Unfortunately, I very much gotta agree with Eduardo.

Yeah, there was some "moments" like some ad-libs or him going through the crowd that had glimpses of his past glory, but for one of them you have five others songs around that are poorly performed.

If this tour has shown one thing, it's that the last two streaming concerts were made bearable due to an incredible amount of post-production and that Jon simply can't do live shows at this scale anymore.

In 2015, despite the poor vocals, I felt I may get on board with it due to the duo Phil X / Matt O'Ree having had some chemistry and complementary playing. Ever since Shanks joined the live line-up, it's musically bland boring for most of it since they rarely find the heart of the songs anymore.

Everyone had different reasons why they became a fan of the band. For me, it was that Jon could elevate songs to another level live, that he was able to capture a crowd of any size they faced, that his and Richie's vocals mixed beautifully with each other and that Richie's playing gave songs that certain spark. Well, absolutely none of this is there anymore.
If people are happy with spending a few hundred bucks and needing to get drunk to get on board and have a good time, then that's great for them. But I personally can't and don't want to justify spending that amount of money for a setlist where half of the songs are tracks that don't do anything for me and the other half are hits that I had heard a dozen times before (and done ten times better).

When it came around that they were downtuning the material, adding an acoustic set and starting to bring some odd cuts back into it, I was having hopes for a moment. But since it reverted back to the same old water withing 5 or 6 shows, I had gotten the feeling that Jon had kind of given up on all of this as well.

I'm all for them still doing music in one way or the other, but as a live act, I think they're just done.

I think that the song selection more than shows that he doesn’t care. He plays songs that nobody wants to hear but him. Songs like WLOL and LH for example don’t do anything for both the die hards and the casual fans. And as for the argument: “it’s easy on his voice”, nowadays no songs is, and there are much better ones that are at the same level of difficulty as those two.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Totally fair. To be clear I wasn't accusing you of anything either way, just curious.

I don't think I agree that no song are easy on his voice, some he can certainly do and some he gargles glass over. But it's wild the ones he chooses. He's killing himself over songs for no one, yeah.

Yep, I understood what you meant to say ! No worries !


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Negatives…how long you got?

Positives - it’s over


Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk

It's such a shame really because the band still sounds really good, but now they don't have their singer. Other bands can replace singers, but Jon could not be replaced in Bon Jovi :(

I disagree that the band sounds really good. Yes, Tico, David and Hugh are there, but Phil X’s tone and playing doesn’t fit the “traditional” BJ sound. He is a great guitarist, but not for Bon Jovi. And Shanks for me is a snooze button on a fire alarm: useless. I’d rather have Bobby murdering solos but doing some great vocals than having Shanks up there.

I find their sound to be very dull as of lately.

Cheers

Eduardo


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Positives & Negatives - 2022 US Tour
 

Said it on here 100 times on here. Phil is an amazing guitar player….but he isn’t the right fit for Bon Jovi.

He is a shredder - a great one. Jovi songs have soul and feeling.


Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk

One other thing that's not directly band related is the sound mix for me. Back in 2013, it was said they had a new team for mixing their live sound. And ever since 2013, I had not heard a concert where the sound was well balanced. It's so often muffled whereas even up to 2011, the mix was mostly quite good (and judging from older reviews and recordings, it was often pretty great up until 2001).
In 2013, Jon was still mixed on top of everything which made it kind of tough since he was pushing the "whiny vocals" at the time, afterwards he was drowned in the mix which made him barely audible.
It sometimes feels like they transferred the Shanks-production-sound onto the stage: big wall of sound, but you can rarely decipher the instruments properly.

in 2015 they still had a raw rock sound everything changed after shanks joined the band on stage