Richie Sambora!!!

He's not even playing the chords on the guitar .

What promoter is gonna give this guy a shot ?

His 2014 tour was a shambles but he was still semi-functioning. The Bad Company tour was a train wreck, was horrendous .

This is rock bottom.

There's a chance of this: After starting with the acoustic, he was handed a strat that is either tuned differently or got a string untuned. Because he seems to play a few notes in key but a couple are clearly in the wrong key... Then he perhaps proceeds to check the tuning on his pedal board by (mute) strumming the chords--- finds them way out of whack and decides not to play the guitar for the remainder of the song. In that case, the song should have ended way sooner. In case of such massive **** ups, it's perhaps wise to own up and utter the term "technical difficulty" so that the world doesn't think you're midway through a never ending fugue state.

1. The Songs That Wrote My Life sounds better live!
2. Press is saying the fact that Jon sent a video message robbed us the reunion of Jon and Richie to pick up that Special Award.
3. Richie is looking good.
4. Jon said in that video: "my dear friend Richie Sambora".

Did you actually go to this tour? If not what are you basing your opinion on?

I went to 3 shows. Leeds was awful. Richie was all over the place

Nottingham a few day later was thebbest Sambora solo performance I had seen for years. Probably since 98. We was on it.

Birmingham was also pretty good.

Unfortunately it seems by the last hwo in London he was almost back to Leeds standard, but not quite. I wasn't there but I know several people that were.

So it wasn't quite the train wreck you describe. It was hit and miss.

As for promoters, as long as Richie still sell tickets - which he does, at least here in the UK - then he won't have an issue. He doesn't have a reputation for cancellig shows, he shows up and he performs, the promoters get their money. That's all they are worried about.

Agree with all of this, there was definitely an issue with the guitar he was handed. It really didn't seem to be his fault this time, but he needs to get better and handling it when things go wrong, or work out why things seems to go wrong so often.

You must be joking saying that the Nottingham show was his best performance in years since 98
The shows he did in 2012 were his best shows since 98.

Yeah I did. I sat watching through my hands in Glasgow when he came onstage . My old man laughed more than a stand up show - the stranger in this town monologue was just baffling. 12 minutes of waffle. A shambles

Can't speak for Glasgow as wasn't there, but you can't say that the whole tour was a disater based on one show. But yeah there were definitely time when he went off on one for too long.

Were you there? As I said in my original post, I'm only baseing this on shows I've seen, not every show he's ever done.

I was in London on 2012 and parts of it seemed awkward like the Oasis cover and didn't enjoy his version of who says version of Who Says or the reworked version of Fallen From Graceland, but yes there were some real moments of magic there for sure - You Can Only Get So High really stands out in my mind.

Where as in Notts he just did his thing, was in excellent voice and playing was great. Was a short set so 60mins or so which probably helped, compared to the 2 hours in London 2012, but he just killed it that night. I was with 2 people that had never seen him before and weren't familar with his solo stuff and they loved it. And after the disaster that was Leeds it was also a huge relief, which was probably part of the reason I enoyed it so much.

All just opinions at the end of the day - we all see different things in performances.

The " where you there ?" Line that is trotted out on here is so feckin' tiresome.

You don't need to " be there" to form an opinion . I used to go to loads of soccer matches , now I don't but I still watch them live on tv and am able to form valid opinions on how a team sets up . We all watch shows retrospectively- be it from 93, 84 or 2011 and are able to tell when the band were on it or whether it was an off night.

Richie is absolutely stinking- he's been in terminal decline since 2006 both personally and professionally. Old Father Time catching up - but in a big way. It's sad, the guy was my idol but unless he's able to get his shit together he's just skimming coin off his fans. Sadly I don't think he is ABLE to, the damage is done.

I think your assessment of hit and miss is probably more accurate. We have enough first hand reports of bad shows on that tour, and some like yours of good shows. There is no doubt the lows were very low on that tour, though.

Regarding opinions, of course everyone has their views (being entitled to them is another matter). However, we can use collected opinions to guage the quality of anything in a more objective way. For example, if there is a clear difference between the number of people who like a show versus those who enjoyed it, it is fair to assume that show was not good.

It doesn't make having the positive opinion wrong, it just means you/someone enjoyed the show despite of its obvious flaws. For example, I like the 1995 Mortal Kombat movie despite it being an objectively bad movie. Fine, and the reality is people's ears and eyes tell them Richie is average live, and probably worse than average.