I think that during Tokyo Dome 2008 Richie sounded really good, better than anything from 2003-2006, but at MSG he wasn't that good at all. Sound was overchorused and artificial, and he made some mistakes and dirty bends...
But I thing that he was pretty good guitarist at this time, compared to nowadays. He was doing great job playing I'll Be There For You or Dru County on MSG.


I thing on Cirlce tou he is playing really bad. He doesn't use anything but strong distortion (sometimes with volume knob rolled back to play some clean parts which is pretty terible).

He learned LH songs and I can hear that he has an idea on how to play them. But with the new songs (from TC), sometimes it's like he dosn't know what to play at all. Some stupid power-chords and sloppy solos. Bobby is playing most of the original parts from TC and Sambora does the chords. I thing this is really wrong. Just look at Born To Follow. At studio there's great opening The Edge -styled lick. During live Bobby do that (pretty bad comparing to studio record) and Richie does the chords.

Look at The Edge - he plays briliant on new Rose Bowl DVD and changes his tones everytime. I thing Richie was a lot better player and he could be if he weren't that lazy. Shame