nope he will go back to his band with a lot more G's in his pocket than 2 months ago

Here´s what Jon said about the Richie situation at a pressconference in Vienna a couple of hours ago (a summary from 3 different articles):

"He wasn´t fired and there was no fight. He just didn´t show up. We went through this before."

When asked when Richie will be back:
"You really have to ask him. As soon as he solves his personal problems we will talk if he wants to be back. We love him and miss him.
He´ll always be part of the band til he doesn´t want to anymore"


Here are a few links but its´all in german - there´s no audio or video yet:

http://www.oe24.at/musik/pop-rock/Bo...-Gig/104317106

http://wien.orf.at/news/stories/2584645/

http://kurier.at/kultur/musik/voll-f...eau/12.792.005


He also said that´s he´s feeling fine again-no allergy problems at the moment.

About the tour: No shows in August.

Unless the "personal reason" was something definitive i.e. "I'll be gone X long and be back Y date", would you take the risk of cutting Phil X loose only for Richie to relapse/quit/whatever again? It's one thing calling him up in America, but another to have him flying back and forth over the Atlantic. I'd imagine in one way or another Phil would be paid some more G's to stick around.

Thanks about that, the sources and everything!

On a sidenote, did they really use Jon's wax statue in the slideshow of his pictures?

Yep, but don´t tell them that ;)

I suppose we will know about 06/06 in a few weeks!

You just out-Rolo'd Rolo... Love your work...

Jon is being slightly more vocal on the situation, and it really seems as if he has no idea what is happening either. Richie didn't show up, Jon said it there, and he doesn't know when he'll be back, but he will always be welcome. Aside from Richie saying if he will be back or not, Jon has just told us everything.

The more I think about it the more I wonder if David and Tico had even talked to Richie. We assume because they said they did, they did, but perhaps it was just an answer to a question in the heat of the moment. "Have you talked to him?", "yeah sure".

Why did this jump out at me? Jon may eventually get tired of all the tip-toeing around and just spill what he knows.......nah, Mr. In Control wouldn't do that. :D

It jumped out at me as well. And it's not even the first time he says something like this. But I believe he means those sentences as two different statements, not related to each other. As in he didn't show up this time. We've been through part of a tour without him before. Either this, or there's something we don't know, but I doubt in that case Jon would word it that way.