Aloha !

The big difference with a lot of bands that play the same set every tour is that they change the core of their set every tour. And I know, all bands have their standard 5 or 10 songs that appear every night.

The thing with Bon Jovi is that they have a core of 15 songs that appear almost every night and make smaller hits like I'll Sleep When I'm Dead or Born To Be My Baby regular songs. Also, if on a tour song x is played 15 times and song y is played 15 times, it's safe to assume that you'll either get one of those 2, thus making both of them a regular.

Besides playing those 15 songs, they play 5 or 6 new songs and 2 album cuts like Bounce, Radio or Capt. Crash, a few covers, and there's your Bon Jovi setlist.

If Wild In The Streets, a song that has been played for 20 years now, replaces Runaway, that's not variation. When you can predict which song will replace which song, that's not variation. Just because you change a song doesn't mean it's real variation. Variation means that no Bon Jovi show, besides the 10 standard songs, is the same, and that Bad Name isn't always in the second slot. Beisde that, they have been playing the same big hits for 10 years now, and the same big hits have been lacking. Always, This Ain't A Love Song, Dry County, I Believe, Something For The Pain, Lie To Me all have been big hits in Europe, yet tour after tour Jon keeps playing Born To Be My Baby and Raise Your Hands.

This setlist has been the same for 8 years now, and with every tour the more rocking tunes disappear, and less fan favourites show up. And this is why a Bon Jovi set is far from spontaneous, lacks real variation and is not as surprising as they try to make it look like.

Many bands keep the same set on tour, and rarely change in on tour, but before a tour starts those same bands start to think about which song from which certain album should be brought back to life. When a tour from Bon Jovi starts, Jon starts to think which songs they played last tour so he remembers them this time and doesn't have to rehearse them. Big difference.

Salaam Aleikum,
Sebastiaan