What makes Jon look bad....

I like the Foos and really like their latest record. Haven't seen them on their own but what I did see in a festival setting was good. Dave is very energetic, his voice isn't great live in my opinion. The Foos are the one act that was mentioned in an article that talked about who would be the big concert draw once the old timers and current big draw artists, Stones, Bruce, U2 and Bon Jovi retire, the list to say the least was SHORT. The Foos are going on 13 years now and have had a lot of success but still remained under the radar a bit.

deb

The foos just ****ing rock. They're one of those really succesfull bands, but in a quiet way to say the least.
Dave is just great, I'm also not a fan of his voice live but you just can't fault a show like that.

Yep, exactly, definitely a band that has success but it has been done rather quietly. I agree, they do rock. I haven't met them but from what I observed of them at the Saturday Night Live taping they seem like great guys too.

deb

There is nothing wrong with a rarity Dan. As diehards we always will applaud them putting one into a setlist. The problem is in most places, a rarity has the same affect as Richie singing, the crowd stops rocking.

I love Richie singing a song most shows, I personally find it fun and usually enjoyable. But if I step back and take myself out of the equation, and just observe, most of the crowd either goes for a piss and a beer or just tunes out until Jon comes back. Rarities have the same affect, at least in most places I go in the states. Chicago, Boston, Madison Square Garden and Philadelphia are really the only places that real rarities seem to go over without a big lull in the audience. I do these shows but I also do alot of the secondary market shows like KC, Minneapolis, Denver, Omaha, Milwaukee etc..... and in those places a real rarity would most of the time have the audience going "HUH??". They might be able to put in Never Say Goodbye or Blood on Blood, but anything more rare than that like Something to Believe In or Fear would just fall flat.

To be honest Europe is much better for rare material. In general the mass audience there is more aware of album cuts than here in the US.

I'm sorry to hear you no longer feel engaged when you watch BJ live. For me, I can read a setlist on paper and go "ok that was an averge show, but put me there live with the same setlist and if it's performed well, if Jon is in the zone" it will be an excellent or fabulous show as far as I'm concerned. That's the thing about Bj live for me, it almost always gets me, drags me right in and no matter how many times I've heard it, at that moment, in the live setting, I'm as into it as I ever was. for me that is the magic that BJ's music has always been able to create. It did it back in 1985 and in 2008, it still does. That's why I keep going back for more.

Aloha !

A crowd does not stop rocking if the band would play Bed Of Roses, Always, Someday I'll Be Saturday Night, One Wild Night, Undivided, Something For The Pain, Hook Me Up, Lay Your Hands On Me, and the list goes on and on and on.

It's not that the band can't play a rare song, it's the band that doesn't want to play a rare song. And if they want to, we end up with either Joey or Right Side Of Wrong. And if the band doesn't want to satisfy the die hards, you end up with die hards who no longer feel engaged to the band.

Salaam Aleikum,
Sebastiaan

On the point about Dave Grohl's voice, I think it's okay, but he often seems overpowered by the volume of the instruments his band are using. He's much better in an acoustic setting where he isn't being drowned out.

And that's what I meant earlier when I said I'd take Jovi every time - in the full package, the Foo's just didn't leave me with that buzz that I've had after nearly every Bon Jovi show I've been to. Only one other band have ever come close.

The thing about Jon is that he's inconsistent. I've seen a few nights where he did stand still, and didn't interact much. But, I've seen them three or four times where's he's been blazing around the stage and been an in-****ing-credible frontman. Now, I'll be the first to say that this may have to do with the fact that I've always seen them at NJ/NY shows, but I can't be sure.

As for Dave Grohl, the man is just plain AWESOME.

nice tmesis

The Foos put on a damn good live show, I think however that I'm slightly jaded by the fact that both times I've seen them were nearly identical (although one time was a festival and the second was a "semi-festival")

Out of interest, what sort of set-list did they play? I bet I could guess at most of it ...

I'll give you BOR, Always or SDIBSN Seb but I don't consider them rarities so there you go. Hook me up??? Most mass audience fans in the US wouldn't know that song, Something for the Pain??? Again most mass audience fans in the US would never have heard of it. The general public that go to BJ shows in the US want the hits, the stuff they have heard on the radio, and/ or the stuff they heard in their youth which comes from the SWW/NJ era.

Europe is a much better place to see rare material live.
I'll give the Europeans all the kudos for knowing their album tracks, not just the hits. All I'm saying is that outside of the markets I mentioned, where there is a tendency for there to be a larger amount of knowledgable fans of BJ's catalog, alot of the shows I go to are full of casual fans who are aware of the band know the hits, but don't have much knowledge of the bands deeper catalog. Will they let them plat SFP?? sure and maybe some will even like it ok, but mostly it won't get the response here in the US that a hit will.

Richie is a great singer and should get a huge response when he does his thing but he doesn't, he'll get a huge response from almost any guitar solo he plays, which he should but not for his singing, because to a casual fan that's not how it should be, Jon should be singing, period.
I remember being in Minneapolis the night that they did the half acoustic half electric show. It was a great show, I was in heaven with them doing the acoustic thing but there were people all around me who were like "well it was cool and they sound good but I wanted them to rock like they did in the second half with all the hits, that is what I want to see". I wanted to strangle them!!! I tried to explain how rare what they had just seen was here in the US but it didn't matter, they wanted what the second half of the show gave them and that was it.

I just think it's a fine line Jon walks with setlists, at least here. Is there more he could do??? Certainly, and for me it would be fabulous to hear deep cuts at shows, but I'm not the mass public and they let him know time and time again, what it is they came to hear.
I do wish he'd say **** it now and then and play something just for fun, I'll agree he could and that he usually just plays it safe because it's easier.