Aloha !

So, we've never really discussed Bobby Bandiera over here, so I decided to create a topic about him in which you can all praise his qualities.

In all seriousness though, why is Bobby there? He's played in Southside Johnny and I've heard people say he was better there, but that's because Southside pretty much doesn't do guitar solos, it's just little fills here and there, and that's as much as Bobby is capable off. I've been given bootlegs on which Bobby played with Southside on which I was supposed to hear his guitar qualities but I still can't hear what his quality really is.

It was obvious during the HAND era that Jon envisioned some kind of E street band for himself but this didn’t work out due to the entire backup band he put on stage not being able to reproduce the Bon Jovi sound, but why is Bobby still there? I’ve read stories in which people said it’s because Jon considers him family, but where was Bobby for the rest of their career then? Was he Jon's estranged uncle? Jon has known him all his life, yet it was only 2005 in which he was hired to work with the band. I don't think it’s got something to do with family, that’s just romanticizing the truth. Bobby needs money for treatment for his ill son and Jon offered him a paid job as part of the touring band. What I don’t understand though is that Jon’s got plenty of money to support pretty much every family in New Jersey yet he makes Bobby work for it. It's like having a cousin telling you that his son is ill and you being the multi millionaire saying that he has to work your garden for a year first before you pay for his medical bills. What a brilliant way to treat your family.

I get that the band would like an extra guitarist but the only thing that has changed is that Richie’s gotten lazier, Bobby’s started to record parts when Richie couldn’t be arsed to come over to record and Jon has started to rely more and more on Bobby’s backing vocals. I know many people think Jon has started to sing a lot better lately but I don’t think you’d like to hear him sing a song like Bed Of Roses without Bobby doing the chorus. There’s a reason for the multiple layers of effects on his studio vocals, and Bobby is his effect while singing live, if you can call it that.

With all the top guitarists, and I'm not talking professionals like Clapton or Vai, but the ones that post their videos on YouTube or play in cover bands, why did Jon pick Bobby to support him on tour? Considering how many times he's played Lay Your Hands On Me now and he's still incapable of playing the riff properly that makes him utterly useless - He'll never learn. Yes, he can play a bunch of classic rock riffs, but so can I. So can in fact every guitarist who spends time fooling around on guitar every day while clicking random songs through his iTunes library. You click, you play along, it’s that simple. It’s nothing impressive really and certainly not a reason to hire someone.

Now I know, being a good guitarist doesn’t mean being able to play the fastest: There’s also a need for creativity. But does Bobby have that then? I don’t think so, and if he does he’s never showed it. It’s as if he knows one scale and tries his best to mess it up by the longest bends in the wrong key all the time, the In These Arms guitar solo being the prime example of it. I am also well aware that most people don’t hear his messy guitar solos and think the bitching is way too much, but then again those people have no business discussing music anyway.

So what good has Bobby Bandiera brought to this band apart from his backing vocals? And considering how average he is, what does this say about Jon and his capabilities of deciding what the Bon Jovi sound is nowadays, and how to improve the live sound of the band?

Salaam Aleikum,
Sebastiaan