In your opinion, what are their best live performances?

1989 of course!! Apart from the very early shows of that year and the second leg in North America. What I love about those shows is that everything perfectly fits together. The songs worked together because they were from the same era. And I love the power, the energy and also the vocals and guitars. Some would say that it was only stupid rock'n'roll but the soul and meaning were in the songs as well!!

Another standout period in BJ live history is April 1993. I don't know why but the rest of the KTF/ISWID tours is shit compared to those shows!!

My problem with the 90s show is that the 80s songs sound bad to me. Listen to Runaway, I'd Die For You from the 1995 show, it lacks something. They are not cool. And also the music was different - mixed eras, so the whole show didn't sound as consistent as in 80s.

And nowadays? I love the OWN tour - Jon's vocals were better than on Crush, Richie still played normal guitars and overall the show worked very well, even if they didn't change the set that much. Also it was the last tour when they played the classics for me - ending with Crush songs.

From 2003 onwards, it is harder to me to find the better. The beginning of TC tour is indeed very good, Philly shows are awesome, but still - Richie is butching almost every second solo. Why the hell he can't play IBTFY and Runaway solos as they shoud be? One of the biggest let downs is Bobby and other useless extra musicians, TLFR songs in sets 2005-2007, Hugh hidden somewhere in the back. Not so long ago, someone has posted OWN from TOTP - look how tight the band is. And even if it is the same era and I still think of it as "current" it is almost ten years ago and the band look so old and tired and bored now. In 2001 they were still rock gods, giving the show what they had, nowadays it is more of a act with long history. There are many good moments but the magic I can find in older shows is gone. (offtopic - the GH booklet depicts the situation as well, three photos, playlist and that's it. No mention who played the bass for example? Hugh was put in between sounf engineers and cleaner in The Circle booklet, here he doesn't exist any more. Alec? Dead for them. The GH looks like it was done because Jon promised to do it, without any effort.)

I was waiting for that since the thread started But you are right, especially the late '89 shows had something magical to them

Totally agreed!

Again agreed! When listening to recording from the 90's, I skip stuff like Bad Name most of the time. I think it even sounds better today that it did on the KTF tour (I couldn't stand Alec's awfully high pitched voice in the choruses, totally ruined it for me).

Somehow most of the Crush tour shows didn't do anything for me, was totally different with the OWN tour, though the set didn't change that much. Can't really tell why.

You'll never get over the fact that Hugh was placed somewhere else on the stage, will you?
On most points I have to agree with you, the shows from 2003-2007 weren't special for me, it started to change a bit when they played so many rarities in Europe 2008 again.
But once again, I need to defend the Circle tour. Sure, there were shows where they sounded poor (Glendale, Mexico), but no tour since TD brought out so many shows I constantly still listen to. Charlotte, Mohegan Sun night 2, both Philly nights, Nashville, NMS night 2 and 3, Toronto night 2 or Chicago night 2.
And last night I watched the DVD from Sao Paulo. I only wanted to take a quick look into it, but ended up watching over 2 hours of it as it completely took me away.

You'll never get over the fact that Hugh was placed somewhere else on the stage, will you?
On most points I have to agree with you, the shows from 2003-2007 weren't special for me, it started to change a bit when they played so many rarities in Europe 2008 again.
But once again, I need to defend the Circle tour. Sure, there were shows where they sounded poor (Glendale, Mexico), but no tour since TD brought out so many shows I constantly still listen to. Charlotte, Mohegan Sun night 2, both Philly nights, Nashville, NMS night 2 and 3, Toronto night 2 or Chicago night 2.
And last night I watched the DVD from Sao Paulo. I only wanted to take a quick look into it, but ended up watching over 2 hours of it as it completely took me away.[/QUOTE]

How did you get a DVD of Sao Paulo and all those other concerts to listen too?

Many of us are on a file sharing forum elsewhere as there is no file sharing allowed on this site. If you are interested and can share something yourself, send one of us a pm and we can give you details.

1st TD = emotion and vocal
2nd KTF = vocal
3rd Circle = vocal

Dawn

Hopefully GH Tour will give us This Aint a Love song at least...

Letting you go was on the last night, and Jon wasn't crying.

Can I expand on this thread slightly and ask people what in their opinion the must have bootlegs are (Please note mods I'm not asking where to download from nor will i share in open forum where mine have come from)

I've tracked down some of the shows in this thread, and am currently downloading Yokohama 1996 (3 shows) and Hammersmith 1990 but am always up for new shows from any era, to either listen to once, or put onto my player!!

All suggestions welcomed!

The ones that popped up in my mind:

Milton Keynes 1993 - The best boot ever
Bremen, Germany 1995 - These Days Tour Kick off show in Europe. Soundboard Quality. Stick To Your Guns intro played during Richie's Acc Guitar Solo!!!! Cooool!
Borgata 2004 - Funny show, with the box set songs!

Ill remember others....

I have many that I listen to a lot.

One Last Wild Night (Giants 01)
Shepherds Bush 02
Tampa 93
Wembley 95
Tokyo 02
Tokyo 88
The Forum 97 (Jon)
China Club 00
Borgata 04

All are soundboard / proshot if video

Lots of the unofficial live stuff I have isn't really from a bootleg, but rather other random sources.