People seem to be losing sight of a few things here:

1. Richie has been coasting live for years now. The odd shine of brilliance stands out only because it's a departure from lacklustre and mediocre performances. Say what you will about Jon's voice, that goes with age, guitar skills are fairly constant throughout life (just ask Les Paul) providing you care enough to keep practicing and developing which Richie has admitted he'd stopped doing

2. Like it or not, the band IS Jon hence why the show goes on when Richie was in rehab / Dave was injured and so on. Most people I know who are passing Bon Jovi fans know Richie more for what he lands himself in the papers for, not what he does with the band. It's the same with Dave, Tico and, oh yeah who was the guy that replaced another founding member and improved the band live big time?

3. It might suck as die hard fans to lose Richie but big bands go through member changes all of the time. I wasn't lucky enough to see a fully fit and healthy Clarence so never saw him at his best but his nephew has done an amazing job of filling in and I'm just as excited about seeing him again as I was about Clarence. Take your pick from most huge worldwide acts (the only one I can think of that hasn't had a member change would be U2)

4. It's not like they've drafted in an amateur or made Bobby step up the big leagues. Phil X is a monster player and highly regarded throughout the music world as a guitarist in his own right. I'm genuinely happy to see him do his thing compared to Richie's last few efforts when I've seen him.

5. Speaking of Phil. He's a pro musician. He will be woodshedding like a mad man just now and they'll be running songs in sound checks and so on. Hell they'll probably be rehearsing more now than what they do with Richie. My point being - don't discount the fact that we might well see some rarities (if Richie has bailed, wouldn't Jon want to give him a F You, watch this sh*t?) and Phil X will bring a lot more energy and vitality than Richie has been able to do over the past number of years.

Again, I got really cheap hospitality tickets so I've got nowhere near as much invested into these shows as a lot of people and I can see it being the end (or at least some form of departure) for the band but there's not a whole lot that can be done about it and getting emotional or moping isn't going to help.