[Zakatar]

Originally Posted by Eveline

Bon Jovi - LIVING WITH A GHOST - Charlotte, NC - 4-21-18 - YouTube here you are <3

4:22, It's a little sad when Hugh is moving more than Jon!

[symbeline]

Gotta agree about dropping the new songs. As much as I think they should stand behind their work and have at least 3-4 songs from the album they are promoting, I can't think of more than a couple of decent performances of any THINFS song, and in some cases they've sounded bad since the promo shows.

I don't agree about HAND though, it sounds as bad as any other song that requires energy and conviction in the delivery. The shows need to rock to compensate for Jon's lack of voice and stage presence. They need to showcase the band and all the backing vocals all the time, it's their only saving grace right now.

[Eveline]

Guess who carried Jon for so long. They didn't need all those tricks, both technical and visual to "hide" the weaknesses. The band's more a democracy than ever now, tight and rehearsed. Let's be realistic: Jon's voice won't improve. Hope it just stays decent and the man finally enjoys himself on stage.

[bobbye49]

Originally Posted by Zakatar

4:22, It's a little sad when Hugh is moving more than Jon!

The show was just the opposite - Jon was all over the place. I can't remember when I've seen him move around more. Some memorable moments: he threw his jacket off and it got stuck on Tico's cymbals; he took John Shanks guitar (while he was playing it) and started playing it himself. He walked down the aisle railing after Bed of Roses, and walked through the audience during Bad Medicine (?). The last show we saw before yesterday was Pittsburgh on the first leg of this tour, and it wasn't great - Jon was sick and ended the show early. To me, he made up for it with this show. He had boundless energy and the crowd loved it. We're doing Raleigh on Tuesday, and I can't wait.

[Thomas S]

Originally Posted by bobbye49

he took John Shanks guitar (while he was playing it) and started playing it himself.

Haha that's awesome. Can you remember what song that was during?

[Rdkopper]

Originally Posted by bobbye49

The show was just the opposite - Jon was all over the place. I can't remember when I've seen him move around more. Some memorable moments: he threw his jacket off and it got stuck on Tico's cymbals; he took John Shanks guitar (while he was playing it) and started playing it himself. He walked down the aisle railing after Bed of Roses, and walked through the audience during Bad Medicine (?). The last show we saw before yesterday was Pittsburgh on the first leg of this tour, and it wasn't great - Jon was sick and ended the show early. To me, he made up for it with this show. He had boundless energy and the crowd loved it. We're doing Raleigh on Tuesday, and I can't wait.

This is why I love fan reviews from people who were actually in attendance... Most people judged this entire show based on Memory, Living With The Ghost, Raise Your Hands, and a few others...

Sent from my HTCD160LVW using Tapatalk

[YOVANAfromPeru]

I noticed that in the livestream, JBJ playing Shanks guitar was in Sleep (Shanks started to play tambourine) and the jacket thing was in Bad Medicine...

[TheseDaysEra]

in all honesty, I think Jon's vocal state is no longer about 'not hitting the high notes' anymore. Lemme put it this way: have you every tried to sing whilst you're in the middle of an awful cold, in between coughs ?

That's what he sounds like. Struggling to even articulate words. You could lower the songs' key as much as you want (and indeed they should) but that by itself wouldn't suffice. It's more than a range problem, I'm afraid.

It may or may not be reversible. I'm a musician, singer and sound engineer but I'm by no means a doctor or vocal coach so my guess is as good as everybody else's. He sang poorly between 2003-2006 then became much better from 2007-2011 again. 2013 wasn't brilliant but it was OK then we all know what happened from 2015 onwards.

If it's really shot then he'll have to re-learn how to do certain things. Not everyone is Bruce Springsteen. Jon wrote and recorded certain songs in a key that was clearly too much for his range. He COULD hit certain notes and sounded ace but it was clearly a stretch. Prayer was a stretch and he said so himself. If you listen to stuff like Hearts Breaking Even it's clearly he's singing in a register that's not his usual.

I think he sounded awesome during the Keep The Faith/These Days era but he couldn't hold it much longer. Crush didn't sound so extreme and I think the early 2000s was when his voice became to change and become very nasal.
He clearly abused his instrument and now it may be damaged beyond repairing. I'm sorry for him but that's just what it is. I wish he'd just do records and low-key gigs from on, to be honest.

[TheseDaysEra]

Not to mention that up until 2010-2013 there wasn't a single review talking about his voice. Now they ALL mention it.

[efpg0708]

Originally Posted by TheseDaysEra

in all honesty, I think Jon's vocal state is no longer about 'not hitting the high notes' anymore. Lemme put it this way: have you every tried to sing whilst you're in the middle of an awful cold, in between coughs ?

That's what he sounds like. Struggling to even articulate words. You could lower the songs' key as much as you want (and indeed they should) but that by itself wouldn't suffice. It's more than a range problem, I'm afraid.

It may or may not be reversible. I'm a musician, singer and sound engineer but I'm by no means a doctor or vocal coach so my guess is as good as everybody else's. He sang poorly between 2003-2006 then became much better from 2007-2011 again. 2013 wasn't brilliant but it was OK then we all know what happened from 2015 onwards.

If it's really shot then he'll have to re-learn how to do certain things. Not everyone is Bruce Springsteen. Jon wrote and recorded certain songs in a key that was clearly too much for his range. He COULD hit certain notes and sounded ace but it was clearly a stretch. Prayer was a stretch and he said so himself. If you listen to stuff like Hearts Breaking Even it's clearly he's singing in a register that's not his usual.

I think he sounded awesome during the Keep The Faith/These Days era but he couldn't hold it much longer. Crush didn't sound so extreme and I think the early 2000s was when his voice became to change and become very nasal.
He clearly abused his instrument and now it may be damaged beyond repairing. I'm sorry for him but that's just what it is. I wish he'd just do records and low-key gigs from on, to be honest.

This is pretty much spot on.
It’s not a psychological issue. It’s a physical issue which leads to him loosing confidence in his voice. Once you get to know a little bit about singing, it’s easy to tell all the signs of damaged vocal chords. Jon had a great voice, not a great technique. He’s paying the price now.

Don’t get me wrong. You can still have a great time seeing them, as I did in RIR2017. But there are so many people here in such denial stating that he sounds good live that you end up reading things like:

“He needs to get his confidence back and his voice will improve. It’s a psychological issue.” This is the same as saying that in order to heal your broken arm you should go see a therapist. Sure, you can even get a little better, but you’re still limited by the physical damage.

“When you are there you don’t notice it.” Again, you can still have a great time seeing them live. But even in Dusseldorf 2011 most everyone could tell his voice was shot (and that was miles better than today’s standards). In RIR2017 there were some really cringeworhty moments when everyone looked at each other faces, but the energy was so sky high that it didn’t matter.

“When he moves 2 feet and 3 inches away from the mic stand, and if you pause at those 2 miliseconds , you can hear him belting that note”

But for me the winner is:

“He sounded great, but it was hard to hear him in the arena”

Since 2013 there are nights when he is a little bit better, but the average has been the same: pretty bad. Is scares me how people lower their standards as time goes on.