Open Letter To Bon Jovi

Eh, I don't care who it comes from as long as Jon mixes things up this tour. I'm going to 5 shows on this tour. If things don't change, this will be the last time I bother going to see them. I'm bored with the same old shows.

That dude is absolutely right though. But I don't think Jon would give shite about this.

Why do people give this guy so much credit? Half of what he writes, he takes peoples opinions and ideas from Jovitalk and writes them as his own. Sure, I give him credit for one thing: he writes well and surely better than I can but then again English and writing papers was always my weakest subject. A lot of it though, he just misses the mark on. Here are some of the big ones:

Yes, Always is one of their biggest hits to date but there is no way that Jon could and quite frankly would want to sing it every night. So that's pretty unrealistic.

Who Says is only a must in the U.S. Europe? Why waste those 4-5 minutes in the set with a song that has never really went over well there?

Lost Highway---why? It's not a must every night. If there's only song from LH that should stay in the sets it's Whole Lot of Leavin'. It went over well especially when Jon takes that pause after "do we got it anymore?"


He just got this whole Richie section completely wrong. About the only thing he got right is that Richie should have his moment in the spotlight and sing a song just as he has most of the decade to really shine but it also gives Jon a few minutes to go off stage and freshen up. If Stranger In This Town goes over horribly, why on Earth would he sing Fallen From Graceland to an arena or stadium? Songs like Fallen From Graceland, We All Sleep Alone, The Gospel of Love where never written to be performed in an arena. Let's not forget that when Richie toured and played those songs live, he played in small venues and the atmosphere was completely different where he could perform those songs. Live in a setting of 20,000 + only the hardcore Richie fans would like it.

There is no way that Runaway should be temporarily retired. Retiring it and not playing it every night are two different things but it is definitely a song that casual fans enjoy hearing in a live setting and up until this point is the only song that has represented the first album live.

It goes back to the thread Seb made a while ago about setlists that was pretty much spot on (because he's a loser and studies setlists like that ). What I mean by this is that to some degree every album should be represented in some form or another. While I am no fan of Bounce, there are fans out there who enjoy it and became fans because of Bounce so why only play something from it rarely? The rockers could be rotated more heavily and so on...

That's also true and you made some valid points too.

So Bon Jovi should put the success of their tour in jeopardy to appease the minority?

This argument is a non starter for American crowds. We all saw the reaction songs like Dry County got in the states recently and it's clear that there simply isn't enough desire for rarities.

Here's my feeling - The majority of shows aren't sold out yet. Fans that would normally go that aren't going are skipping because it's been the same show since about 2000 (more or less.) If those first few setlists start rolling in the way we think they will, then they're selling no more tickets. If they decide to finally live up to their word and mix things up a bit, then those still available tickets may end up selling.

I like Anthony's writing and all, but he seems to have written an entire article on Bon Jovi's recent setlists without making any mention of how good some of the setlists on the LH tour, especially in Europe, were. That's quite an important counterpoint to just gloss over.

Richie performing Layla would be cool though

I was originally going to write "Richie doing Layla would be cool", but then I though better of it

The guy is over arrogant and has a few ideas above his station but on the whole he is correct. Bon Jovi don't mix the setlists up enough. I love that in watching a Bruce show you've no idea what he's gonna play next. Bon Jovi seem to play the same set every night with very little changes and for those fans who aren't just casual listeners then it gets boring. We've been promised that there will be more setlist variety this time, but that's been promised before every single tour so I'll believe it when I see it.

I'm not sure I agree with that. People are there to see Bon Jovi not Eric Clapton.