Official September 19 2015, Stadium Merdeka, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia thread

There does seem to be a weird parallel between Jon going grey and the bands recent decline...

What recent decline?

The one in appearance and performance from the release of WAN until now.

That's such a general statement. Contrary to what you all think and wish to believe, Richie was just apart of WAN as he was prior to all the other previous Shanks' albums.

As far as the tour went, Richie leaving mid way through could have resulted in a total disaster but Jon somehow pulled it out... Maybe the set-lists were vanilla and Jon had to put out more vocally, but what would anyone expect.. Jon ended up having the #1 tour that year and then took a long need break from being burnt out.

At this point there really isn't much to judge....
Burning Bridges is the first release without Richie and although the album isn't perfect, it's got a few of the best songs from the past 10 years imo. Keep in mind that this isn't even a real release. As far as this mini tour goes, we are just 2 shows in and day two was better then day one. There were already some cool moments and I can only see it getting better.

As age continues to kick in and Jon's vocals continue to get worse, these shows are going to continue to decline with it. With or without Richie, it's going to happen. I really don't think Supper Richie (or should I say Sloppy Richie) can fly in and save the day right now. There are too many other factors weighing in.

I have to agree with this, everyone keeps telling how What About Now sinked but Richie was a part of it. He co-wrote the songs and provided not only the guitar parts but the backing vocals. The only thing that was Richie-less was the second part of the tour that, financially, make it pretty well.

About Burning Bridges and this tour, seems to do pretty good too considering the whole situation.

It's dead all right -- as dead as Bon Jovi's relationship with the Chinese government. And since it was a relationship that the Chinese government never should have initiated in the first place, Malaysia may have "killed" the story as a courtesy to help them "save face." Without that opening sentence, the story might have "survived."

The thing is, they still entertain the casual fan, which is like 90% of the audience. As long as that happens, they won't quit.

As I die hard, I find the 2013 and 2015 shows atrocious, leagues away from what I saw between 2008 and 2011. It has become boring, dull, they don't sound anything like Bon Jovi anymore, and Jon can't sing anymore. But I don't pay their bills, the casual fans do.

Number 1 tour last time.... That's some decline?

Aloha !

It is if the shows are shit. People seem to be eager to reach to the official numbers to validate how great the band (still) is to them. Fact is, the Keep The Faith tour sold a lot worse than 2013's Because We Can tour. Yet everyone agrees that the performances of the 1993 tour were better.

Numbers show amount of money made. Not the amount of tickets that were sold. There's a reason Bon Jovi have started playing other parts of the world; they've saturated the standard European and American markets and money needs to be made elsewhere.

It's why the propaganda machines always love to brag about the numbers. And apparantly there's fans silly enough to believe the hype the propaganda machine is creating. Last tour was the first tour which had Groupon deals because they couldn't sell enough tickets for a show. If that's not showing a decline in popularity, I don't know what is.

Salaam Aleikum,
Sebastiaan

But wouldn't you concede that going on Groupon etc could also be contributed to the fact the world was and still is to some extent in an economic decline? Some fans simply probably couldn't afford to go the shows