Jon Bon Jovi on his new daughter-in-law Millie Bobby Brown

Jon Bon Jovi gazes down at his designer boots as though it’s the first time he’s seen them. ‘You like them?’ he says. ‘Stolen!’ Stolen isn’t some hipster label. He means they were stolen from a photo shoot he did a few weeks back. Pointing both thumbs at his leather jacket, he adds. ‘I stole this, too.’

The 62-year-old Bon Jovi frontman circles the carpet of his hotel suite at the Corinthia like dogs do before deciding where to sit and, once on the sofa, draws his legs in, yogi-style. ‘We’ve met before, right?’

On his group’s 1987 hit ‘Wanted Dead or Alive’, Bon Jovi declared, ‘I’ve seen a million faces and I’ve rocked them all’, so it’s impressive that he recognised this one – not least because 28 years have elapsed since our last encounter. From the side of the stage in Stuttgart, I witnessed a rock star at the peak of his powers, lobbing million-sellers such as ‘Livin’ on a Prayer’ and ‘You Give Love a Bad Name’ to 75,000 fans who roared every word back at him.