel like it’s a novelty act. The crowd, mixed with both those not old enough to be born before the band surfaced, along with others old enough to be the band member’s moms, were all equally accepting of their old, dated material along with their newer, squeaky clean orientation that the band has taken.

It seems as if the band could do no wrong, although it would have been better to have Jon singing the solo version of the song “I’ll Be There For You” instead of Richie Sambora. But his impeccable timing along with the breakdown was nothing short of epic.

Leaving “Livin’ on a Prayer” off until the encore did come as somewhat of a surprise. Jon did, however, have some new tricks to unveil. He announced to the crowd that the band had just finished up a new album the night before. No one knows exactly what that means, but it is almost certain that we have new Bon Jovi material to look forward to in the near future. It was a nice parting gift from the sold out opening night performance.

Jon Bon Jovi, along with Richie Sambora of the rock band Bon Jovi, were inducted into the Song Writers Hall of Fame during a recent ceremony held in New York City.

Jon Bon Jovi noted that the honor was the closest thing to immortality that he and Sambora was ever going to see.

Bon Jovi and Sambora performed their hit song “Wanted Dead or Alive” at the gala which was a celebration of 40 years of Hall of Fame inductions.

Veteran rockers Crosby, Stills and Nash were inducted as well, and Sir Tom Jones was awarded with a hitmaker award.

Jones, who has just recently begun to collaborate on his material, noted that you had to have great songs in order to get your foot inside the door. He sang a medley of some of his hit songs at the ceremony. He had to start over on “It’s Not Unusual,” after starting in the wrong place in the song.

Jason Mraz, the US singer-songwriter, won an award as the most promising talent and was tapped as a possible future inductee into the Song Writer’s Hall of Fame.

Rob Thomas, a former winner who presented Mraz with his award, joked that he hated him, chiding Mraz and saying he had ruined the curve for everyone. You are young and cute and just too talented. You should stop.

Roger Greenaway and Roger Cook, the British songwriting pair, whose well known songs include “Here Comes That Rainy Day Feeling Again” and “I’d Like To Teach The World To Sing,” were also given a special award.