RT Concert with JBJ in Dublin July 21-23 2016

All (?) the Dublin videos in just one place. Enjoy!

RT Dublin 2016

Note how he introduces Blind Love: he mentions being mad at the record co. but "fortunately we worked it all out".

He doesn't remember The Distance? Really?

Maybe he wasn't the primary songwriter on this one.

There might be some truth to it since Richie played it at his solo shows in 2014. Maybe he really had just tweaked some lines here and there.
On other songs he wrote by himself, like Hard Letting You Go, he remembered all the words 15 years later (without looking at the teleprompter).

That's kinda what I was thinking. People often comment about how many BJ songs show up in Richie's solo sets, but compared to the BJ catalog, it's really only a select few that he uses consistently. So I figure there's a connection. The Distance is the only one that puzzled me a little, because I never really thought of it as a 'Richie' song, but Luce's comment made me re-think it.

I definitely thought of that one as more of a Richie song based on the bridge riff and how much it resembles Seven Years Gone. Or he flat out forgot it, either one. It was done at almost every show in 2002/2003 and didn't come back again until a single time in 2007. Har letting you go was soundchecked a big bunch that tour before he "pulled it out of thin air" whereas The Distance is just lost in time.

See? You musician types scare me.

A song has to almost repeat the same melody pattern or sound enough like another that you can sing the other lyrics over the track before I'll catch the musical similarities. At least until somebody points it out. I hadn't thought of it until you mentioned it. But now that you did, it's pretty obvious.

I love this board. I learn so much here. Thank you, Captain.

I'm much more prone to catch the lyrical or thematic similarities. Or try to figure it out by hearing the stories they tell about the songs and who says what about which song.

I haven’t heard Jon’s voice in months, last time I did it I got very very disheartened. Those money grubbing shows are turning him into what he always said he wouldn’t be, the fat Elvis, singing with no voice just to stay relevant, cash in greedily and taint his legacy while everybody laughs at his back. More and more people are becoming aware of the state of his voice and are commenting and ridiculizing it.

People whom I didn’t even know were fans are shaking their heads and saying what a shame it is that he ended up like the other washed up rock stars of the 80s. Sad thing is that even those who didn’t like Jon or the band praised him as a frontman in the past, I’ve read countless reviews where it’s obvious the reviewer hates the music but concedes (reluctantly) that they are good at what they do and specially Jon has the charisma to make it work. Bon Jovi used to be a blip in the radar of many critics but of course now they are chiming in when the band is at their lowest and lately my Facebook feed is getting filled with opinions/reviews of every move Jon does (obviously trying to get my attention, it doesn’t work though, Jon’s a big boy and can defend himself) and many are comparing the Runaway events with a Vegas residency (which I agree btw).
That’s not how I want to remember Jon, desperately clinging to relevancy so he can brag they are not a nostalgia band while doing the opposite he preaches. Never NEVER I imagined Jon would keep singing when his voice was gone for good, I figured he was too proud and didn’t need the money and had invested way too much in being one of the best live acts of their time, but here we are, and it’s kinda sad. So I blocked anything not related to the band until the next tour, but something compelled me to click this time.

And I gotta say it’s a thousand times better than I expected compared to not so long ago. His lower voice is still quite beautiful, always has been and it seems that he won’t lose it (fingers crossed). It’s quite listenable which is something I never thought I’d say of an acoustic show ever again. He has improved his tone, it’s very pleasant to hear some songs with almost no nasality which I hate and ruins the songs for me much more than not hitting the notes.

But the high notes are dreadful and what worries me the most is how quiet/weak he sounds. I know it’s supposed to be an intimate kind of show (it still boggles the mind why someone would pay even 100$ to hear this but oh well) and he’s not going to be prancing around the stage and shouting but man, there’s no power, no passion, no agressiveness and it worries me A LOT how is Jon going to sell anything to a big audience with just his low/whispering voice. It does sound much much better and will probably improve for the tour, but just comparing the album version and this show’s version of Blind Love shows the huge difference the passion in the delivery makes. It’s a song that in paper (and in those acoustics shows) it’s slow, boring and dragging but can evoke such imaginary when sung properly. Same with the DA songs, to hear Every Word with so little passion is… ****ing sad. And even sadder when it really seems Jon is putting everything he has in that particular show, it’s not a problem of him going through the motions/being bored.

I’m glad I clicked though. I really love Jon’s voice here and if he could find a way to gain power, to sell the songs again, I’d be extremely happy. I know many people disagree but the hitting the right notes with little passion just kills the song for me. It’s like listening to singing lessons. What drew me to the Band was Jon’s voice, but how he used it, how he sold the song, not how good/high it was. And I still see glimpses which is why I’m still hoping for the best.

Thanks for posting

Haha no worries. I mean it's very naive to say because the bridges of both songs are similar that Richie was the driving force between both but it's not totally far fetched. Nor is it not far fetched to think that because Jon doesn't remember how it goes that he wasn't the main song writer on it. There's just somethings we'll never know.

Agreed with the lyrics, we'd have to examine those closely to get a better picture of who brought what to the table but after 30 years of writing with someone I think it just becomes second nature to write with one voice and message in mind. I DO know that for all the performances out there, Richie gets the lyrics to the chorus after the bridge wrong 9 times out of ten so that makes me lean more towards the lyrics not being his as much as Jons.

If you've seen the 1998 fan club video, Jon talks about how when he's in a songwriting period, his brain is so full of words and chords and chords and words that he does forget his own songs. He says that he always wondered how an artist could forget his own song when he was younger but now he understood. So it's not far-fetched that he would forget a song he had not played in years.