Aloha !
Quote:
Originally Posted by James_86
I'm not saying you're wrong, but it's well documented Jon writes the set hours before a show. Would that be necessary if the set was the same every night with the same pool of 'rare' songs?
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Jon doesn't write the set hours before they go on stage. It's a myth the band likes to keep up. The truth is, the set is written a day in advance, the band then goes over possible changes during the soundcheck and it's all set and done a day before the show. If the band plays 2 or 3 nights in a row in the same venue the 3 setlists are planned the day before the first show. The band goes over them during the soundcheck and then nothing gets changed anymore. These "documented" things are all nonsense.
Bon Jovi fans define a rare song as something that doesn't get played every night. Technically they're right. Meanwhile, how rare is the stuff you've heard really if you know well ahead that if Jon's up for it you'll most likely get These Days? I just looked it up and London has always been getting either These Days or Always (or both) since the year they were introduced. Meanwhile, for other places they're rare songs. How rare is it really then? How much of it is mixing up? Because he couldn't be arsed to play it in a town he doesn't care for?
To get back to your point of other artists not mixing it up per show; I've seen Clapton play in Japan a few years ago. Eric Clapton played the same set 5 nights in a row. But of that set 1 song had not been played live since 1986. That song had been rehearsed especially for those 5 nights at the Budokan. It'd be the equivalent of Bon Jovi bringing Silent Night back from the dead and playing it every single night in the U.K. only to retire it for another song for the rest of the tour, something Clapton did back in 2019. During that same show he re-introduced a song that had not been played live in well over a decade. It'd be the same like Bon Jovi putting a song like Love's The Only Rule back in the set and playing it every night.
I was really fortunate enough to see Bon Jovi many, many times on the 2010 and 2011 tour. I saw the band play 3 nights in a row at the New Meadowlands stadium. Good shows, but really, one of the setlist changes went from playing Lost Highway to Just Older. A positive change but if I'd have had the choice I'd much rather would've had Just Older three nights in a row simply because it hadn't been played as often as Lost Highway.
Of all the mixing up Jon's done since 2008 how many setlist changes were actually great other than "Oh yay something different!" At that same show at the New Meadowlands a setlist change was In These Arms in, Whole Lot Of Leavin' out. How exactly does that make set better? Or more interesting? Both have been so overplayed the last few years that it's been time to retire both of them for a long time and replace them with something permanent that hasn't been played to death.
By the end of the 2011 tour all I could think was "It's gotta be boring to play that many songs over and over and over again tour after tour after tour". Not the hits, I get that. But Raise Your Hands, Capt. Crash, Sat. Night, In These Arms, Born To Be My Baby, Runaway, I'll Sleep When I'm Dead... The list of songs not needed in the set but just there to fill it up is just so long. The band have been doing the same show for well over 2 decades and everyone in the bad has grown tired of it, there's a reason they're all just going through the motions. So to get back to your point; how many other bands, the ones that don't change up the set every night, have been doing the same show for 20 years?
Imagine Bon Jovi playing the same set every night on a tour. But 1/3 of the set has not been played last tour and on top of that there's 2 songs that haven't been played in 2 decades. What would you rather have, really? How much of the changes in the set matter when none of it is catered towards you?
Salaam Aleikum,
Sebastiaan