Originally Posted by Thinny

Some quick points...

1) Bad Company were amazing, everything a band should be, Paul Rodgers sounding as good as he ever has at 66. If only Richie and Jon could have kept their chops like this! Not sure why one person would think they should have retired years ago!?

2) What's the deal with being so obsessed about Ori having a stylist!? She looked great last night! But really, who really cares!?

3) There is no shame in being an opening act in an arena. Richie could easily do a theatre tour as a headline act over here, but not arenas, especially with no new product. This way he gets to play to more people and potentially expand his audience. There is no shame in that, especially for band as legendary as Bad Company. RSO is just starting out too, so expecting to be able to headline arenas is very unrealistic. It's common place in the UK these days to have an arena tour with a major name headliner and a big name second on biller that will help sell tickets.

4) Yes the RSO shirts were HORRIBLE!!

5) Last night, the show was a strange one for sure. His playing for the most part was pretty good, A couple of bum notes here and there, but nothing like some of the YouTube clips. His vocals were pretty good too. A couple of cracks on the higher notes.

BUT....Half the time it felt like the rest of the band had no idea what Richie was going to do next, like it could fall apart at any second. Although it threatened to a few times it never truly did. Ori and the drummer did an amazing job and were working together very hard to keep it together after Richie would take the end of the song off in to some tangent. They would bring it back. There was a part at the end of Every Road where it was clear Richie was going to go into another extended vocal/jam thing at the end, but Ori was having none of it (there'd been way too much of it already), so she went over to the drummer and they ended the song, much to Richie's surprise it seemed.

Ori was amazing throughout I thought, I've been very critical on her vocals in the past but she sounded great on her two songs and the band seemed most together during these songs as she was taking the lead. When she seemed to do this is when it seemed to all come together best. I think maybe Richie should leave her to manage the band while he concentrates on his singing and playing. Stranger sounded really good until a strange extended ending, Wanted was pretty good. These were Richie's best moments. He needs to drop Lay Your Hands On Me.

They had set up the voice box so I presume prayer was supposed to be last, but after Wanted the roadie signalled that they were out of time...

They keyboard player was terrible. He seemed like he didn't even know the songs, was completely lost in Every Road and missed a few key parts in Wanted etc. Bass player did a decent job.

I enjoyed the show, but it was somewhat frustrating as I know Richie can be so much batter. My other half commented that he seems to be a different person from 2012.

I don't really like to get into the sober discussion, as it's difficult to know for sure. He wasn't wasted, but I don't think he was sober either. He was a bit mumbley at times.

Over all though they got a decent response from the crowd. I was pleasantly surprised that there were a few Richie shirts in the crowd (Have to say I didn't notice any Jovi ones, but there must have been some). A good chunk of the audience seemed to recognise Stranger, so that was also a good sign.

I do wonder what someone would have made of the show that isn't really a fan, and doesn't have previous shows from 2012 and the 90's to compare too. Most people seemed to enjoy it.

Looks like I may be going to Notts and Brum now as well, with people that have never seen richie before so it will be interested to see what they make of it.