Here's Something No One Will Agree With

I'd rather see them play the Circle in its entirety live, a twelve-song set and no other songs, than endure anymore of these set lists. Two reasons why:

1. I like the Circle as much as the day I first listened to it. It hasn't grown old for me at all; in fact it's only grown on me. And certain songs that I wasn't too hot about at first I've come to really love, such as WWWB and Working Man. Furthermore, outside of maybe Bullet all the songs so far have worked well live; yeah Brokenpromiseland was slow and sloppy; the problems were in the execution rather than the song's live potential. It still had a punch and had they played it more than ONCE it likely would have improved. So in short, the album would be exciting to hear live.

2. These set lists are becoming a cruel joke. This has become, in my professional estimation, the most predictable stretch of shows in a longass time. The fact large chunks of it are leftovers from the LH era do not help either: that middle section with WGIGO (we'll get to LH in a second), BM, IML, followed by a Richie song and some ballads, is completely lifeless, because we've lived through it a million times. The encores are insulting to the fanbase; they don't have to pull a Montreal Night Two every show, but how hard is it to do something more thoughtful than RUNAWAYDEADORAPRAYER?

What's worse, there's very little inspiration in any of the mainstays. There are exceptions: the power ballads sound as good as they have in a decade and a half. Blood on Blood has been a neat opener. And Bad Name still is exciting to hear early on. But do you guys really get excited when they do a half-assed version of Keep the Faith or Saturday Night (again, Montreal being the exception), or factory versions of Wanted and Prayer, or the Valium that is It's My Life live? Or how about hearing the ten-minute versions of Bad Medicine and Who Says again and again? Granted, all these songs would become instantly engrossing again if the band shook them up: moved them around the set, did medlies and extended versions, played them juxtaposed with new songs, etc. Instead we just get the ultimate autopilot.

And yeah, the high-presence of Lost Highway songs needs little digression. The fact SUMMERTIME was conjured out of the cesspool says enough. What is Jon's logic in playing more songs from Lost Highway than from the new album? Well, I'm sure his justification was that Lost Highway was seemingly a bit hit in the states- I stress the word seemingly. So, because he fears losing his mindless middle-America crowd that makes up a huge percentage of the audience every night, he throws in a lot of crap that a lot of fans and people with high intelligence despise. Then, in a weak effort to appease the latter group, he throws in Something for the Pain as a mainstay (which, in essence, I'm happy with) and occasionally another gem. That's it. After all, they're less vital than the middle-America portion. And Jon apparently lacks the spine- or conviction- to just play a set that shows the band's full potential and not give a shit about the commercial crowd reaction.

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So that's why I'd rather see them just play the Circle, nothing more. I'd be much happy with a 50 minute set than two hours of the same thing we've all seen for three years running. Granted, if the band were playing the sets they started with this tour- with oldies and random gems, that they for no apparent reason got rid of, other than Jon probably thinks saving them for the only surprises at Giants stadium will be a good idea- and if they put the passion and thought into the mainstay songs here that they did over in Europe, I'd probably retract my statement. That said, what do you think?

I agree with everything you said, to be honest. I'm not going to a show this tour, so they could play whatever set they want and I'd want to go, but for the people who are going to at least two shows and having to get the same set over and over, it must be sickening.

I loved 'The Circle' when it came out. Since then, I haven't listened to it all the way through too many times, but certain songs are still great and deserve to be played live over most from 'Lost Highway'.

I think the band could even help themselves by playing the semi-regulars they played the last few tours, providing they have energy and are played with passion. For example, 'Raise Your Hands', 'Just Older', or even the masterpiece that is 'Blaze Of Glory' (I love this song to death).

Hi,


Having to agree with most of your opinion, I think we should bare in mind the usual kind of set lists they use to deliver in the arena leg of the US tour. If we focus only in this part of the tour I believe this year has been very good. There are definitely some problems to fix, but overall they have rebuild the set list with a decent amount of changes - Medicine with medley, constantly replacing the juke box song, Acoustic segment, Smth for the Pain, Ballad segment, Richie doing a rocker and having 2 songs to switch, closing the main set with Love's the only Rule, which I think has proved to be a good choice, almost every show they play something either rare or that has not been played so far this year and the fact that they now have somesort of 2 alternative set lists for cities they play multiple nights (although they are not different enough, it's still way much better than having the same set list for 2 shows in the same city - which did happened in past tours.

Sure they need to drop stuff from Lost Highway - 3 songs would be more than enough. Sure they could add more medleys and bring more rare songs to become regulars. But I try to see the set list as an evolution and they have been doing experiments.

I think they'll shake things up for the Meadowlands shows and not only get stuff like "Thorn in my Side" or the pre Slippery rarities back (which might have happened for lack of audience response) as they'll probably play all of Slippery or The Circle. Who knows? Like Jon says: it's going to be a long tour and I think they don't want to get tired at this point - which Jon already complained in Philly- , since they'll have a very busy period by the end of May, June and beginning of July.


Cheers
Pedro BadName

Yeah I agree that they should be more adventurous with te setlists. But the weird thing is that, there's really very little that I wouldn't take on these sets. The over abundance of LH songs is to much, at the most just 2 songs from it should be on the set, they are taking the spot of some much more deserving songs, both from the new album and fan favorites that should be rotated on the set.

The good stuff is being held back for London

And seeing as the rare stuff was met with stone cold reactions at the start of the tour I can't blame the band for playing it safe.

Just got back from Minneapolis for 2 shows and if passion and effort were what you wanted with the mainstays then well those shows had both!!!
There weren't any huge ssurprises songwise at these shows, but the performances, particularly on night two were pretty damn amazing!! I don't know if it's being lost in the translation to video but there was nothing vanilla or bland about Jon or the bands performance. I know reading setlists online these shows would seem boring, but they aren't.
Yes the LH stuff is there but you all know that much of it will not be there for the O2 run, but it fits in with the show being done now and people like those songs. Could Jon take them out and do TD stuff or whatever?? Sure, but remember he's getting paid to entertain the audience in front of him, not me or you sitting at home, or himself for that matter. I've always wondered what a show would be if Jon just played his personal favorite stuff, my bet is alot of people would be surprised.

Aloha !

Jon is already playing his personal favorite stuff. Jon's always been playing his personal favorite stuff, it's just that his favorites are no longer the die hards favorites.

Salaam Aleikum,
Sebastiaan

I agree with everything you've said apart from playing the entirety of The Circle. Simply put it's just not that good and I would get bored. I'd like to hear a random mix of songs from the first album up to about Crush with maybe a couple of newer ones and some solo stuff thrown in. They need to drop that LH crap. Maybe they will when they come to Europe.

Be prepared and warned, WGIGO will be a staple for the entire tour and Jon is under the impression that LH was a worldwide smash....

What about the entire circle + what they play today with on or two surprises?