What has Happened to Jon?

How many albums have they released in the last 2 years exactly?!?!

who says I've been talking only about the last two years? his good voice (from 1995/1996 I mean) is gone since the Crush tour imo, the album was alright... so count 'm out...

I read a quote from Jon once where he said that there were probably a hundred other guys out there who could sing better than he does, who look better than he does, who certainly dance better than he does (LOL!) But yet he's the one with the 20+ career...go figure.

Every year my kids make me watch Canadian Idol (the things we do for our children)...and there is one judge who consistently points out to the contestants that the show is NOT a singing competition (he's sort of our version of Simon Cowell)... that there is more involved to being a successful performer than simply the ability to hit each note perfectly on command.

Maybe there really is something that folks call the "it" factor...that combination of charisma, presence, attitude, drama, guts...the teachers in the drama/musical theatre department of my son's junior high school tell me that he has "it"...to the point that he is on target to be a member of the cast next year when they haul a full blown musical theatre production to Ireland and England...his dad and I are still wrapping our brains around that one.

I would definitely place Jon's voice way above "mediocre"...the man onstage in Toronto had no problem at all heaving the songs out of him...and he has everything else going on to back it up...the "it" factor...the way he interacts with the rest of the guys onstage with him, the way he's been interacting with the fans on this tour, the way he's been "selling" the new material onstage...it's all been coming together to make for one hell of a live show.

I love U2...and I agree that Bono still has a lot of range in his voice...but...just before I headed out for Toronto I had a chance to see a broadcast of one of their shows from the "Vertigo" tour on TV..and I was left somewhat flat by the experience...it seemed like the audience didn't really get on board until the band hit the material from the Joshua Tree and I didn't sense the same level of interaction among the band members or between the band and the audience as I did at the Jovi show a few days later (now I will admit that maybe it is a tad unfair to judge a band's performance from a video...maybe if I had been IN that U2 audience it would have been a whole other matter). The audience at the Bon Jovi concert were on board from the first note of Last Man Standing...it felt like we were drowning the band out at times...they didn't seem to mind...it was a mutual lovefest between the stage and the audience...and I had certainly had a lot of fun.

There's more to making a show than hitting the high notes...Just my opinion.

That's nothing new - it's always been like that - thank god.

Otherwise, our music scene would be incredibly bland. Anthony Kiedis (best example I can come up with) says so himself - he says he is the best example that a singer and frontman of a band does not need to be able to sing

This thread is great Saturday morning entertainment over coffee --- ahhhh nIce


Brilliant - I might have to make this my new signature.

I haven`t read about 2 pages, cuz I was too lazy reading all that so I might say something somebody has already said....

I think Jon sings 'through his nose' all the time on tour. His voice is not open in the higher tones at all!! maybe the lower tones are open....I don`t think he could do the higher tones singing throat. It sounds better (he sings through his throat on the albums) but he couldn`t be screaming during the whole show. it would kill him and his voice.
I don`t accept Jon singing songs a tone lower....I don`t like it. unfortunately I haven`t heard any HaND show, but if you`re all saying he`s better, I`ll rather believe it i would be glad if it was true. but after hearing the LMS from the walmart edition, I was way too much dissapointed. it was bad. a tone lower than the album version. I wasn`t impressed at all! had no power. and I don`t think he couldn`t sing it the way he did for the album. I have also heard LastCigarette from some show it was pretty all right. I didn`t like the arrangement (heard much more Jon that the instruments) but that`s not what we discuss now.

The problem with "playing a bootleg" to someone is that you're not going to get real sound. They always sound tinny or distorted in some way.

There are bootlegs of the HAND out there that are decent, Toronto, and one of the NJ shows, I think, that you can hear that Jon is NOT singing through his nose this tour. He did do the singing through the nose thing a lot on the Crush tour and some on the Bounce tour but for the HAND shows I was at I was not hearing the nose singing.

And I have to agree with whoever said that for a rock singer Jon's voice is above mediocre and I think he still does well singing live.

deb