Studio demos (most likely from Century Productions) showing the band rehearsing the songs for the their record-breaking Slippery When Wet album. If you want to follow the process of each song's evolution, start with the basment demos:
And listen to the final album after this one.

Very interesting on here is that Richie actually takes over the lead vocals on Never Say Goodbye and the fact that all songs that made the final album cut were already written at this stage. With New Jersey it is known that some tracks were added very late, like Born To Be My Baby or Bad Medicine. Lay Your Hands On Me was even written in Vancouver.

When coming from the Basement demos it's obvious that the verses of Take Me Home merged into I'd Die For You. In the end the verses would be replaced again, so that the final I'd Die For You and Take Me Home ended up being completely different songs. It's interesting to see that transition though.

I'd Die For You came from a different tape and hence the sound is quite different. I only cleaned these and since the frequency response was rather low I shied away from screwing on the sound too much. Would've only made it worse in my book.

Here's the full gig from Philadelphia 2011:

https://youtu.be/gTYFtDHPKQw

I was just reading through some discussions from the Circle/GH tours and came across many interesting remarks, views and opinions. Many of them were complaints about how boring and predictable the set lists the band were playing used to be back then. But... man... look at THIS now:

1. Just Older (with Jon playing the first half of the first solo)
2. You Give Love A Bad Name
3. Born To Be My Baby
4. We Weren't Born To Follow
5. Lost Highway
6. When We Were Beautiful (with an extra long outro)
7. It's My Life
8. Runaway
9. The More Things Change
10. We Got It Going On
11. Bad Medicine/Hot Legs/Shout (teaser)
12. Lay Your Hands On Me (sung by Ricardo Stefano Samborino)
13. What Do You Got?
14. Diamond Ring
15. I'll Be There For You (with Jon effortlessly belting out a clean, sustained B4 on the "when you were down" part - and, actually, being able to pronounce the words clearly!)
16. Love For Sale
17. Squeeze Box (The Who cover)
18. Who Says You Can't Go Home (with about 50,000 "it's alright's" - after all, Jon REALLY appreciates the feedback he gets from the Philly crowds, and it was his birthday!)
19. I'll Sleep When I'm Dead
20. No Apollo Cheese (also known as "No Apologies")
21. Have A Nice Day (with Jon delivering the whole f***ing song in a way that's been EXTREMELY rarely seen after the 90's, let alone after 2010-11)
22. Keep The Faith (with Jon giving his f***ing all throughout the song, roaring, screaming, improvising, ad-libbing... easily one of the most energetic and impressive post-2k JBJ performances I've ever seen/heard, no matter where or when!)

Encore 1:

23. In These Arms (with Bobby f***ing Bandiera butchering the solo once again)
24. Wanted Dead Or "Hallaeeve"
25. I Love This Town (with an extra long outro)
26. Someday I'll Be Saturday Night (with Jon going absolutely apeshit after the bridge)
27. Livin' On A Prayer

Encore 2:

28. Blood On Blood

And that's what you called a "not great" set list back then! Damn, I miss those times - Jon was still able to do about 90% of the BJ catalogue justice live on a regular basis (and probably could've done nearly all of them so, but we know he's always been more or less lazy), Richie was still there (on fire, BTW), the set lists varied greatly (at least compared to today)... *sobs uncontrollably*... what the f***ing hell happened to THIS band?

https://youtu.be/o2hhP76RlKI (IBTFY from Washington '11 - check it out especially from 3:25 onwards)

And to think it wasn't even THAT long ago...

And to think many of us back then were lamenting how bad his voice was. Funny how time changes your perspective.. comparatively he sounded amazing vs now. He's actually *gasp* listenable. Amazing what a little confidence and energy will do not only for the quality of the show but for your vocals.

Whoa, did he actually try the scream?? Is that the first time since like the OWN tour?

But then look back 7 years prior to that and see how great the sets were and how the band sounded

That was a huge discussion on there at the time of the show, but in fact, he didn't. The screaming came from the audience and Jon just sang that "aaaaaaahhhh" part in a lower register which made it seem like he was the one going for the scream.

Haha, had a good laugh on that one, never heard it before, great stuff! :-D

And yeah, what a gig/band!

In the vid around 1:00 Jon says how he tried to bribe Richie to include the Frankie verse in It's my life. He said he tried with food and some other things but then the rest is just blur for me. Anybody has any idea what Jon actually said? The whole discussion is so damn funny, too bad I can't find the complete vid :D

Ah damn - I got the full video of that night with good audio and just keep forgetting to upload it :D

... well, maybe it's high time you did it, PLEASE :D

and THANK YOU in advance <3 I don't know how I could 'bribe' you in return, though xD