Aloha !

Who Says You Can't Go Home was only succesful in the USA where all of them line dancing idiots suddenly realized they liked Bon Jovi because it included a fiddle. It makes perfect sense of playing it there, but apart from that it made zero impact in the rest of the world.

Every country has different charts and songs do differently in every country. Hey God is a well known smaller single in Europe yet it never charted in Germany, for example. If Jon (or you) is really out to represent the band towards fans all they have to do in Europe is play more nineties stuff and drop stuff from the period 2006-2010. These Days was one of the biggest albums of 1995 like Crush was one of the biggest albums of 2000. However, These Days spawned 5 hit singles while Crush only had 3.

I do think that Europe will sadly get the same core songs as North America does, yet Born To Be My Baby and Who Says You Can't Go Home were never that big of a hit over here and are both terribly overplayed. Sure, the first one goes over well, but it's about time the band retires the song in Europe and gives something from the nineties in return. Something For The Pain was bigger than Who Says was, as was This Ain't A Love Song, Lie To Me, I Believe, Dry County, and even Real Life. I'm not saying Real Life should be played live, but it just goes to show at how small of a succes Who Says really was. (example: Who Says charted at 54 in Germany, Dry County at 41) And it's about time Jon starts asking himself questions like "What would a casual enjoy more, 50 alright's or 1 awesome guitar solo?"

Jon has never been out to represent the band though. The setlist is a combination of big hits and songs he wants to sing. And if you're lucky he'll throw you a bone, but even then the bones he throws are songs like an electric version of Sat. Night nowadays. If a set in Europe would contain 24 songs, there should be 8 songs from the eighties, 10 from the nineties and 6 from the last decade. That would represent Bon Jovi well in Europe. It'll never happen though.

Salaam Aleikum,
Sebastiaan