Why can't they just give us proper live recordings?
 

I honestly don't get it - what's the point behind this? On the one hand, they are too lazy to really take stuff out of their vaults that would be new and welcomed by the fans, on the other hand they (Obie?) invest a lot of time in editing together bogus live versions...

Just to clarifiy:
Dry County (B-side of the single / Milton Keynes 1993):
Recently, I found an audio tape of night 2 from that gig. Night 1 had been broadcasted by the BBC and they didn't play Dry County. So we all assumed that it must've simply been taken from night 2 like stated on the single. The version of night 2 simply has nothing to do with that live release. No speech is the same, I'm not even sure a verse was taken from that show. It either was spliced together from however many multiple performances or recorded in the studio (at least the speeches) and given away as "live". Also David Bryan's keyboard part after the solo is completely different to what I think he ever played live.

In And Out Of Love (Bonus Edition 2010):
The singing and verses are taken from (presumably) Tokyo 1985, the guitar / drum solos are taken from 1987 and spliced in there.

Lay Your Hands On Me (Bonus Track 2001?):
I haven't heard that one, but I'm very sure someone here mentioned that it had the 1996 intro and then cut to the Toronto 2000 performance...

Born To Be My Baby (Bonus Edition 2010):
The first part up until middle of the guitar solo is taken from Glasgow 1988 (Night 1) and then it actually cuts to either a recording of Night 2 or some other show of that period.


I mean, honestly, why do that when you have a vault full of excellent performances? Do other bands do the same and it's a common thing that I'm not aware of?

Sorry, just felt like going into a rant about this...

Great post, I don't get it either.

For almost 2 decades they were one of the best live bands on the planet.
But they never managed to release an appropiate live album or DVD.
All live CDs and DVD were horribly cut together and missed the power of their live performances.

You read my mind. Your Get Back / Traveling Band post gave me that same thought. The world's greatest rock band who built their reputation as such, never gave us a balls out real release.

Springsteen always takes care of his fans. Look at his discography. It's insane. I'm sure all his CDs aren't flying off the shelves like they once did either but he loves music and does it all for the fans... which in turn keeps them loyal and happy.... which in turn again, keeps him successful and legendary.

Jon's too caught up in the final numbers, who's getting a cut of what, and being nostalgic. That's why his hair is white. Sometimes you have to give to get. Like if he didn't pay for Its My Life, he might not have obtained the status where he is at today. Say It Ain't So would have flopped, Crush would have been finished, and Jon might have been dropped.

Unless there is some royalty restrictions (which I doubt), there is no reason they should hoard all those gems.

Springsteen has a simple concept. Tour and release everything regardless. He doesn't care about the numbers, chart hits, over exposure or being nostalgic. And through all that, he's beyond legendary and has more money then he'll ever spend.

Jon had a very profitable and successful decade when he was forced to release material every year. And then on top of it, he has a piss poor attitude when in comes to promoting it all like the NJ Re-release.

Thank goodness for bootlegs and fans like yourself who can restore some of those old performances back to a pleasurable listen.

Maybe Jon is just saving it all for his retirement when his voice is completely shot out for good.

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Aloha !

I get it. I don't agree with it, but I get it.

It's because Jon doesn't care about previous achievements other than saying "I've done that, now give me credibility for it". Jon's all about telling everyone he's sold 100.000.000 records but then skips at least 40% of that catalog every time he goes on stage. I also think that whoever is behind selections for live stuff has no clue what songs were in the vault and when they were recorded. The official list for when songs on the box set were recorded was wrong which kind of shows how much interest and knowledge they've got about their own career. No self-respecting artist would put Livin' On A Prayer from Central Park on a remaster from Slippery and then pretend it's from the same era. And if Obie had a bit of sense he'd have picked something else than This Ain't A Love Song from Bremen for These Days. There was just no point in buying all these special editions again while I'd have bought them in a heartbeat if a second disc with unreleased live stuff from the same era the album was ncluded.

And then there's the costs. Almost everything the band has released as live recordings was recorded by some other party (TV and/or radio broadcasts). From my recollection only some stuff from Toronto 2000 was recorded for a possible live release. I honestly just don't think their archive is all that. Hiring someone to sort that out costs money. Hiring someone to mix it properly costs money so we're stuck with the family friend Obie who has this weird fascination to cut intro's, outro's and improvisations out of a song. I'll Sleep When I'm Dead from Wembley's length is originally about 10 minutes long yet when they released it as a b-side on one of the singles 3 minutes were cut off. One of the cover songs vanished, the intro was shortened, the improvs in the middle were cut and the outro had a fade out as the original song merged into Bad Medicine. Besides, even if he'd keep it all in place it's all mixed to death anyway. There's audience recordings which capture a live feel better than anything the band has released.

If the band really has all the seperate tracks in the vault (seperate guitars/keyboards/drums/vocals) surely someone ought to be able to do a better job than whatever was released as official live stuff from the last tour. The BBC broadcast of 2011 showed a perfect live mix is possible. It just needs someone other than whoever they hire for this. But professionals cost money and why spend money on something from the past that'll eventually only show your shortcomings in the present?

So yeah, like most decisions it comes down to money and ego. Back in 2001 many die hards voiced their disappointment after the release of One Wild Night 2001 was released and Obie got frustrated and told Jovitalk to shut up about it. This band doesn't welcome criticism because it'd mean they're wrong. And we all know Jon is never wrong and neither are his yes-man.

Salaam Aleikum,
Sebastiaan

after all these years jon should really cahnge his perspective on the matter...for gods sake they are at their sixties, they had almost 4 decades on the spotlight, trying to stay relevant by not accepting your status in the music business makes no sense...
i belive sooner or later jon will finally realise its pointless to push this machine without richie and without accepting you became a nostalgia act...he can try to improve his voice and deliver sth truly nice but he cant stay on the same road for too long..
the cost for editing mixing and mastering 4-5 concerts for the bj standards is really low...they wont have a profit ok but paying two technicians etc for 3-4 months is peanuts for jon...

The sad part is that it wouldn't take anywhere near that long to make a mix; a professional could mix a whole show in 2 days easily.

I suspect that they do desk recordings of all the shows, but not multitracks specifically. That would certainly explain the variations in quality of the THINFS shows they did release, and the lack of archive material and the constant re-use of TV and radio broadcast stuff. Or it might just be cheaper and easier.

That said, I'm sure some shows have been recorded for potential release. Seb referred to TAALS on the special edition which was a bit of a surprise at least, and I personally enjoyed it. No reason they couldn't release the whole show.

Seb referred to TAALS from Bremen 95 because that show was broadcasted live on the radio and there are many many bootlegs of the full show.
If they released a TAALS live version on that 2010 special edition,at leats they should have included a non released version.

Doesn't Jon speak Spanish during TAALS? I assumed it was from a Spanish show from that, but could be wrong.

He speaks Italian during Diamond Ring (also on the special edition) and that was from Milan 1995. TAALS was from Bremen, I dubbed the special edition recording to the video bootleg last year:

Ah - it was Diamond Ring I was thinking of then, not TAALS. No reason they couldn't release Milan in that case.

Good thread and it shows we STILL CARE.

They did shelve the campaign which started with New Jersey back in 2014:

"More 30th anniversary commemorative titles, including newly-compiled collections of studio and live recordings, will also be released this year. Until then, these deluxe editions of New Jersey are out on 1 July 2014."

WONDER what's been in the works for that.

But after ALL THESE years since the late 80s I'm actually given up hope they ever release anything from the golden era...

I hold tight to my precious bootlegs of:

Cincinnatti 1987
Rotterdam 1989
Hammersmith 1990

and those officially released b-side live tracks.

Oh my God... over these 20 years I was thinking I am alone with that...
Remember my first time when I discovered that not only setlist of Crush Tour VHS was shortened comparing to DVD, but engineering was made so bad, that tracks are shorter and even fragments of audio are placed in wrong position (so entire chorus of Livin' was replaced with something else...).

To this day I wonder "Why guys... why?". Why you are messing with live tracks on singles and cutting all Jon speeches? Why do you mess MSG 2008, so proper order is destroyed and missing tracks are available as... bonus? Really...?

A long, long time my decision was to stick SNB and PRO unofficial recordings. I am pretty happy with that, but I reached probably 95% available stuff... I still hope that someday BJ vaults will be really opened.

Sebastian, could you put some light on this? I am really surprised about Obie reaction and I was not aware of fans dissapointment on OWNL.

Aloha !

Obie had been bragging to fans how he'd been digging deep into the archives to find all these old recordings. Both on Backstage and Jovitalk people got excited, finally expecting the live release the band had never released.

Once One Wild Night was released there were 11 songs on there which had already been on previous releases. 4 songs were lifted from the Crush DVD, 2 off an official fanclub release and then there were 5 b-sides crammed on there. Then there's the insane amount of edits just to be able to fit all those songs on 1 disc. Prayer, Saturday Night, In & Out Of Love, Something For The Pain and Bad Medicine were all shortened. I think Something To Believe In was as well, but I'm not sure, it's been too long since I've heard the album. A casual listener won't hear it but someone who knows Bon Jovi live versions by heart does.

Back in 2001 Obie gave "hilarious" answers to fans asking questions. When someone asked "How do you feel the response to the live album has been" he said "Everyone likes it apart from a few snobs from that other messageboard". He mentioned this when talking to fans, saying "we" were impossible to please. Meanwhile, on Backstage every negative thread was immidiately deleted so it'd look like everyone loved it. Most of these supposed die hards on Backstage had no idea what was out there. Some people from Jovitalk posted there as well and said a lot was already out there. Backstage got light of this and eventually some people on there mentioned things like "Well I'm glad we got a live album but it could've been better". Obie talked to fans before shows as well and heard about the critisism and always dismissed this as needless. "Just be happy with what you got". But what we got really was only a fully unedited version of Just Older from Toronto. But Just Older had been released on the Crush DVD, as a b-side on the Crush bonus disc and as a b-side from New York City. There was nothing new on that album and Obie knew it too. He just expected to get away with it and looked like a ****ing moron. He'd just gotten used to all the adoration from fans and it turned out he couldn't deliver.

When he started work on the box set he did a lot more of investigating asking fans if they'd heard song this or song that to make sure it'd be full of songs that weren't in circulation already. It's how some song titles were eventually leaked to see if people would respond with "But we've already got that one!". It's also the major reason why there's no stuff from the eighties on there. Most of it is already out there.

Salaam Aleikum,
Sebastiaan

I got a promo copy of OWNL when I worked for the label a few weeks prior to release. I was so disappointed. I’ve heard it once since release.
As Seb says there was hardly anything new on there and the songs were shortened. It sounds like it was literally thrown together in 5 minutes.


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This shows that it was just an album for the newly gained fans after the success of Crush and It's My Life. To introduce some of the back catalogue and especially Bon Jovi as a live band.
When I became a real fan in 2002 (I already liked them since Crossroad but was just too young to become something like a fan) I absolutely loved this live album - because I had absolutely no idea. But with all those bootlegs being around I quickly lost interest in that album and haven't listened to it from start to finish for probably 12-15 years or something.

Yep, it was just following in the footsteps of what Crush had caused. A new generation of fans and the band selling out and catering more and more to something that hadn't been their core audience for the first 2 decades.

In the bands defense, Jon actually wanted a double disk but the record company shot that idea down due to money so yes, they needed to basically make a live greatest hits out of 1 CD.

This was part of that crazy 10 major releases in 10 years (or was it 15 in 15?).

Another reason for that 5 CD/DVD box set btw.

Also, everyone blamed Jon for the rushed 2013 What About Now album but I think Jon had no choice... 2000 to 2014 is 15 years and Burning Bridges was the last of that contract which again, was part of the record company demand...

You could maybe shift some blame for the lengthy tour but I think the album was a must.

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But that's no excuse for them releasing a cd with live tracks that have already been released one way or another. Even on one cd they could have put unreleased live versions.
And furthermore by 2001 Jon should have known better that the record company refuses double albums. They already did so with New Jersey, Keep The Faith and I think Crossroad, too.

Regarding Jon's contract - what is the source for all those information?

Even though I absolutely don't want to go deeper into the "Jon was forced to do WAN in 2013 discussion", here's why it wasn't intended that way:
- Jon talked about "the band taking a break" a few times near the end of the 2011 tour. Being the hands-on guy who wants to be in control of everything, he wouldn't have said that if he knew they'd have to be back in the studio the next spring.
- Tico's refusal to go back and play on tracks that early because Jon had promised them a break and he didn't feel ready to go back that early.
- Richie wouldn't have planned a solo album, had they known beforehand that there was one more album due to be delivered within about a year.
- Jon's talks about a possible solo album in that era.

The record company had been planning the big anniversary release of New Jersey for 2013, a band album in 2014 and some whatever-contractual release in 2015. This would've added up in the timeline since 2013 was the 25th anniversary of the New Jersey album, there would've been the room for proper solo endeavours or simply breaks and they could've re-gathered around 1.5 years later for the next album.

I'd even go as far as saying that if they had stuck to that schedule, we'd still roughly have a Bon Jovi of 2011 with only natural further decline in music and voice instead of the train wreck there is today.

I whole heartedly agree with this statement. I think it was WAN that broke the camels back when a decent break was really what everyone needed! If WAN had never happened I think the band would be in a very different place now.

All great points...

No one knows the details for sure so it's difficult to say what was required as far as the type of release.

Would a Jon solo album or a compilation be enough fulfill the contract? Was a 100 plus massive tour attached to it? Could they have waited an shift the release 6 months?

All very good possibilities.

Don't forget, in the year 2000 when Jon made this album deal, album sales were still relevant and I don't think anyone saw this massive shift so a Greatest Hits might have had more weight then new material... I guess the point I'm making is, there also might have been required breakdown of each. X amount of new material vs X amount of compilations.

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Yep, it is as well. The second solo is cut out. Knowing the original live versions I can't listen to those edits. I really miss the second chorus at the end of Prayer for example. If I ever listen to it, I only play IML, Keep The Faith, Rockin' In The Free World, Wanted and Just Older, all the other were somehow crippled.

Despite my comment above, it really did what you write. It was my first BJ CD and after knowing a few tracks from the radio and totally loving IML which was just everywhere at that time, I really got into listening to live songs and it made me search for bootlegs were early on and it kinda defines me now :D

On the other hand - the whole collection is strange. There are a few obvious choices but some other are not. Why I Don't Like Mondays? Or Rockin' In The Free World? I love the latter one and I'm happy to have but being allowed to release a one disc live album, it makes no sense to include two covers there given the catalogue they had. Also Something To Believe In on Something For The Pain make no sense as they didn't play them live during that period and even after. And I could live without Runaway and In And Out Of Love.
It would totally make sense to make an album from 1995-2000 to keep the songs vocally close to what Jon sounded in 2001. LOAP, Bad Name, KTF, Bad Medicine all make sense. Just Older as a cool new live track too to represent Crush. Then Bed Of Roses or I'll Be There For You, These Days if they felt the need to include something from that album. I know it would be boring for diehard fans but to serve the purpose in times before internet providing chances to listen to live tracks, it would make sense to present their biggest hits in live setting to motivate people to see them live.

Amen! (Not the song.. :D)

To have a best-of live release to capitalize on a new fanbase and educate them on a back catalogue, it's a tracklist that makes no sense. Two cover songs, two songs from These Days not really in any sort of rotation, three songs from the previous album (albeit one heavily remixed). It's like it was designed to be for the collectors or the newbies and it wound up being for neither.

It was supposed to be a second greatest hits... 7 years after crossroads, new contract, new fan base, pull a couple from These Days and Crush plus some of the missed hits from Crossroads, throw in a remix or two and bang... Jon said No Way!

So instead, they had one 80 minute CD to cater to both, the casual and die hard listeners... That's why the remix, cover, and a rarity... To be honest, it's not that bad for a casual listener but most don't want a live album. They want the album tracks to sound like the album. On the flip side, there wasn't enough muscle to attract the die hards so they totally missed on both levels.

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There's a lot about this album that doesn't make any sense...(besides the points you already mentioned)
- calling it One Wild Night Live and the only song of which a studio version is added is the title track
- adding 2 coversongs and not even playing them during the respective tour
- releasing Tokyo Road in Japan only instead of OWN but finally releasing OWN over there as well

I can see the label wanting to capitalise on the new fans but at the same time, as far as North America is concerned, it would have just been Crossroads + It's My Life. Europe, Japan etc I could see the point but it's blatantly clear it'd be pointless stateside.

I don't blame Jon.

However, the other songs released from Crush didn't appeal to many casual fans so putting It's My Life on another release with a refreshed hits collection would have been a great marketing move..

Taking off Prayer 94 and maybe even Saturday Night...Then adding It's My Life, Thank You, Something for The Pain and Love Song (or These Days) along with another missed hit from the 80's / 90s.



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Which is why I'm mentioning North America specifically. They would have to take OFF hits to include songs that weren't hits for that region specifically to put it out. Europe could have done it right, absolutely.

I don't get what you mean.

Crossroads didn't fill an 80 minute CD. Prayer 94 and Saturday Night weren't hits so if you chop those and maybe even In and Out of Love, there is definitely some room for a handful of news songs and a nice revision. It's My Life clocks in at like 3 minutes so that takes up hardly any space.

For a song as big as Its My Life, Crush sold poorly. If I was the record company executive, I would have told Jon to stick his nostalgia up his ass and demanded that greatest hits.

I think they tried multiple times too. This Left and Lost Highway were other attempts.




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The International version clocks in at 77 minutes. It's My Life is 3:45 so you can't fit it on there without taking something off. All the tracks were bonafide hits internationally, apart from Runaway and In And Out Of Love, but I think it's important that each album is represented.

If Cross Road had been expanded a 2 disc set in place of the live album it could easily have been a 2 disc set, but some of the "hits" would have been baffeling for US audiences. I don't think they had enough for a 2 disc set in 1994, unless they included fan favourites like Blood on Blood and Wild In The Streets etc, but I think it's too much for 2 discs from 5 albums.

That's over 80 minutes...

And why would they release the same thing twice without adjustments? No one would ever buy Crossroads again.

Realistically you would want all albums and singles represented but not not every hits album does that because they still want people to buy the albums so sometimes they leave some hits off on purpose.



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Crush was going to be called One Wild Night but for JBJ "it felt more like the title of a live record." Obie presented to JBJ the songs, but he deleted some of them 'cause he wanted a simple CD to show the rock side and the artistic side of the band. About the covers he said he always made versions of known songs because that way he creates a different enviroment to warm and prepare the audience for what they going to see in a real Bon Jovi show.
I like One Wild Night - Live. But no way that's better than my personal collection -_-

Yes, that's what I said.....

It's actually quite common for bands to update greatest hits albums at a later date. Def Leppard have done it with Vault several times. The Best Of, Rock Of Ages and The Story So Far are all pretty much identical, just with additional songs added or replacing some of the lesser known hits. They just give it a different name each time

I don't think you'd necessarily need every single represented, but I think every album should be with at least one song. It always annoys me that there is nothing from Bounce on the greatest hits. Everyday was a hit in UK/Europe and could have been included.

I think Everyday also got a Grammy nomination in the US. Very strange that the Bounce Album was overlooked...

Misunderstood was also a decent single. They could have even included the title track to represent the album.

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I think it was down to Jon's pride, to be honest. He was sure that both the record as well as the single Everyday were going to be big hits (he said that about Everyday in a TV show during the HAND era) and the album started well, but dropped harder than any other record of them had done at that point and no single really made any impact. That must have hurt his ego too much in the long run :D

Jon the business man should have included Everyday.
Jon the artist should have included Misunderstood and Undivided.
Jon's ego made him include none of these.

That (sadly) sums it up perfectly...

I don't think it's ego that Undivided didn't make it to a greatest hits album, there's zero reason it should be on there. Misunderstood and Everyday though, definitely, at least in the countries they were big hits.

It could have been. Tokyo Road, When We Were Beautiful and mainly Blood On Blood are questionable as singles. TR wasn't a single but it was only included on Japanese editionas of GH. Blood On Blood wasn't a single but a fan favourite and probably a planned single. Don't remember about WWWB. Wasn't it released only locally?

Everyday would make more sense and definitely should have been included on the second disc give the overall song selection.

Sure, but wasn't the 2010 marketed as Best of and fan favourites? In my mind if it had a video it deserves a little more to be on there regardless if it was released to MTV or not. Tokyo Road meant something bigger for the Japan release than a song like Undivided did, just my opinion.

For what it's worth a LOT of the 2010 best of double disc has a lot of fluff, mainly because there wasn't enough hits post Crossroad to really necessitate a two disc release.