When did you first notice Jon's voice had started to decline?
 

When was the first time during your fan period thus far that you noticed Jon's vocal decline from previous occasions while listening to something sung by him, either live or on record (where it obviously has pretty much always been easy to hide).

The first time I noticed something about his voice wasn't there anymore was back in September 2007, when the Nokia Theatre '05 gig was aired on Finnish TV. I, as an eight-year-old, remember having cringed during the key change part of Prayer. Jon was just sounding "weird", not particularly bad, but very forced and unnatural.

Then in 2010 I bought the MSG DVD and was shocked to notice how much Jon was struggling on songs like Keep The Faith, Living In Sin and especially Dry County. And even though he sounded pretty damn good on Always and Bed Of Roses back on the LH tour, while watching the DVD for the first time I immediately noticed how much of his past vocal power and natural strength he had lost already in 2008.

The first time I noticed Jon's entire high register was gone was back in September 2015, when I decided to watch some clips from the Jakarta concert... and more recently, there was the horrendous Nashville '17 show, which was the first time I noticed Jon basically couldn't sing at all anymore.

The Asian mini-tour, I guess -- one show in particular, he was clearly pacing himself. And Richie's voice not being there to compliment it certainly didn't help.

Bounce tour, the Amphitheater run.

2000 (live DVD)

The Crush tour, as well. The album already offered up a vocally conservative Jon that at the time left me wanting for more. Hearing it today leaves me wanting that voice today.

Since then, I did enjoy the Lost Highway/The Circle years. He had a way of handling the vocals that, although his voice had changed, actually made him more consistent with the delivery. The performances of Blood On Blood on both tours were some of my favorite versions of the song, period.

Europe 2000 Crush Tour...

Europe Crush tour. It was such a massive difference compared to 95/96 and even compared to his solo run in 97/98. But I still enjoyed his vocals up until 2011 which was the last time I saw them live. From 2012 and onwards it just got even worse.

When did you first notice Jon's voice had started to decline?
 

The second leg of the TD tour. Nothing major, but his voice was thinning out and the effortless power (especially from the KTF tour) wasn’t quite as strong. That’s not to say he was bad, far far from it. But there was a noticeable dip.


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still got it if he wanted to back in 99/2000

The Crush tour DVD was a huge shock to me. Who would have thought I'd go back and say the dreaded words 'it wasn't that bad" after every subsequent tour. Well, I knew it would get worse (always the optimistic!) but I didn't want to believe it. I still can't believe it almost 20 years later!! Only three years prior Jon was still freaking amazing live.

I had become a fan with the Crush tour DVD in 2004 and it was the only concert video (plus the few bonus clips on TLFR) I knew from them until then.
HAND was the first album as a fan and I saw the Amsterdam promo concert on VIVA2 back then and was shocked at how bad HAND and a few others sounded. So yeah, probably around that time and that was only in comparison to 2000. When I saw Wembley for the first time, I couldn't believe how much better they had been back then.

I became a fan in 2008 and a year later became a die-hard who watches dozens of live performances on YouTube daily. So the general notion of Jon's decline was very obvious as the very first live performance I saw from them was Livin' On A Prayer from The Crush Tour DVD. I was shocked to see Jon not singing the chorus and that they were shamelessly using the playback for those parts (what kind of a rock band does that, seriously???).

However as my knowledge kept increasing in 2009, the initial dissapointment about Jon's decline was quickly replaced by optimism from his improvement in 2008. You can see how he was back singing songs he couldn't do in 2003-2006. Then, the MSG '08 DVD was released, which wasn't perfect from a vocal standpoint, but was still very satisfactory with Jon doing a very decent job on Always, Dry County, Blood On Blood, Living In Sin, etc.

Yup - I agree with this. I was shocked at some of the notes he couldn't hit. It seemed to deteriorate from there until close to the end of 2008 when they went to Europe and then sang in Central Park.

The 2010 and 2011 tours were, in my opinion, the last really great shows. They weren't all great all the time but most were damn good.

Even in 2013 at Giants (MetLife) and then later at Mohegan Sun he sounded decent but not great.

What I'm hearing right now from the latest Runaway tour is that he cannot really control his voice at all. I have tickets for 3 shows and they may be very iffy :(

The MetLife 2013 gig is very doctored. It's So clear in songs like Prayer, KTF, Always and These Days. One of the worst gigs from 2013.

The Crush album for me was an eye opener. It was such a shock coming off These Days which contained some incredible vocals. Destination Anywhere hinted at what was to come on Crush, but the album itself was more low key so it wasn't as noticeable. I remember listening to Thank You For Loving Me and just thinking: "he sounds weird." And, of course, "Save the World," is so nasally I find it nearly unlistenable.

I also remember listening the Storyteller's gig on VH-1 and thinking: "man, he can't sing anymore." Like many of you, I look back now and would give anything to have that voice back, but at the time I thought it was absolutely terrible.

The only album where I think Jon actually sounds good post Destination Anywhere is Lost Highway. Sure, he doesn't have the soaring vocals or incredible high notes, but he's fairly easy to listen to and delivers the songs well.

I never took Destination Anywhere as an indication of decline or as a hint to the future at all. I certainly noticed the change in style, since I had expected more of the style of vocals found on Blaze, but the vocals came across as having subtle elegance and intended stylistic choice. As I have gotten older, there are times when the vocals on Blaze feel over the top and DA's are perfectly restrained to suit the mood. Destination Anywhere's vocals just sound mature, in the best sense.

Crush's vocals sound calculatedly safe and vastly watered down over any previous Bon Jovi album, which raised flags that were confirmed by the performances following in its wake.

As for Storytellers.. ugh. Talk about anti-climatic. I had forgotten how bad that performance was. In another universe, they did a normal Storytellers like any other band. When that would have been, I do not know. The series started in 1996, so Crush was the first time the band was active for a performance. Perhaps doing it during Lost Highway / The Circle would have been far better.

I suppose we could consider "An Evening With.." as their Unplugged/Storytellers. Speaking of, they really should have had a standard "Bon Jovi Unplugged," with an accompanying live album, capturing the band in top form. Nothing against "An Evening With..." but it is an outlier.

The first time I heard the country version of Bang A Drum, I knew Jon sounded different... And that's the vocal tone we still have today...

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Are you talking about the nasality becoming prominent? In my opinion, the first (albeit very subtle) signs of Jon "singing through his nose" appeared on the These Days album. For example, the lower parts of Hearts Breaking Even sound a bit nasal already.

In my opinion, his voice was pretty much the same throughout 1995-2011. It became more nasal after '06 (while on the other hand his range grew drastically during the second half of the LH tour), but you could still tell it was the same guy singing here...

https://youtu.be/WGJwBPgqxWA

...and here:

https://youtu.be/ZjiHpv0MVlk

Jon did sound different in 2010 than he did in 1995, but the difference wasn't HUGE.

PS. I think his dropout on the BWC tour was largely due to technique-based vocal exhaustion, which (in a very similar way to the Slippery run back in '87) basically killed all of what was left of his voice at that time. The inconsistency he's displaying nowadays was certainly apparent back then already - as this video proves:

https://youtu.be/OtQeL3c3dsM

Jon goes for Always like it was the last song he'd ever perform on stage, nailing most of it, and then can't sing These Days to save his life. Singing all those high-pitched songs with an unhealthy technique does take its toll by time. (Of course the stress must have been a factor as well, but I don't think that after all these years to recover, he would still sound as bad as he does now if his cords weren't f***ed up.)

I first thought I sensed a slight decline with the These Days album. The vocal didn't seem quite as good and powerful as it had been on KTF. But then I saw them for the first time in 1996 (Milton Keynes and was blown away by how powerful and perfect his voice sounded) and decided there hadn't been a decline just that he was using a different technique slightly on record. I saw them again in 2000 and 2001 and thought maybe his voice wasn't quite as good as in 96 but still great.

Looking back now I think I was probably right to sense a slight decline with These Days and I put that down to smoking from 94 onwards having quite a quick effect. The smoking thing is really sad if it is that and also makes me angry! I read an interview somewhere in which Jon talks about quitting smoking (I think it was around 2010), but the reason he gives for stopping is not to protect his voice or his overall health, or even to be a better role model (all of which would have been great reasons), but rather because his insurance premiums were too expensive because of being smoker!!! This I thought was pretty sad that he was essentially saying that he wasn't bothered about his health, voice etc but the size of his bank balance! Its comments like this that make kind of support the view that Jon's more interested in running Jovi as a business and making money than about the actual music.

I remember that interview. He sounded like an idiot.

I wasn’t a die hard until 2008, so I can’t comment on anything before that.

But I remember watching the Tampa and Cleveland webcasts in the 2013 tour and noticing how he was having a harder time keeping up with HAND, BTBMB, ITA, and the long note of MAM when comparing it to the 2008-2011 period. Always sounded much thinner, and it was noticeable that he had much less control of his voice than just two years before. But he was still bearable to listen to.

Then I heard Hey God in Bergen and I knew right there that we were in deep trouble. It all went downhill after that.

Cheers

Eduardo


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It was 2003 for me. The end of the Bounce tour was rough. His voice was concerning from then until 2008 even though he had found a comfort zone during the HAND tour. 2008-2012 was a renaissance.

Almost exactly the same time frame for me too. A couple of the Bounce tour shows really started showing problems - but not all the the time. That's why I pick that tour as the start of vocal troubles.

From mid-2013 onwards he was struggling noticeably on many songs, usually at every show. The beginning of the real decline was that summer, first signs could probably be seen even in 2012 (Greenbrier Classics festival etc. weren't that impressive), but the point where he could no longer sing properly at all was reached in 2015, I'd say - struggling on every note. He'd have the occasional decent night (when he'd have less/milder issues) every now and then until Wembley 2019, but since Coventry/Munich/whatever in '19 he's performed nothing but awful shows.

When did you first notice Jon's voice had started to decline?
 

True. But when they reached Australia in 2013 his tone had changed so much (he acquired that thin whiny tone) that it made him unbearable to hear (to my ears, of course). I couldn’t stand to watch 5 min of the Brisbane broadcast…


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The shows at the start of the Bounce tour were fantastic. Anaheim 2003 is one of my all time favourites. That outdoor amphitheatre tour in the summer in the US was one leg too far.

True. I’ve seem countess requests for official releases of more “famous” shows over the years, but Anaheim 2003 would be my pick. The amount of energy is mind blowing, Jon goes 150% on all songs, and I don’t think there’s much left to say about Saturday Night and Keep the Faith …

Cheers

Eduardo


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Blaze of Glory also stands out from that show. Its spectacular. The satellite dishes are so cool too.

1991 when i first heard the famous cincinnati 1987 bootleg. Dont get me wrong, i love it but was wondering how he sounds so rough on sone parts...

That wasn't a decline, pretty much all of 1987 was vocally horseshit for JBJ because of him being so exhausted physically. The first real decline, IMO, started in 2002.

Yeah, the extreme nasality combined with the very inconsistent high register was painful. He could actually hit many of the high notes better again in 2017-19, but was obviously a billion times worse on every other aspect of his voice.

I got into the band towards the end of the Bounce era, and everybody on here was bitching how much Jon's vocals had deteriorated. So I was aware of a decline - the boxset afterwards which featured live shows with the octave drop for The Radio Saved My Life Tonight's chorus pretty much cemented that.

I remember the live vocals getting stronger around LH, and I'm pretty sure than Jon was very aware of a slight vocal decline around the These Days tour. There's a reason his solo record was much more low key (in both ways).

That didn't sell that well, and the TLFR versions were not popular. So back to the soaring highs again, even though he knew these were an issue for him.

When did you first notice Jon's voice had started to decline?
 

Same case here. I started listening to live shows and following the band in a time where vocal issues were already a problem.

If I had to set dates to Jon’s vocal decline, I’d first say the mythical Wembley ‘95. Sure, he could still reach the notes, and the energy was awesome, but Jon’s voice was quite thin in several songs.

Same for ‘96 shows. The band was perhaps at its tightest, but Jon’s voice wasn’t what it was until 1993.

After that, I think other progressive inflection points were Bremen 2003, Borgata 2004 and the last leg of HAND tour. After the Indian summer and great improvement on LH and The Circle eras, the next drop came with the Sandy relief concert in 2012 and the video of Jon in the studio recording What about now.

The final and definitive drop came after Richie left, and then it has keep going downhill, as we all know.


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I agree that 2002 was the first time he started to sound objectively bad.

Hard to say nowadays….. i mean he sounds so horrific now that looking back say to 2010 he seems brilliant….. but i know back in 2010 i was saying to myself jeez he sounds average compared to 2000 …..

Looking back to 2010? Even in 2014 he sounded brilliant compared to today:

https://youtu.be/HbjX-ljw-iw

https://youtu.be/3bnH68v-w5s

https://youtu.be/1i3sjxW4IwU

https://youtu.be/pXM90oGIJYA

I had never seen these videos before. They are great! It is so cool to see a live performance of Rich Man Living in a Poor Man's House. That version of Midnight in Chelsea is especially good.

2018 nonetheless, this performance of BOR made the hairs on my neck stand up:


It’s absolutely brilliant.

My thoughts are 2013 is where it started to go for good. I know that ties in with when Richie left but it's not meant to. With certain WAN songs I saw Jon leaving the stadiums and anthems behind and onto more acoustic stuff (Springsteen, Dylan, Steve Earle, Leonard Cohen) and I thought that was the best (and most credible) way to go. I thought it could be a positive progression at that time (for the whole band) and those very cool solo 2014 performances I've just seen for the first time reinforce that. That probably wasn't going to be where the money was though...

I guess you can tell when all the demanding ultra popular songs start leaving the sets. It was a simple as asking oneself "Why isn't this band playing Always every night? Everybody wants to hear it."