The Band Is On The Road To Oblivion

Bj mix up their set a lot actually...if you take into account all the big bands with huge video and lighting shows bj mix up the songs in a decent amount to say the least...only pearl jam and springseen in a smaller degree pass bj...
we must all realise that the band has to amuse the crowd, and the majority of the people want to hear the hits...when a tour has 100-150 dates you cant pull all your surprises at once...here in the forum it probably looks the same but in the live shows they delivered in the last tour to be fair...the only drawback was the few circle songs but i guess jon was gutted by the reception and was lazy to rehearse and push the audience harder.
Bj as i ve said repeatedly made mistakes the last decade and much of the released material was mediocre BUT they managed to stay relevant, have enormous tours worldwide and upgrade their status as a brand, so i guess they must have done some things right along the way..
i found the circle really decent, my favorite post 2000 bj release along wir=th hand, the tour was massive with many highlights and i m looking forward for the new one...i d love lower ticket prices, more rarirties, a decent live dvd release and an album with passion...and i m looking forward for the next record, i know its not gonna blow my mind at this point but as long as it is sth genuine/new done with passion i l be happy

Ah, the old setlist debate is back... Guess I was lucky over both Dublin shows to more or less see two almost completely different shows (bar the few obvious choices, i think there was around 12 different songs? at least) If they could be bothered to do this over more dates of the tour, rather than in their favourite towns or in places where they do two back to back shows, then I guess some of the complainers in cyberspace would stop...


Yes, I am not as excited about another BJ tour as much as I used to be, as they seem so regular nowadays, but I very much enjoyed the last two shows in Dublin and their setlists, so will hopefully go again to at least one show next tour.. and if the new albums any good then maybe more.


andi

^^^^That's Europe, and that's all good. But being from the US, we get crap diversity. For example, Nights 1 and 2 in New Jersey on The Circle Tour:


Blood on Blood
We Weren't Born to Follow
You Give Love a Bad Name
Whole Lot of Leavin'
Born to Be My Baby
Lost Highway
Raise Your Hands
Runaway
When We Were Beautiful
Superman Tonight
We Got It Goin' On
Bad Medicine / Roadhouse Blues
It's My Life
Love's the Only Rule
Lay Your Hands on Me
(Richie Sambora on vocals)
Hallelujah
(Leonard Cohen cover)
I'll Be There for You
Something for the Pain
(Acoustic)
Someday I'll Be Saturday Night
(Acoustic)
Have a Nice Day
Work for the Working Man
Who Says You Can't Go Home
Keep the Faith
Encore:
Dry County
Wanted Dead or Alive
Livin' on a Prayer



Blood on Blood
We Weren't Born to Follow
You Give Love a Bad Name
Whole Lot of Leavin'
Born to Be My Baby
Lost Highway
We Got It Goin' On
Have a Nice Day
When We Were Beautiful
Superman Tonight
Captain Crash & the Beauty Queen From Mars
Bad Medicine
(w/ Bad Case Of Loving You)
It's My Life
Love's the Only Rule
Lay Your Hands on Me
(Richie Sambora on vocals)
(You Want to) Make a Memory
Bed of Roses
Never Say Goodbye
(Acoustic)
Something for the Pain
(Acoustic)
Someday I'll Be Saturday Night
I'll Sleep When I'm Dead
Work for the Working Man
Who Says You Can't Go Home
Keep the Faith
Encore:
Always
Wanted Dead or Alive
Livin' on a Prayer

Hardly any reason to go to more than 1 show. Out of 53 songs played over 2 nights, they played 32 songs. That's not diversity.

I think they should leave the tour since 2014 to give the fans and the band a proper break from the treadmill.
If they have the artistic need to release an album so be it - why must they always have to tour with it? It's not as though touring increases album sales anymore because it's just the same old fans buying the albums and going to the same old concerts!
I think they have fallen into the Def Leppard trap unfortunately.

But the Lisbon gig was good - as opposed to most of the shows in the US.

Actually it's not even that the shows in the US are bad, they are just all the same, with very similar setlists. Lisbon was a real treat but we traveled halfway around the world to get that setlist. It was a damn expensive concert LOL.

It shouldnt be like that though,they shouldnt be playing great shows when they feel like it. We all pay too much for a ticket as it is but it shouldnt be a gamble trying to figure out which night JBJ feels like going that bit extra.
Take the last UK tour for eg, we paid between £45/£90/£220 for the privelege of getting pissed wet through in Manchester and thought it was a decent but shortish(2 hour)show, next night in London when punters paid £59 they get the band on fire and playing at least an extra hour.
If I go next tour I,ll leave it til last minute again and if it sells out beforehand(very doubtful) then so be it.

Well, to be honest it was never a real surprise where BJ would pull out the big guns. The surprise was which "big guns" were to be pulled out.

You say that,but I went to the Manchester shows in 06 and 08 and they were as good if not better than the Milton Keynes and Twickenham shows on the same tour.As I said before each show should be special.

I think there's the makings of a point in that article. I truly don't buy for a moment that Jon (and the band are only in it for the money). I think that's utter shit. I admire Jon enormously and generally speaking I believe that he is making music consistently because he loves it, and the music that he is making is the music he wants to make. Does anybody truly doubt his sincerity when he talks about the fact that he loves songs like Joey, Welcome to Wherever You Are, Bells of Freedom, Lost Highway, and Work for the Working Man? Most people here wouldn't list these as favourites but Jon seems to adore then and is proud of them and wants to share them with an audience.

Every tour I've gone to since the Bounce tour has got progressively better. When I saw them at the o2 in 2010 I thought that was them as good as I would ever see them and then they blew that away with their performance in 2011 in Dublin. I could never say a bad word about their setlists, or the length they play for (just about every show I've seen has been close to the 3 hour mark), or the passion and professionalism they display on stage.

In spite of all that good stuff, there unfortunately does seem to be a growing trend toward screwing fans for everything they can get out of them. This is a royal road to failure. The o2 ticketing fiasco, the diamond packages, fan club nonsense, Jon being interrogated about ticket prices on UK national television by Phillip Schofield, and on and on. This sort of stuff isn't sustainable because so many fans will be alienated will inevitably lose patience with the band. Compare Bon Jovi's approach to their ticket prices and distribution channels to Bruce Springsteen when tickets went on sale for his last tour. Nobody could question for a second Bruce's loyalty to his fans and that he is completely there for them; that in turn is reciprocated and largely why he can pull out a rare b-side from 40 years ago and be appreciated. Nobody could really say the same for Bon Jovi and that's largely why there is an attitude of "play the hits or f&ck off" at most Bon Jovi gigs now.

The O2 shows kind of killed off a lot of the romance I held with the band. The ticket prices were sickening and smacked of greed. I was quite pleased to see premium tickets being handed out for free because enough people weren't stupid enough to buy them.

Diamond Circle.... I'd rather stand in a circle jerk.