Originally Posted by Supersonic

Aloha !



He can't sing the ones currently in the set either, so this is hardly a valid excuse.

Further on, considering as to how he's playing "all the hits..." Playing all your hits is never a good thing, for a large group of casual fans it means that once you've seen an act there's no desire to go back. You also don't "need" to play every hit. Many bands can get away with not playing their biggest hit(s). Especially an act like Bon Jovi, who've got the luxury of over 10 top 40 hits. Ignore 5 and you've still got a set with hits most bands would be jealous at.

As for those who honestly believe there's no room for improvement: Those marked in red were either album tracks or singles that barely charted:

1. This House Is Not For Sale
2. Knockout
3. You Give Love a Bad Name
4. Whole Lot of Leavin'
5. Lost Highway
6. When We Were Us
7. Born to Be My Baby
8. Who Says You Can't Go Home
9. It's My Life
10. We Weren't Born to Follow
11. I'll Sleep When I'm Dead
12. We Got It Goin' On
13. Keep the Faith
14. Amen
15. Bed of Roses
16. Lay Your Hands on Me
17. God Bless This Mess
18. Have a Nice Day
19. Bad Medicine

Encore:
20. Wanted Dead or Alive
21. Livin' on a Prayer

That's close to half the set. Now I get promoting a record, but it's a pointless excersize to play more than 3 new songs when non of the singles even charted properly. Bon Jovi plays 4. This leaves 6 slots open for stuff that could be rotated for pretty much everything.

Are you honestly saying there's no room in this set for 6 different songs? The last time I saw this band was 5 years ago. Out of the all the album cuts that are still being played there's 1 rarely played and it's Amen. Do you honestly believe Amen is there to please the die hards? No, it's there because Jon wants to play it, no one gives a shit about Amen.

Now as for playing "all the hits". They're not. These are the biggest hits they're currently ignoring:

- Runaway
- Only Lonely
- I'll Be There For You
- Living In Sin
- In These Arms
- Always
- This Ain't A Love Song
- Thank You For Loving Me
- (You Want To) Make A Memory

Sure, they're not their biggest hits, but neither is Have A Nice Day and it's there anyway. Out of these 9 songs they've been ignoring the same 5 songs for the last 25 years. Unless you're lucky, then you might just get Always or Living In Sin. Now you could pick 2, put them in the set and out of a list of 21 songs 2 would be aimed at the die hards. Now fill the other 4 slots with album cuts that fits the category "general partystuff" like Raise Your Hands or We Got It Goin' On and you've get a much better setlist.

Let's recreate the set with stuff that's relatively easy to sing and would go over well enough with American audiences:

1. This House Is Not For Sale
2. Knockout
3. You Give Love a Bad Name
4. 99 In The Shade
5. Just Older
6. When We Were Us
7. Born to Be My Baby
8. Who Says You Can't Go Home
9. It's My Life
10. This Ain't A Love Song
11. Breakout
12. Little Bit Of Soul
13. Keep the Faith
14. Thank You For Loving Me
15. Bed of Roses
16. Lay Your Hands on Me
17. God Bless This Mess
18. Have a Nice Day
19. Bad Medicine

Encore:
20. Wanted Dead or Alive
21. Livin' on a Prayer

All I did was change 6 songs. I put in 2 extra hits and then added 4 album cuts of which only 2 have barely been played in their entire career. Now tell me again how this setlist doesn't work, and the ones Bon Jovi come up with does? I'm very much aware on how maybe 5% of the audience consists of die hards, but 5% of a set consisting of 21 songs still means roughly 1 to 2 songs aimed at die hards, which is pretty much what I did when changing up this set. For a band who keeps going on about how the Hall of Fame was a thank you to the fans they show little appreciation towards the die hards when actually playing in front of them. Now as to how many people have seen this show before; I'd say this number is close to 80%, which would make the argument to mix it up a lot stronger than whatever reason Jon sees for keeping it the way it is.

Salaam Aleikum,
Sebastiaan