Show ideas
 

This was a message in reponse to Bleeding Purist's topic but it grew a life of its own, so I made a new topic for it here.

I was thinking about the songs and the show and here's some ideas to make it new and fresh.

I really hope they switch the songs around this time, or throw in some stuff that they never do. At least make something special of it. An acoustic song I couldn't care for too much, but make a different version of a very known song or something, and I don't mean acoustic --> rock version or vice versa. But use some other instruments of something, throw in some different arrangements...
Do an instrumental part (Jon can take a break here), bring back the Lay Your Hands On Me Intro, I know it's not fashionable, but it's too cool to just let it linger in the past. It even worked on the OWN tour so...
Do some singing stuff with the audience in between songs or think of some new stuff to do with old songs.
The new songs are perfect to do some cool audience stuff with, I think that no matter what, we're definitely going to see that.

Make a visual show again. Use old visuals, make new stuff for the new songs.
There's so much lyrical stuff to mess around with and make visuals for. Use heartshapes (I wanna be loved) or cigarettes (OLC), Bells (BOF), needles (Novocaine).
Do something onstage. Pyro, fire works, the puppets on the side of the stage during the these days tour and the hands during the crush tour were great!
They could use fire during some songs, when there's much musical power (for example the beginnings of I Believe, Last Man Standing (a very good way to kickstart hat song into something better live, since it doesn't seem to flow performance wise..), Lay Your Hands On Me, Raise Your Hands.. you get the picture.
Make some bowls of fire during a slow song with some underlaying power (like something to believe in or livin in sin or the middle break during Keep The Faith)
I am still not convinced with the laser thingy last tour. It fit perfectly with Bounce, as there were so much effects on the record. But since they won't play many songs of it and HAND sounds much different, I don't think it's very relevant for Bon Jovi. I don't think it's a very "rock" thing to do.. although I've seen the Foo Fighters and INXS (in their new TV show) do it, so it does some "hip" to do...
Also, I think a LITTLE more show wouldn't hurt Bon Jovi. I'm thinking some litle stuff like the falling on the knees during This ain't a love song.. he could do it again during Bells Of Freedom during the second verse.. Make some steps on the stage, (for walking behind Tico) so he could use that during that song.
Make the stage a little more alive... I'm thinking U2 Zoo TV style. There was so much going on it was hard to take in. I know it's not the Bon Jovi thing to do and it's not where they come from. But it wasn't for U2. It just got that big with time. Bon Jovi could also do it. Not with thát much extravaganza, but a little simpler.
I'm also thinking that they can do something to reach the people in the back. They did the flying thing during the Slippery tour, the walking frame over the audience in the Giant Stadium shows during the Jersey tour. Isn't it time to do something like that again? There's so much roofs over stadiums these days that a walking frame could very well be hung from the cealing. Or at least a catwalk to the front of the stadium. Make a new set-up there for some particular songs, for example Something To Believe In could be performed over there, since it's a slower song and the distance to the performer lengthens because it's much more difficult to keep the attention of the audience, but that could work. In combination with some fire bowls or fire poles over there.. he could stand in a ring of fire during that song, how cool would that be? Attention enough for me ;-)

They could also make a ring catwalk with a missing middle part, so richie and jon could finish on either sides of the catwalk and then play/sing/dance to each other. For example during Keep The Faith. Both circles could light up massively.

Bono also wore a bandana this tour as did Jon during the These Days tour. It looked really cool and I'm thinking Jon could do something more with this. First wear it and then use it to set fire to something for example a sign that says some inspirational lyric something simple like the word BELIEVE. Walk back to the stage and kick in with Keep The Faith.

What do you think?

Aloha !

Let them learn how to play the songs properly first before throwing in all that sort of ahum, "cool" ideas.

Salaam Aleikum,
Sebastiaan

i agree with some of those ideas, like the catwalk with jon and richie meeting at the end and there are others that sound really silly like jon standing in a ring of fire,haha that would be hilarious