Phil X on... Greatest Hits?

Utter nonsense. The videos state otherwise.

No. Def. not.

Dude. I was there. In person. Twice. The shows were FINE. I missed Richie's personality, but Phil was perfectly capable as a player. If he had sucked, I would have noticed because it would have ruined the show. It's not cool to knock him just because he's not Richie. It's not his fault Richie was in rehab and missed the shows. Phil stepped up, especially given the short period of time he had to learn the songs.

I suppose the quality of his playing is a matter of opinion though and certainly not important enough to argue about in consideration of things going on on in the real world.

Is this for real? We are on a Bon Jovi forum where we argue about 'quality of playing' all the time. This is why this forum was set up in the first place, so we can discuss music and quality of playing is part of it. If I want to talk about my damaged ACL, I go to a medical forum, obviously.

Phil X is a great guitarist. But talking strictly about his playing, he couldn't hold up against Richie. Whether you hear it or not is a different issue all together.

Aloha !

I always wonder whether people making statements like this are actually part of that real world, seeing as they're incapable of seperating the importance of the issues that are going on from the sole fact of discussing things for enjoyment.

I agree with DevilsSon though, whether you can hear if Phil X isn't as good as Richie is a whole different thing than saying "the shows didn't suffer one bit". It's like someone who can't say if a singer is singing out of key saying that the singer wasn't that bad. If you've got no knowledge in regards to what makes a good guitar player you shouldn't be discussing it.

Salaam Aleikum,
Sebastiaan

I sometimes wonder if you're actually part of the real world, Seb. Bon Jovi isn't Dream Theater - Bon Jovi's closer to Westlife than they are to Dream Theater. What actually matters isn't if everything's technically on it, or, frankly, what guitarists think, since the vast majority of Bon Jovi fans aren't guitarists. It's what the people at the shows think, and the vast majority of them are musical plebs who just want to sing along to Prayer and have a nice night to remember. If you go to a Dream Theater gig you can deride anyone who comments without knowing their modal scales but not someone commenting on a Bon Jovi gig.


NONETHELESS, after reading that Dry County comment I searched out one of those videos and I have to agree, Phil's technically amazing but he's a 4 minute rock track with 30 seconds fret wanking kinda guy, he's not really built for the 6 minute solo it has to be said. That's the only bad one I've seen from him though... I liked some of the variation he brought to the other tracks I've seen with him in, particularly KTF. Wouldn't choose it over Richie's but still :P

For the record: Having seen both I firmly believe Phil X is technically the better guitarist. However Richie is lightyears ahead of him creatively.

Aloha !

I am very much aware Bon Jovi isn't Dream Theater and I know most of the Bon Jovi fanbase don't have any idea what Richie's input is in the band. "He's just the guitar player". However, a die hard should be able to separate the sound Phil X makes from the sound Richie makes. I'm not talking about the average Joe here, there's not many of them posting on message boards. Saying a show didn't suffer because Phil did a fine job is saying that a show wouldn't suffer either if another lead singer would take Jon's spot.

And as for Phil X being technically better; I doubt it. It's just that Richie hasn't been showing it much the past 10 years. Put him next to other guitar players that are as good as he is and he's blowing most of them away with his skills, the acoustic stuff he did in LA show this quite clearly.

Salaam Aleikum,
Sebastiaan

acoustic stuff in the LA show? Youtube???

You don't have to be politically correct around here. I've never seen you say anything remotely fair or nice about Richie and it's quite clear you don't think anything of him as a person, guitar player or key contributor in Bon Jovi.

Well isn't creativity more than half the battle?

That's complete bullshit. I'm not some fawning fangirl who thinks Richie is a great guitar player who hung the moon, but I respect him as a person and I have argued his contributions to the band. I'll never worship at the alter of Richie. But don't tell me I don't think of him as a good person or a contributor to the band. Just because you haven't paid attention, doesn't mean I haven't made positive comments about him. The thing is I don't pretend to know every post you've ever made, so I don't think it's fair for you to pretend you've read every post I've ever made either. But in the light of the fact that my one of my best friends was just murdered, I really don't find this all that important. Carry on.