What is everyone expecting?

A band with as big a back-catalogue as BJ shouldn't have to play the same songs over and over again. Since 2001 the regulars in "most" shows have been Prayer, Bad name, Wanted, Born to be my baby, In these arms, Raise your hands, Captain Crash, Medicine, It's my life, Older, Saturday Night, KTF, Runaway, Sleep & There 4 u with the current album tracks added.

It wouldn't hurt the band to actually replace songs like Baby, Crash, Runaway, Sleep, There 4 u, Arms or even Raise with rarer songs like Wild is the wind, I believe, Dry county, These days, TAALS, NSG, Blood on Blood, Living in sin, Boys are back in town, Wild in the streets, Something for the pain or Damned and mix this around on a nightly basis. I don't expect the band to give up on Bad name, Prayer, Life etc because of the fact that the main focus will be on the 80-90% casual concert goers who would be dissapointed if they didn't hear the big hits. However, since a lot of fans see them in concert multiple times in both Europe and the States, it wouldn't be a bad idea to keep a small portion of the set reserved for audibles like the rarer songs to please the die-hards. Besides, it will keep the band fresh and in my opinion the musicians like to play varied stuff.

I understand that there has to be some kind of rehearsed setlist, but I think that BJ are taking it too far right now, basically they end up with the same songs for the last 3 tours. Another main problem is that people who aren't die-hards, but like to see them when they're in town will see the almost exact same show. Maybe next tour they'll be like "Whatever, they played almost the same songs in 2001, 2003 and 2005/2006, I'll skip this tour".

Maybe Jon, who hates computers, should have an assistant who keeps track of the setlist and hands him out the previous setlist when the band plays a city or area twice on a tour and Jon will change stuff around to keep things fresh. Aerosmith is known to do that (Steven Tyler also keeps track of each country's previous crowd response when he and Joe Perry decide the setlist for that night- rabid crowds get better setlists than "limp dicks" as Tyler calls it). Hell, take a look at the Stones who for their 40 Licks tour could release a double live-cd, one cd with the crowd-pleasing superhits & one cd with only rarities...

Expectations on boards like this are (rightly so) sky-high, just compare the setlists from Munich, Dusseldorf, MK #1 or even Hessisch Lichtenau to the Florida set....

To cut a long story short: my expectations for the closing part of this tour are (or any BJ tour): basically the same skeleton as the first US leg, but combined with the Europe-Japan rarities to please everybody, 21 song main set, 4-5 song encore, minimum of 4 songs changed songs compared to the 1st leg, maybe 3 rarities

Pretty much agree... why they played in Europe almost 30 songs but in US leg they play like 21 songs... I know there have been just 2 shows this far but I'm expecting same kind of set futher...

what i don't understand: isn't it very boring to keep playing the same songs all the time? How can Jon or the band still get aroused by playing Bad name or Runaway? They have so much more challenging stuff to play for themselves as musicians, there's is so much more joy in playing a perfect Dry county compared to the challenge of playing a perfect Sleep or Runaway...
Raise the bar instead of Raise your hands

Don't think ure gonna get many ppl disagreeing with you - there would be nothing better than to see such a variation in setlists - all for it I say!!

What I will say tho is that I went to see Bryan Adams 3 times last month and BJ twice and when it comes to changing setlists there is no comparison - Bryan hardly made any changes - very rarely does ( one or 2 trax max in one tour) so when I went to see BJ one of the things that surprised me was just how much they mixed things up!! Different perception I guess!

As long as they play Blood on blood i don`t care!!!!!!!

Exactly... in the 21 century they've played Prayer atleast 10000... even as good as it it... we need some limits...
That same chords, same moves and same lyrics night after night... Though it would loose it's meaning...

word has it that jon has been reading the comments on this thread and has decided to play a setlist at the next show to keep everyone happy! on the downside all other shows are to be cancelled for the rest of the month because this marathon will last that long!

huh, what a load of crap...

He was great on the 15th and your right i'm tires of seeing Richie sing i'll be there for you, it's like the 7th time I've seen him sing it. They were great!!!!!!!

Of course we would love to see 3 hour shows and a varied setlist, and I'll definitely add my name to the list of those who are all for it.

That said, I think sometimes as fans we become a little bit blind. They normally played about 2.5 hours, and very few bands about these days will go past 1.5 hours. I know they don't have the same sort of back catalogue, but go to a Coldplay gig, or Muse, or Athlete etc etc, and not only will they only play 1.5 hours, you can predict every single song every single time, where as we normally have at least 4 or 5 spots in a show where we're wondering what will be next.

But still, would be nice to see some more variation. Not so much as a 'your set variation is crap and we deserve more', but as a 'you could push yourself a bit further and would be nice to see'.