Oh i know the mentality of it and usually I do let it go, let him have his fun and ignore it. as I said in the beginning of the post I was feeling a bit argumentative today or I probably wouldn't have bothered to post.

The thing I find most irritating about his review is his attitude that all americans that went to those 56 sold out arena shows are clueless idiots whoknow nothing. Were alot of those audiences casual fans who either go to hear their favorite hits or new fans that liked a song on the new record??? Yeah they were, but that is the case wherever in the world you go. i'm not a casual fan, i've been to european stadium shows, I see the same thing there as here i the US. A small percentage of diehards, a whole bunch of I like BJ live, it's a great time fans, and another percentage of casual I like that song or these few songs type of fans. My point is they are no more clued in or clueless than the fans in the States. Td doesn't get played here because it never got any airplay over here at all. None other than a diehard would even know a TD song if it bit them in the ass. I'm betting that there were plenty of fans at the Show in Europe who took a pee break during TD or Garageland because the didn't know the songs.

The thing about Seb and them is they call me a backstager, which they consider to be the most useless kind of fan, but from where I sit they are just the same only in reverse. They are so hell bent on being above it all and critiquing everything to nth degree so as not to appear backstagish that they have have as we say in America tarred themselves with the same brush.

the slagging off of Jon personally has reached the heights of idiocy in my opinion. I have had quite a few occasions over the years to meet and talk to the man, he has never been anything but down to earth, real and for the most part very nice. This is a guy that has every reason in the world to be a grade "A" asshole, arrogant jerk but the truth is he just isn't. and I'm sorry but you can't call a guy that has taken his band and his own career through twenty three years of the very fickle music business and come out still filling arenas and stadiums around the world and selling roughly five millions albums an outing a stupid mother****er. The dude is worth upwards of 250 million dollars he's been doing somethiung right for the last twenty years or so, because we all know he didn't start out with any kind of money.

Maybe I am too forgiving of Jon and the band, maybe i am willing to give them the benifit of the doubt more often than not, but for me i think they have earned that generosity. This band has given me endless and countless hours of pleasure and fun over the years, has hooked me up with some very cool people I now get to call friends and has given me memories that I cherish now and will for the rest of my life. So if cutting them a break now and again when I personally feel that they have maybe made a misstep is being backstagish then I'm all good with that.