Do you miss them?

There is no way Jon could sing live I'm Your Man or SNGMSM.

Now on to the topic. I guess we all miss them somewhat, because no matter how much energy Phil plays with, Richie is still Richie, although his guitar playin isn't the same anymore I still love it, and I love even more his backing vocals especially on songs like IBTFY, Wanted, BOR.

Ever since Richie left the band, to me every performance of Wanted sounds like it's being done by a cover band.

I hate the fact that it had to end the way it did but it is what it is.

I miss my band so much if ****ing hurts my soul sometimes.
Yesterday I went through my videos from the only concert I could attend, in 2010 - São Paulo. I had the enormous luck to see them still together and having fun.
When they were still Bon Jovi. That concert was a ****ing blast.

Phil X can be a great guitarist, replace Richie just fine and nail it.
But he's not Richie. Even that lethargic sloppy guitarist up there was still better than another guy. Phil X it's just another guy.

That's MY point of view, of course.
Maybe not yours, and surely not theirs.

I do miss them. Too much.

I agree 100% with you, and not only Wanted, most of the songs. The old ones at least... pre LH.
Like I said in my previous post, Phil X can nail all the chords and riffs and solos, but nope... that's not the original.
Richie could be doing a mechanical playing on stage in the last tours sometimes, but that was the original stuff. The guitar is the soul of the song.
Now's just a cover band.

I also miss his backings, hurts to hear Phil X' voice when it was supposed to be Richie's.

ugh, I think I'll never be over this shit.

I miss the thrill I used to get out of their live shows. On nights like Munich 2003, Frankfurt 2008 and Mannheim 2011 they just took me to another planet and it was a feeling I can't even describe, nor have I gotten it in that form from any other band.

But those days are gone and I certainly don't blame Phil X for that. Even with Richie on board they'd be gone. He just has fallen off the waggon too many times and Jon isn't even half the frontman he once used to be.
I'm just happy that I was lucky enough to have witnessed maybe their most stunning post-2000 concert and a few other very special nights.

I was watching Hyde Park 2003 today, a gig which divides opinion. Many, like me, would loved to have attended and I think it looks like such a special show. Others don't think it was such a big deal and it was a good day, nothing more.

But it's a perfect show for this topic. The band aren't on fire, Jon's voice is really poor at times. But you can tell there is something in the air. It looks like a blast and small things just make it it seem amazing, like Richie actually playing the solo to 'In These Arms', the end with 'Never Say Goodbye', the outro of 'The Distance', the way 'Blood On Blood' sounds perfect despite the lead singer only whispering the words for 90% of it.

The best scenario for me it would be to have a Bon Jovi with Sambora. I miss those days but not too much. The reality that we have now (Phil X on lead guitar) turned out to be very good, for me. The concerts may lack the past emotion, but the guy seems to be one of the best replacements Shanks could find.

I have little interest in seeing Bon Jovi without Sambora. It's just not Bon Jovi to me.

Apart from the fact, I really don't get the feeling that Jon really wants to be there either. From the footage I've seen over the last few years he just seems to be going through the motions....he makes it look like a Job now, where as he used to look like he was having the time of his life. I know people get sick of them being compared to Springsteen, but Springsteen still gives it his all live, even though he's in his late 60s now! He still looks like he really wants to be there every night! I don't get that from Jon at all....

If Jon was still giving it is all, then I might be interested. Although without Richie i'd rather see him do a solo show, and play a lot more tracks from his solo record that most people will never get to hear (not a bunch of covers like he tends to do). I think some of his best writing was on Blaze and DA. I know it will never happen though...

As my posts suggest, I am hugely critical of Sambora. I actually believe it is Jon's fault the band is where it is now though.

Anyway, even as a critic of Richie (recently), I will never see this band live without him. It is true that he brought something that changed the atmosphere of the band and the song. We know it was not guitar chops, because Phil X has that in spades too.

It was just something else, probably something none of us can actually define.

People are right, even when Jon was bad the band still had something, the songs still spoke to me. I will also add that many of the videos posted in this thread are only above average performances at best. However, they are much better than anything Jon and Richie are doing apart.

It suggests to me Richie's departure was much deeper. He pretends like he was not free, but he is much more dynamic in these "controlled" Bon Jovi shows than he is in his current "jam" band.

This also says what I'm feeling. I have seen more shows than Dominik but the feelings were the same. The absolute relief of the 2000 show at The Meadowlands when I saw that they still "had it" is up there with the best. The first time I saw them after waiting for so long (1993 again at The Meadowlands) just blew me away. The 2011 trip when I saw 7 shows in 3 weeks and followed them all over Europe describes how big a fan I was. Of course I miss that.

Unlike Dominik I have felt the same enthusiasm for other bands - Led Zeppelin was (and is) my first love. And Bruce (bless him) is still there for me and has been almost from the beginning as has Southside. I still have 4 more shows of Bruce's this August and September and I can't wait.

That said, in his best years, Jon's voice blew everyone away. His voice is the first thing I heard and was why I fell in love with the band in 1989. I miss that - I miss the attitude and the frontman he used to be. As Dominik said, we are lucky to at least have had that.

Of course I miss them, or to put it in perspective - I miss what they once were. And I don't need to go way back in the years for that. Sure, I was there from 1992 with my first live concert in 1993 up until 2001. After that I didn't see them until 2011, but that show also had the same magic as all the previous ones. They didn't sound as youthful and yada yada, but it was BON JOVI and to me they were still perceived as a band that enjoyed what they were there to do, and for that reason the magic was still there. That is now gone, and I don't have any expectations to it ever coming back. But I was in it for the long run, and while I miss it dearly, I'm extremely grateful for having been a part of it. And their unfortgettable music will be with me my entire life, nothing will ever take that away.