Noooooo. We have to get them into real kitchens where they can blossom like beautiful cooking flowers. All this game nonsense just gives them ideas above their stations.

Aloha !

Hmm... Yeah a real kitchen sounds like a good idea:

http://m.memegen.com/jx0n56.jpg

Salaam Aleikum,
Sebastiaan

Successful business woman, nice!

Oh, but my sandwiches ARE works of art!

Maybe if all those people who kiss his butt on Twitter and Facebook bought a ticket, he would not have had to cancel. Just sayin' :)

Most of those fans who kiss his butt on facebook and twitter are Europeans, who happen to be the ones buy the tickets.

Ticos_stick is right. America failed Richie.

I'd say it's 50/50. Bad marketing, mediocre social media and not a ton of promo didn't help. A lot of comes down to his name not being desirable if you're not a fan.

A career can't be just based in Europe. What about other countries? I don't think he would want to have his own country turn their backs on him and he has to travel outside for a career.

HIS fanbase who like him just for HIS music is very limited, anyone trying to say otherwise is living in a dreamworld. Yeah he has a more committed following in Europe, but even there MOST fans came to his music through Bon Jovi and are primarily fans of the band.

The fact is (and I think it's a sad fact because he is talented) that Richie Sambora is not a big draw. He is more of one in Europe but even those committed European fans hardly gave his album a good showing via sales. Luckily it has nothing to do with what he is capable of, but the truth is he alone is not that famous.

That doesn't mean he shouldn't have a solo career, it is just the scale of it that needs to be thought out. I am of the opinion the best place for him is with the band (although the last 10 years have been crap) but I think Devilsson has said a few times how he could carve out a niche away from Bon Jovi.

The problem with Richie is his grandiosity and arrogance as a solo artist. Compare his approach to that of Noel Gallagher. Noel was the lead songwriter and part-time lead vocalist of one of the biggest rock bands of all time. By the time Oasis broke, they were filling stadiums and large arenas around the world. Noel was as recognizable as the lead singer of the band, as famous, and very well known to be the real talent in the band. Fans and non-fans alike had been clamouring for a solo effort for a very long time. When he finally made a solo album he talked openly about not having an audience; he started playing in the smallest theaters, he played festival shows, he opened for established bands who could draw a big crowd (Red Hot Chilly Peppers). In other words, he was prepared to start from the bottom, grind his way through, build a fanbase and find success. He did it all with humility and grace (two characteristics not commonly associated with him!).

Richie on the other hand is guy nobody outside of the band's more loyal (and massively dwindling) fanbase knows about. And even among the band's fanbase he is generally viewed as second-fiddle to Jon. Vitually nobody besides his minuscule numbers of fans, knew or cared that he was making a solo record. Yet Richie constantly bragged about how successful he is; how underappreciated and unrecognised he is; disparaged the band in which he found success; was unwilling to play small venues to small crowds; and generally made no effort at all to actually build an audience.

Obviously I have no idea why he bailed on the band but given his astonishing level of (unfounded) grandiosity and arrogance, I'd be fairly confident that whatever resentment he had towards the band and Jon while promoting his solo record was intensified following it's failure and that contributed to his departure.

Richie is a f*cking baby and a diva, as far as I'm concerned.