The Official July 21 Piața Constituției, Bucharest, Romania Thread

I know that but since the majority wins, we get a show we enjoy, although the show itself is substandard at best. I think the crowd was lame for three reasons.

Number one - Jon's voice. The Romanian press is now tearing Jon to pieces because of his vocals as opposed to the last time the band played in Romania. They are comparing the new show to the 2011 one and since the former is at least 100 galaxies and a million light years away from the latter both in terms of quality and quantity, they are gravely disappointed. Of course, drawing such a comparison is not fair, but it was always going to be inevitable. A lot of people who were there in 2011 came back with certain expectations. They are casuals and don't necessarily follow the band as we do. Imagine their shock when they barely recognized Jon's voice when he went on stage last Sunday. He was out of tune, out of rhythm, not hitting more than 2-3 notes per song. Even my wife, who was aware of Jon's problems nowadays, was so surprised that she barely recognized one of her favorite songs (Raise Your Hands). I can't blame the casuals for not feeling excited enough based on that circumstance alone.

Number two - the setlist. Granted, some of the big hits are there. But Jon cut the two big ballads ON THE SPOT. And don't tell me he cut them because of his voice - he butchered every other song from the set, he could have easily butchered those two, as well, and we would have sung along anyway. Why didn't he cut them from most European shows, either? I am sure at least 99% of the otherwise lame crowd knows Roses & There For you, expected to hear them and would have responded greatly.

Number three - Jon's mood. While he had reportedly been in a great mood for almost every European show so far, doing his best to engage the crowds, NONE of this occurred during the Bucharest show. The few times he talked to the crowd his words sounded forced and uninspired. He didn't dance with a fan because he cut Roses off the set and I was left with the impression that it was a last-minute decision after the end of Amen. During Lay Your Hands on Me, he did not go to the front row to the fans, either. I don't know if that was the first time in Europe where he didn't do that. The pauses between the songs were unusually long, which impeded the good flow of the show. The applauses after each song died away before the band started playing the next song, killing the momentum all too often. This might have pissed Jon off but that was not an excuse for removing two of the band's best songs as some form of punishment. If that's the reason why Jon cut them off, I think he realized he'd make a mistake after Prayer and tried to rectify it with the second encore.

Had Jon brought the same showmanship as in practically all other European concerts, he would have gotten a much better response from the crowd. Alas, he could not be arsed to even try to win us over. After all, it takes two to tango, doesn't it?

Dave mate, take it easy. You sound like it was your first ever concert to attend, not just a Bon Jovi one. A rock concert isn't an Aziz concert nor a Karras concert. People in Diamond Circle & Golden Circle were pretty active and loud all the way. Just enjoy the moment man, why would you even care for the rest of the crowd? Most General Access - Arena tickets are bought from by people who just want to attend a nice music concert since they are affordable and experience something different/full their schedule. If you don't like that kind of attitude then next time get a DC or GC ticket. Obviously casual fans are going to sing along to the hit songs and not the rest of the setlist. Prayer above makes valid points but I guess JBJ lost his good mood after the first 4-5 songs. But he couldn't remove Be There For You and Bed of Roses just to punish the crowd, that's silly. He couldn't sing them, so he played it safe.

About the taxis you were lucky, our group were advised to avoid local taxis and use UBER/BOLT instead, was way better since I only got to pay like 4-10 Lei, instead of 50-75 that the taxis demanded.

Now the main question is if Jon's situation is revertible and if he can save what's left of his voice to go on another tour in Mid 2020 as they plan in order to promote the upcoming record. He definitely need a break and tons of practice in order to improve, it's not like we attend Bon Jovi concerts these days for the voice but it's a pity not to be able to deliver a 2:30 set.

I agree with you, Panos. He probably didn't do it to punish us, his voice was at its worst since the start of the European leg, simple as that. What I'm saying is that he's been incapable of delivering them properly for quite a while now, yet that hasn't prevented him from performing them on a fairly regular basis. I think we would still have preferred a bad performance to a no-show. (At least, I would).

As to whether Jon's vocal condition is reversible or not, I don't think it matters anymore. He has already disappointed so many people who went to the shows that I don't think he would have the nerve to announce a return to Europe ever again. I don't know about other places, but the backlash after the Bucharest show is so grand that there's not a hope in hell he will EVER have the luxury of performing in front of 50,000 people in that city again. Even if he were to make a full recovery I don't know what he could do to win all those people back.

Aloha !

Jon couldn't do this tour either and still went on stage anyway. If Jon's situation was revertible he wouldn't sound this awful. Compare his vocals to 2 years ago and it's been going downhill as opposed to slowly getting better like some people claim.

This tour they've delivered about 5 shows deemed alright for today's standards (whatever they may be nowadays?) but everything else was complete garbage up to the point of once again insisting on playing these shows anyway while being fully aware you won't be able to deliver what people are expecting. But **** that, right?

This tour still made him millions though and if people on Jovitalk sign in after a disastrous 2 hours claiming they had a lot of fun anyway then what makes you think they can't go on? They might not be able to go on at a certain level but really, I don't think anyone expects them to? As long as you're still going, they'll still be coming. Jon can screw over his fanbase countless times and yet here we are. You still insist on going anyway.

So yeah, they'll obviously do it again at some point.

Salaam Aleikum,
Sebastiaan

Jon was on autopilot the whole night and 3 times out of 2 that he spoke to audience he just said "thank you, it's nice to be back". Considering that plus his voice maybe he didn't deserve better audience? He doesn't really have a reason to be pissed and just cross hits like that.

If this happened in a karaoke bar the security would remove Jon from the premises.

https://youtu.be/2WJj47kzXi8

This made my day

Jesus you can see the frustration in Jon before the second chorus when he just has to drop words. Honestly it breaks me heart to see stuff like this...

I think that might be the last time we see that song performed live....

This is one of my favourite songs and I actually love it in all ways it had been performed - from the over-the-moon-power renditions of the SWW and NJ tour with insanely high backing vocals to the more mellow 1995 renditions to the slower, but yet somehow intense performances on the HAND tour. Not to mention the beautiful acoustic versions from 1996 and the more piano-esque one from 2000.
But that was just horrendous!

Jon is definitely going under the knife before next tour. For any decent artist this was cancel and postpone show territory but not for our guy. If things get 1% worse I honestly think he can't speak anymore.