Why Die-Hards Suck :)
 

My wife, my son and I drove 8+ hours each way to see Bon Jovi in the New Meadowlands Stadium and we really enjoyed it even though we were 15 rows from the top of the stadium in the worst seats any of has ever had for a show.
While we noticed sound problems (a wierd phasing panning effect now and then and what sounded like a soft protect from a current overage on PA amps several times), Jon being out of time and the enitre board except Richie cutting out for a few seconds during HAND, it was a great time and we are looking forward to seeing them again on Monday Night in Cleveland. After the show we met with new and old friends at Kathleens -place and were kind of surprised at the overwhelming negative reaction to the show.

Of course Die hards don't suck but we realized back in 2003 that being die hards and seeing 10+ shows per tour had begun to suck for us as the expectaions for each show to be the next great moment in JOvi history can almost never be met so we cut back seeing shows to just one per tour and loved theses few shows immensely.
This tour we are seeing more because the band sounds so much better than they have since 1993.
One more this tour for us and hopefully we get a ton of rarities and a true three hour show....shit there I go again, heading down the road of suckitude.

Seriously the show was great and up in the upper deck people were on thier feet dancing and singing.
I am watching the concert again on the giant screen and it looks and sounds like a great time though we are only up[ to LYHOM so far.
Can't wait to hear a few more recordings from better spots :)

For the record after seeing 65+ shows, I saw 4 songs performed for the first time last night so I am pretty happy setlist wise as well.
Dave

Here is what I said in a different thread (it might bear repeating):

The thing is - the show wasn't horrible. It was combination of a setlist that has grown old and stale and a subpar performance. Anyone who had never seen a show might have thought it was fine until Jon hurt himself.

The first three shows were awesome - night one might have been plain vanilla - but we did get Dry County. You didn't hear me complaining here at all. Nights 2 and 3 were even better and I loved them. We got some rarities (not many) but enough for me and Jon sounded wonderful and was really *on*.

Last night had none of the above - neither Jon nor Richie were *on* either vocally or guitarwise. The sound wasn't that good, the vocals were flat and the timing was poor.

Jon HAS to realize that a good portion of the audience were there for multiple nights - at least change up the damn setlist even if he was off vocally. He did not do that.

And - no - I am not saying I will never go again. It was a poor show but not a disaster - mediocrity happens LOL. If I see 3 shows in a row like that then I would change my habits - but not based on one poor show out of so many good ones that I've seen.

There is a difference between a vanilla setlist and a poor show. My Philly night 1 was a vanilla setlist and yet Jon was on fire. I got to hear all the new Circle songs which I loved and I thought the show was fantastic.

A poor show might also have a vanilla setlist (or not) but it is a combination of poor vocals, too many screwups by Richie and not much energy coming off the stage from the band at all.

I'm sorry, but I have to disagree. The set wasn't even my problem. A Jovi show where Bad Name, It's My life, and Wanted fall flat with a majority of the crowd just isn't good.

I think anyone who tries to judge a show via shitty recordings in the comfort of their own home, and then decrees the fans who actually went to the show and overwhelmingly reported negativity that they "suck" is kind of being an asshole.

"My wife, my son and I drove 8+ hours each way to see Bon Jovi in the New Meadowlands Stadium" is the first line of the thread so I think you owe him an apology.

No I don't lol. All I gotta do is edit my post.

"I think anyone who tries to judge a show via shitty recordings in the comfort of their own home, and then decrees everyone else who went to the show that overwhelmingly reported negativity that they "suck" is kind of being an asshole."

You don't have to apologize for having a single detail off when your logic is sound kiddo.

I agree with you. That's spot on. I've seen them 3 times during the O2 residency, and the first show was total crap. So bad that I thought I'd never want to see them again.

What I'm saying is that Lord of the Jovi Realm's point ("so we cut back seeing shows to just one per tour and loved theses few shows immensely") is not necessarily true. The quality of a show is not relative, it's absolute.

This is exactly what I thought it happened to me in 2008. I did 13 or more shows in 2003 and another 13 or so in 2006 in different countries and when it was the LH tour I just didn't enjoy it as much so I decided to be a bit "distant" from the Jovi world. And it helped, I totally enjoyed the 7 O2 shows I went to although some of them didn't have any rarities at all.

Nice post and you raise alot of valid points. However I'm not an unrealistic fan, I'm not expecting them to drop badname and Its my life for Roulette and Bitter wine (although it would be nice :p). The 4 shows I saw at the 02, the set was the same structure but just by adding those 1-2 rare songs that come out of no-where send the diehards home happy an on a high.

I want some spontaneity, like for the last night at the 02 Jon started the intro to prayer, stopped and said "nah dont wanna play that yet" and went into TD and HArd letting you go, fan****ingtastic!

Like this (and yeah I know its harping back to the mid 90's)


Since then weve had 4 new studio albums, so they should be doing this kinda thing more.

TBH if any band I saw did a crap cover in their encore I would think, why the hell did they do that.

i definitely agree that when you start being so critical and so often disappointed that you're probably going to too many shows within 1 tour. personally, i've only had the chance to see them twice, both occasions being festivals. so when i see them again in melbourne in december, hearing songs like bad name and raise your hands and all those other staple songs won't suck for me because it's been 8 freakin' years since i last saw them. so you can see how the band need to balance out rarities for us die hards with crowd pleasers for the rest...you can't please everyone...