No Richie on current leg of the tour

To all who are turning to vices in their emotional suffering....in solidarity, I have bought my first chocolate bar in months. Let me know what else I can eat to show my support.

Welcome to the club! Only one chocolate bar??!!

For my coping mechanism I bought really cheap beer. No really, like I got curious because I saw this lonely six pack just sitting there and the cans were really pretty with big waves and it said Swell IPA (made in Hawaii) So I went to buy it and it cost $2.50

Such a long story for such a meaningless tale, but then again it seems right for the thread ....

$2.50 for 6 cans of what looks like 6.2 % strength beer?

Would be ten times that price in Australia.

No but really I hope if Richie misses the rest of the tour Phil keeps the job for the duration of. He's been a real asset and the dude deserves to play in stadiums at least a few times. Plus, it's a trip watching him get around the whammy bar fills Richie does

I have no idea why it was so cheap, but after the first one it tastes really good

Nice - what a bargain!

I've been bouncing back and forth on when I wanted to post something substantial about all this, and Richie not being on the European Tour seems as good a time as any. A couple of caveats before I begin:
1. Obviously, I have no more knowledge about what's going on with Richie than anyone else here, and I could be off the mark completely.
2. IF it were to come out that Richie or either someone in his family is ill and that's what's causing his absence, than he's 100% done the right thing and I would take back anything I say below.

With those out of the way, I can't express how utterly turned off I am by both the Bon Jovi organization, and Richie himself for the way this has all gone down, and frankly any of the three major theories about what's happened make them look even worse.

1. Jon/Richie Fight: If Jon and Richie truly had a falling out that led to Richie walking away (be it over money or creative issues) then they both seem like petulant children, not only destroying the current tour, but dealing a significant blow to their legacy as well. While this is possible, and certainly seems to be the popular theory, I just don't see it as likely. Not because of some faith in the band, but rather because I don't think either man would be dumb enough to allow that. Jon has an obsession with the Bon Jovi brand, and Richie's absence hurts the brand. It angers fans , diminishes the live shows, and destroys the "30 year brotherhood" mythology that the organization has carefully orchestrated, and is affecting some pretty high profile gigs (Slane, IOW, Hyde Park, etc.).On the Richie side, leaving ANOTHER tour (after the debacle of a solo tour last year, and the 2011 rehab stint) damages him in the eyes of promoters and the public which would be a terrible place to try and start a solo-only career. For those reasons. I think both men (and the legal advisors who surely surround both men) would have given whatever concessions possible to at least finish out the tour with Richie, saving face for both.

2. Richie bolted due to creative issues: Frankly, I find this one even less likely than the Jon/Richie fight theory. For starters, Richie has seemed to be (contrary to the popular opinion here) just as concerned with the band's relevance and recognition as Jon in the last 10 years. Beyond that, pretty much anything solo he's done in that time period has been in a poppy direction, including releasing an album last year where (for better or worse) every track sounded like it could have fit on a 2002 and onwards Bon Jovi album. I also don't buy into the idea that after playing the record, doing a ton of promo, and a month and a half of shows that he suddenly decided he couldn't artistically do it anymore. From a business standpoint I can't see it happening for the same reasons expressed in number 1. *From a personal standpoint, this is probably the one that would bother me most, as I would lose all respect for Richie IF he pulled this. Leaving for creative reasons before or after the tour would have been fine, even commendable, however to leave in the middle with hundreds of jobs counting on you and thousands of tickets sold would be deplorable.

3. Substance Abuse Issues: Sadly, I think this is the most likely of any of the three scenarios. Either Richie felt himself slipping (or slipped) and told the band that he needed to straighten his shit out no matter how long it took, or the band sent him home and told he he couldn't come back until he got his shit together. He might not even have ever gone into full rehab. It fits into the idea that only Richie "knows" when he's coming back, and obviously has the most historical precedence of the three main theories, whereas Jon and Richie have surely fought before yet neither has missed shows over it, and Sambora has never expressed dissatisfaction with the band's creative output. If that were true, I'd feel bad for both parties. While it's easy to cast stones, I do believe addiction is a disease (uh oh, I'm taking us back 200 pages) and obviously one Richie has been coping with for a long time. As for Jon/the band/the organization, this would be the fourth tour in a row where Richie's issues have directly affected the band on tour and in public (Clear drunken performances on the HAND Tour, the Unplugged debacle, rehab trip, and DUI during the LH period, the missed leg in 2011, and this), and I can't blame them for having Phil X waiting in the wings in case it happened again. Nor can I blame them for continuing the tour, and an employee in pretty much any other field would have been fired by now, let alone temporarily replaced.

No matter which of those is true (or if it's something totally unrelated) the Bon Jovi organization has handled this completely ass-backwards. While I completely respect Richie's right to privacy (especially if it's substance related) they could have sent out more timely, much better worded statements than the jokes we got, not to mention the complete embarrassment that is Matt Bon Jovi's Twitter. The whole thing is just a sad mess.

That's a great beer.

I cracked open a beer myself while writing my above post, though that's more to due with my father being back in the hospital. (Just seems to be precautionary, but still doesn't make it easy.)

Hope all is well with your father crush.