Originally Posted by bonjovi90

This is where it all started. During the promo and first tour shows it was blatantly obvious how psyched Richie was when kicking into solos of the old songs and how bored out of his mind he looked on songs like BWC (either in London or Stuttgart you could really see it when he went to change his guitar after the song). Jon, who at that point seemed to believe in the album (something he doesn't to do for more than 3 months these days), noticed that and at some point during the final shows of the first leg the two got into a fight when the CEO demanded more dedication from Richie on the newer stuff. Richie probably replied that he doesn't care much for the predictable crap on WAN since Jon didn't care about him working on the record and rather made it while he was occupied with his solo stuff. At the end of the row they parted with Jon telling Richie that until he doesn't stand 100% behind what the plays on stage he could as well just stay at home. That's what he did...and hence Jon's statement about him not really being surprised when the call came...