Aloha !

Frankly, I disagree. Keith Scott is consistent but constantly plays from memory as opposed to playing from feel. Most of the guitar solo's he does are note for note replicas from the studio versions. Even his versions of It's Only Love, where he supposedly lets loose are rehearsed. They've started doing it this way about 20 years ago and the first few years were sloppy, full of bum notes and off tempo. Whenever he's put on the spot, which rarely happens in a Bryan Adams show, he really can't come up with anything other than some standard blues licks.

Yeah... That's not really true though. Bryan Adams pretends to do requests but has made up his mind as to what songs he's going to play whenever he asks the crowd for suggestions. The requests he does are pretty much always songs that have been played to death the past tours, he's even gone as far as pretending a song like Heaven was a request. :)

Salaam Aleikum,
Sebastiaan

Frankly, I disagree. ;) But we are all entitled to our opinions.

I'm not sure when or how playing like the album, or being rehearsed became a bad thing?

I've seen Bryan 10+ times and Keith has always been fantastic to me. But we all look for different things in music. Similarly to Richie, though lacking the bluesy flair, Keith is a player that plays for the song and doesn't feel the need to overplay (those kind of players were never for me). But he certainly had his moments to shine, check out the live version of Touch The Hand from the Waking Up The Neighbours/18 'Til I Die tour for instance (Unfortunatley they don't play that these days).

Keith is widely respected in the guitar playing community. so it's not like he's some sloppy hack, like you seem to suggest. In fact Eddie Van Halen once said that Keith was one of his favourite players.

I see your point,but,anyway,despite many of the songs he plays at the request set had been played over the last tours,I would die for a similar set at a BJ show.
At my last December BA show he played "Ill Always Be Right There" and "The Best Of Me" ,songs that havent been played a lot on the last tours.
I get what you mean,its a request set,but the majority of the songs he played there are over played on the previous tours,and rehearsed,but ,sometimes you get a surprise that with Bon Jovi,since 2011,its impossible to get.
Since Richies departure,those kind of things are over in Bon Jovi.

It ain't Richie's departure that stopped Jon from doing new songs, it's Bobby's.

I personally think it's primarily because Jon has found a formula that gets him thru the night and he doesn't want to step outside of that. From the complaints I've read here, it seems like the variety was gone long before either of them left.

However, I do remember seeing Richie feeding Jon the lyrics and walking him thru the beginning of at least one fan request (STYG, iirc); and I remember one show where Richie started the intro on another request but Jon stopped him, and said something like, "no we ain't doing that... "

So I'm curious. If either of them actually does play a part in it, what makes you think it was Bobby' departure, more than Richie's, that keeps Jon from taking requests or doing songs that would be out of the ordinary?

FWIW the one about Jon stopping Richie from doing that song he was playing it too, it felt like a weird bit.

Bobby was called the human jukebox for a reason. There were some rarer songs on I THINK it was The Circle tour where Bobby was the one playing instead of Richie (Santa Fe comes to mind). I think now it's even more work having Everett, Shanks and Phil learn a new song to throw in. That and Jon's voice.

It's neither, it was Jon's voice that stopped him and his laziness of having to relearn to sing the songs since he obviously had to restudy the catalogue their currently playing in 2016/17. Hell, they played more rare songs in 2015 with Phil and Matt!
Richie didn't play Santa Fe because Jon decided to go for 2 solo songs on the Circle that night and hence gave Bobby a chance to shine, as soon as The Last Night started, Richie and Tico had joined them at the front.
I still stick to the opinion that Dave, Tico, Richie and Hugh knew the back catalogue better than Jon in that era and were rather ready to try to wing one of those songs (In And Out Of Love with acoustic guitars).
Jon calling Bobby the "human jukebox" was just a way to justify his presence as a guitar player and get him some applause. Yeah, they did a lot of cover songs there, but none were stuff that Richie couldn't have played either. They had done tons of Rolling Stones covers before and had even played Pretty Woman back in the day.

Maybe it more relates to his knowledge of cover songs then band songs.

Maybe I think because Bobby was a hired gun its a lot easier to tell to learn a song versus it being a discussion with Richie? Kind of like that video where you see Bobby rehearsing Bang a Drum because Jon "might want to play it tonight".

Bobby's departure threw a bigger curve ball to Jon than we give credit for. Sure if Jon was willing to play Diamond Ring or Wild is the Wind or Santa Fe any given night he could have the guys learn them and rehearse (god knows they do THAT enough). But Jon relied on Bobby a LOT, from Vocals to the songs being played a certain way when Richie wasn't feeling that. A lot of confidence was lost without the human jukebox....

Maybe that's why that bit jumped to my mind. It did feel a little weird.

I may have misunderstood the context. I thought we were discussing fans requesting songs the band had recorded; but I guess Jon probably gets requests for his solo stuff, too; and he may have been more comfortable with Bobby on those songs, possibly bc of the KOS shows. When Jon calls him the human jukebox, though, I've always assumed that was because Bobby could play any number of songs, in general, off the top of his head. From what I understand, Richie's pretty good at doing that, too; so I don't think either of them had anything to do with Jon not taking requests or changing up the setlist.

I still think it's mostly that Jon knows he can get by without going to the trouble of rehearsing unfamiliar songs or stepping outside his comfort zone. Or, as said, it could just be that his vocals aren't up to it.

Or any combination of the above. :D