Bon Jovi Planning to Perform Rarities on 'Circle' Tour

For those of you who are convinced that the songs from The Circle are not going to go over well or sound good live......

Back it up. Don't use sales..knowing a song is not a guarantee it's going to go over well. There are countless songs I didn't know at all that won me over from hearing it live.

I think this board is getting way too jaded. I've seen it all before with older bands and their fans who feel they have it all figured out. We keep saying the band should take a break. Now I'm saying a good lot of you need to take a break from the band. It works wonders.

My vote is for the entire album to get played. If some of you want to sit and pout or go get beer... run along. Don't try to speak for everyone else. It boggles my mind why some of you are so dense that you CAN'T hear exactly why most of these songs will sound very good or even better in a Stadium.

As for the rarities..... I'll just take what comes rather than get worked up over that. The argument that they don't do it is incorrect or do I need to remind people of the songs they did pull out on the last tour, particularly ones that we never though would live again.

I can't wait for you to explain why you think you are delivering sharp witted sarcasm while naming Real Life and Say It Isn't So.

One song has never been played and another has only been sparingly played. I didn't realize there was a consensus that those songs suck. I wouldn't mind hearing both of them. The rest I can do without. I didn't care for Say It Isn't So initially, but eventually I realized that was more due to horrible album placement directly after It's My Life. It's a bit different for them.

Here, here. Very well said.

oh man - i would totally LOVE that

Seb,

maybe if they played it people might actually like what they hear and then go BUY the album - band affiliates around here read stuff like this and then that contributes to the whole problem.....

i wonder how many people act sought out the box set when TRSMLT started getting regular attn at the live shows...or even when richie was playing these days....thx box set being obviously expensive....

they play the whole album and have it for sale with some live bonus tracks at the shows for 10 bux and theyd move a whole lot more of them....

we WANT them to play rare stuff - dont make jons point for him, not when we are just starting to get some traction!!

now i understand a rarity or two is diff from a whole album but man let them do some crazy stuff live THAT DOESNT MAKE ANY SENSE - encourage it - it actually might lead to some live spontaneity - and wed get to see our band unleashed - and then everybody could understand what we have been doing here for 25+years...

I think that casual fans usually like all genres of music like rap, pop, r&b, rock - basically everything that’s on the radio or TV - and BJ for them is just another one the list. And as long as they get to hear the tracks they know they are satisfied.

Moreover, I did not say that the band should play 12 new songs and finish the concert on that. I think the set list should be like: one new, one old, one new, one old, one new, one old etc. This leaves you about 10-15 songs each night left to play – hits and rarities. That will be more than enough for casual fans to find those songs that they know and bought the tickets for. And I still believe they will like at least 3-5 new songs and will buy the new album after the show to hear them again at home. And so what that many people would not know the new songs during the concerts. I don’t think that Jon expects the audience to sing Bullet or Fast Cars with him like Prayer or Wanted, do you?

As for the die hards like yourself (I am sure you are one) or me - would you rather want to hear Bad Medicine for the 10th time live or Bullet for the first time? I’d go for the second option. And I have seen BJ concert live only once last year and most of you have seen them many times. So being on your place I’d want to hear the new songs even more, having heard the old ones so many times.

This album doesn’t have hits (yet) because the casual fans didn’t have a chance to hear the best tracks from the album yet in the first place. Most of us agree that WWBTF is a good song but there are much better tracks on the album that might do extremely well on the charts. Superman Tonight is just going to hit the charts soon and you never know how it will work until it really happens. I personally think that Bullet, BrokenPromiseland or Happy Now would do much better as singles, and maybe even get as much attention as It’s My Life in the past. But if those tracks do not get on the radio or TV as singles the only chance for casual fans to get to know them is to hear them live on the road, don’t you think?

And how can you say that the new songs will sound bad live? We have only heard about 4 of them so far and it’s obvious they are not prepared perfectly and still need some work. You want the guys to play them as good as Prayer which has been played for over 20 years now? These are new for the band too but they have plenty of time to make them sound great for the tour. I am sure they will do that. Moreover, I think that even when you find live performances of new songs from the first shows in February on youtube and will say it sounds crap, it still won’t give you a full imagination how it sounds live when you’re there personally. After all, why would you go to any BJ concert?

Anyway, I don’t give a damn how well the songs will do on the charts or how well the album sells. That is Jon’s and the band’s worry, not ours, cause that’s their job. Most of the shows will be sold out completely (or in 80-90%) no matter what they will play. For me the music is the thing that counts and I think it is still great. A chance to see my all time favourite band live again and be about 50m from them is just a privilege, not something to complain about for any reason.

Aloha !

You're wrong about that. The average Bon Jovi fan is roughly 30-40 years old, listens to eighties rock to pop rock and is not into rap, pop & R&B. Sure, there'll be a few exceptions, but the average Bon Jovi fan mostly listens to guitar orientated music.

Jon's plan is to play the album from start to finish, just like he did with Lost Highway several times. He says it should work this time because the album is written for stadiums all around the world, but the problem with Lost Highway wasn't that it wasn't for huge arena's, the problem was that it just wasn't good enough to be played from start to finish. And just like with Lost Highway the flow on The Circle is completely lost. If you honestly believe that fans who have visited the gig will go out to buy the album you're delusional. If that'd be true, why doesn't the album go up in the charts after a band has visited a certain country? And playing a new song followed up by an old song followed up by a new song is messing up a set badly, it gives the set a terrible flow and the crowd will never be able to get into the concert at all.

Bad Medicine, thank you very much. I really don't care about Bullet at all, it'll suck live because of the many guitar layers in the song that can't be replicated, and the vocals will be drowned out by the music because of them being in such a low register. And believe me, I'm pretty tired of Bad Medicine right now.

Yes I do. This album does not contain any hits, if you honestly think that any other song from the Circle is more radio friendly than We Weren't Born To Follow you know nothing about what is radio friendly and what isn't. If Superman Tonight really would be the big hit you think it could be it'd have lift off already. When It's My Life, Have A Nice Day and even Everyday were released, the songs were on the radio all the time. Superman Tonight isn't, and neither will any other songs be. WWBTF is, despite it being very average, typical Bon Jovi stuff. The other stuff on The Circle isn't, it wouldn't even have made it as a b-side for Crush.

An average fan that hears Happy Now live won't love it and won't remember it either after leaving. He/She'll be going like "Wow, 12 new songs and I can't remember one of them. Yeah, the one with shalalala, but that one wasn't brilliant either. Bon Jovi played Hey God one time in America and casual fans were wondering what song it was. Imagine that 12 times, and the mood is set. You can do something like that several times, but not 12 times. It doesn't work like that, people don't go to a concert to be tought by Bon Jovi about their latest 12 songs. They go to a concert to hear Bon Jovi play the songs they know and to have a good time. They can understand it when Bon Jovi plays 5-7 songs they don't know, but if half of the set consists of songs that have never been hits and is just the band's effort to shove the album thru their throats it's no reason for an average concert-visitor to go see the band again.

Once a song is played is live they seldomly change the arrangements in order to make the songs sound better. The biggest (and only) change the past 10 years was the violin intro to Undivided after a few times they'd played the song live. There's no way this band is going to make Superman Tonight sound better, the same for We Weren't Born To Follow. Jon might struggle less with the vocals once the tour is running, but better vocals doesn't save a song itself completely. The songs just don't work when played live. I've been following Bon Jovi since 2000 and have always known what song would work and what song wouldn't. This album doesn't contain any surprises about that. It's all overproduced and can't be reproduced live. Everyday didn't work live because it contained 6545 guitar layers while the live version contained only 1. The same goes for Bullet and other songs on The Circle.

2 rarities is something different compared to 12 rarities. And even most of the rarities they played in Europe have been singles here. Dry County, Hey God, I Believe, This Ain't A Love Song all have been (big) hits. The casual fan would still remember them, as oppposed to 12 new songs the casual fan has never heard before.

I can live with crazy stuff, but if it's not making the show any better then why bother in the first place?

Salaam Aleikum,
Sebastiaan

Ya but surely if they play the circle in it's entirety then that becomes a rariety.
But as they are only doing 2 locations in europe for the circle tour playing it even once will make it even make it more of a rareity.
This may be selfish but I would love to be at the one show that has the track that was not played anywhere else .
I do agree that the circle can not be replicated live but I think certain songs will come accross good live (bullet will not work)but I think I am willing to hold out a bit on others before making judgment,eg.if they bring the drums out a bit on when we were beautiful it can work live.
But then again the states and Europe are seperate entities and each will be different to the other ,so I guess we will see who gets what this time around

I honestly don't care what they play - as long as they play Prayer, I don't care. I have never seen them live before. The people who have seen them numorous times would probably want to hear something different, but all I want is to just see them. I dont care what songs they play so long as I can be there, and watch the band play, and Jon sing.

Everything you said.
And plus...if they ever play Hearts Breaking Even...I can die happy.