Where has the REAL Jon gone?

Just listen to this live version of IBTFY (from May 2011):

https://youtu.be/jqImfJEV0EA

Or this version of Always (from June 2013!!!!!):

https://youtu.be/h11Gz6M8nRs

Jon's passion and artistic creativity used to be astonishing. Night after night, gig after gig, year after year he ripped himself into pieces on stage, improvising and adding little things here and there, giving his absolute all EVERY SINGLE TIME. The guy put such passion in everything he did, and did it all so well. Except for a few occasional "off" moments (These Days in Alpine Valley and Hyde Park '03, Prayer in Tokyo '08, Always in Gdansk '13), up to July 2013 he sounded immense and wasn't afraid to take risks vocally or physically during his performances.

Today, we have a washed-up and clearly insecure, weary-looking man standing still like a statue through (at least) 90% of EVERY SINGLE SHOW and sounding like a cat whose balls have gotten stuck in a milkshake blender. And this massive change happened within A COUPLE OF MONTHS. What the hell happened? Just compare the magnificent performances of above to these murders:

https://youtu.be/nUDQw1zgd60

https://youtu.be/XpZP5Js-D3I

Was JBJ replaced by the lookalike "singer" of a bad BJ tribute band?

Sorry if I sound like a dick, but what are you trying to accomplish with this thread?

Jon never took care of his voice by a) smoking like a chimney and (more importantly) b) singing in an unsustainable manner at the top of his range. He's had many declines over the years, but it finally caught up to him and in 2013 he fell of a cliff. The end.

It's not only his voice - it's also his passion of artistry and overall delivery. In the first two videos you can clearly see (and hear) Jon feel every word he sings. He puts so much emotion into his singing and the overall performance, and holds absolutely nothing back. Can you say the same about the last two clips? Besides sounding like the worst pile of shit humanly imaginable, Jon looks like a used toy robot that hasn't had its batteries changed in years. He sure as hell doesn't look like he wanted to be on stage that night. Especially the version of Always is a literal struggle of death, leaving Jon look extremely frustrated and pissed off on several occasions. That said, I don't know if it's more due to his own disappointment about the vocal results than him actually being down. I'd say it's a combination of both, but what do you think?

In my eyes, Jon hasn't looked to be honestly enjoying himself on stage since 2011. That didn't matter in May/June 2013 yet, as many shows were still enjoyable (Cape Town, Johannesburg, Oslo, Manchester, Birmingham, Slane, Sunderland, Berlin, Cologne, Prague, Milan, Bern), but IMO from July '13 onwards JBJ has been running more or less on autopilot.

Its not just one thing... Its a slow regression of multiple factors...Each year/tour they lose a little more of what once made them amazing...

Jon's voice continues to regress... Losing band members, Ageing, Other Interests, Etc... This then results in a loss of confidence...

When you are on a winning team, you're into it... When you are on a losing one, you want to quit...



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about passuon - - artistic ---.. I d say after the nineties it was 90% gone anyway. But yes he had a passion of delivery till more recently.

Agreed, do we really need another thread about this? He's declined, people either know it or pretend not to notice. There's a million threads to discuss this.

I totally agree. I'm Jon's age and it just gets harder to keep up the stamina and enthusiasm one had in the past. It's not that I don't want to keep doing what I've been doing but it gets harder and it's hard to let go. I think Jon is at that point. There is no way he can top or keep up with what he did in the past but at the same time he's not ready to totally give it up. I'm sure he recognizes he's been so lucky getting to have been (be) a "rock star" which only a handful of people ever become so the giving it up and moving on is terribly hard.

He definitely changed overnight during the WAN tour. That tour was too much and certainly his last like that. With the book already coming out for the THINFS tour, I think it's basically over except for the foreign dates already announced.

I believe JBJ will be just fine with all of his extra interests to attend to and his family but it will still sting that the glory days are certainly over.

I'm so sorry to say this and feel for him.



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You say it's not just voice, but I'd argue that everything starts with his voice. His "passion" declined together with voice. Think about it if you were in Jon's shoes - how passionate and energetic and joyful would you be on stage if you had to worry constantly about reaching every semi-high note that you could've hit no problem just a few months ago? It's no coincidence that the two correlate so much.

It declined very rapidly, but it's been quite steady from 2011. The few 2012 shows they did he sounded considerably worse, and then with each passing month of 2013 it got progressively worse. Most of your examples come from the European leg, which is somewhat of an exception, because Jon has always brought his A+ game for European crowds for decades. But still, he sounded considerably better in March-April than June-July.

He wanted to keep the machine going....they should've taken longer break periods between albums...but mr. Bongiovi gets his kick out of filling stadiums, so he has to make "hit songs" and release albums constantly to be able to tour...that most likely ruined the band. its a shame.

Pretty much this. As much as I enjoyed them releasing albums during those years (as I wasn't a real diehard until late '06) and being somewhat overly present, the last album where they really had something to write about was Lost Highway with all the personal issues Richie and Dave were going through. There was some honesty behind it. After that they just went creatively blank up until some of the tracks of THINFS. There was an odd exception here and there, but for about 9 years they just kept pushing out records to be able to tour and make money. That's simply not a reason to do it if you don't have anything to say. And now that Jon has something to say again he's so ****ed up physically and mentally that he can't deliver that properly anymore. It's a shame, really.