As you can see I am new to this, but I have been reading these posts for the last few days (months really since buying my tickets!!) and I just wanted to reply to the post by kuba80BJ - what can i say, I could of cried when i read it. What has been written to me sums up the whole thing to perfection. It is not just Richie as a guitar player but what he is to the whole of Bon Jovi & how he & Jon provide that 'magic' between them. I have tickets to HRC & both nights in Dublin & was so excited & have been looking forward to 'June' so much since buying them but the excitement has changed now. All we can do is really hope that Richie is back where he belongs very very soon.

Thanks! : )

I could recognize that woaaw a mile away :)

Richie would blow the edge away in playing lead guitar. However, the Edge is every bit as recognizable both in name and in sound. What Richie has in the craft of playing lead guitar, the edge makes up for in creativity of sound. He is an architech of fx and, like Richie, there is no other quite like him.

But they are both guitar legends and it is really impossible to compare the two.

If there is one person in the world, who can't recongise Prayer, they must be from another planet!!

Just a question about when this happened last time. I know that Richie just missed one show in 2007 but did the fans know that it would be just the one or were we left in the dark, back then like now? Was it annouced prior to the next show, that Richie will be back or was it a matter of, you went to the show, Richie was there?

They were doing LH promo then. He missed the show in PR, but he was at the Today Show after only being in detox for a week. I can't recall if there was anything scheduled in between.

It wasn't part of a tour, the PR show was a one of (in April, I think) and the next show wasn't the 02 opening in June a few months later, so it was a really different scenario.

Thanks Terri and Crushgen24/88!! So whole different situation. It just got me thinking how was the board last time this happened and were the band more vocal on when Richie would be back.

I should qualify my comments by saying that I hope I'm remembering that correctly. I was a new fan then, and I'm not sure if I'd even found this site at that point.

I could have the time frame slightly off.

Bon Jovi played Tiger Jam Memorial Day weekend (May) 2007. Richie had not been to rehab yet but really need to be. The PR show was june 8, 2007