Originally Posted by Supersonic

Aloha !







Jon never used to change setlists on a whim. The times he did so are rare. He'll make you believe he's doing something spontaneous and yet when you see the set it was planned all along. There's plenty of bootlegs on which he'll go "I'm changing the set, I'm going crazy tonight!" and he'll then add 1 song followed by the same set as the previous night.



As for other bands not changing the set; I've seen this argument plenty of times but bands who don't change their set while on tour do change it per tour. With Bon Jovi, the setlist has been pretty much the same for well over 20 years now. The new songs are replaced by newer songs on the next tour.



Now compare this to other bands and you'll find that a lot of them have put in at least 3 different songs in the set they didn't play last tour. The last time Bon Jovi brought back a song from the dead and made it a regular was Amen in 2018. But the last time Bon Jovi brought something back from the dead people actually cared for was Something For The Pain in 2010. And even that one was often one of the first songs dropped if Jon wanted to cut short the acoustic set.



Take the average setlist of the Crush tour and compare it to the average setlist of the 2019 tour. Take out the new stuff and you've got a difference of just 6 songs:



2000 had:

I'll Be There For You

Someday I'll Be Saturday Night

Say It Isn't So

One Wild Night



2019 had:

Raise Your Hands

Lost Highway

Whole Lot of Leavin'

We Weren't Born to Follow

Have a Nice Day

Amen



And most setlists on a tour are completely without rarities. You've got your entire North American tour of which 90% is completely standard. There's plenty of European shows without rare songs. You're from the U.K. but take the last 3 tours in the U.K.;



For every show with something supposedly spontaneous there's at least 2 or 3 with predictable, standard setlists. You're from the U.K. so your perspective is a bit skewed but even on the 2010 tour which had great setlists you'd often be able to predict the changes for the following night.



So yes, Bon Jovi play a rare song occasionally. They mix it up. But the pool of songs they pick from has been the same for close to 20 years as well. If they're going to play a rare song you know it's either These Days, Always or a song no one but Jon enjoys.



Meanwhile, other bands however play a rare song or two every night. I follow quite a lot of artists like I follow Bon Jovi and none of them play the same stuff night after night, tour after tour. I know there's examples of bands that do but those are absolutely in the minority. Would Bon Jovi play very different setlists per tour the critisism would be a lot smaller as die hards would be pleased every night as opposed to 1 in 3 to 4 shows.



Salaam Aleikum,

Sebastiaan