jon's voice improved quite significantly !
 

dont you all agree ? he sings all songs almost perfectly. surely there's an 'aging' thing on his tone which sort of became his trademark for the past 5, 6 years. but it's no longer only a matter of how well he reaches the high notes or weather he can or can't growl like back in the 80s.
he's sustaining the notes amazingly and is, indeed, reaching certain high notes he struggled with over the past tours. Thumbs up JBJ !

It's quite an old subject really. But I always enjoy discussing Jon's voice :)

I was thinking the same thing last year. Except for a couple generally bad shows (NMS4 for example), Jon was nailing everything. Something To Believe In, Bed Of Roses, Dry County, Let It Rock, Always, I'll Be There For You, These Days, Only Lonely, you name it. He was already showing signs of brilliance in LH European leg, but in 2010 he now only hit everything, but he was also consistent. Very consistend. Other than NMS4 show and Always from NMS2 I really don't remember him being badly off-key. I think June of 2010 was his best month vocally since 2002.

However, in 2011, he started really slow. On the first NA leg, he was a little incosistent, he was sometimes nailing Always and Dry County like he should and sometimes missing some notes. He had his good shows and he had his not so good shows vocally. On the second NA leg he was horrible. I know some people dissagreed with me (and they have every right to do that, because they've been to shows and I only judge from YouTube videos). Yes, it has something to do with Richie not being there to carry Jon with his harmonies, but even when Jon was meant to sing alone, he didn't sound as powerful as 2010, even off-key sometimes. The third verse of I'll Be There For You (the 'baby when you were drown' line in particular) has been Jon's shining point vocally, but in May of 2011, he was often off-key doing this. So was the last chorus on Bed Of Roses (the last "and I wanna beeee") was sung higher in 2010 and in 2011 he very often avoids it and signs it normally. Now in Europe he sounds better as he should, he gave us a couple of really strong performances of Hey God, Damned, Always and Dry County. In 2010 I used to watch Jovi YT videos relaxed, because I knew that vocally Jon's going to hit anything and in 2011 I don't find that consistency. His voice still is there, but it just seems to me that he doesn't have the same pipes he had last year. I'm guessing that he has got back to smoking last spring based on his lack of strengh. I hope I'm wrong though. He seems to be in the same level he was 3 years ago in Europe supporing LH - brilliant at times and very passsioned, but not that consistent and occasionally missing notes here and there. That could all change if he did Let It Rock 2011 and blow us away like he did with the two performances last year. But as of now, the best evidence is Something To Believe In performances in 2011 vs. 2010.

It's an old subject for us but when it comes to Jon himself in interviews etc this is a taboo subject. For some reason no interviewer ever asks him about his voice, how it has evolved over the years etc or his struggles etc... Even though the fans want to hear it.

just the other day Jon was giving an interview in London to that irish cute blonde and he was saying how his voice is better now than it was back then. He seemed pretty self-convinced when he said it. Can't disagree anyway.
It might not be as rocky as it was but it's surely more refined.

and yeah it's and old subject but every time I started a thread about his voice, it'd always be to criticize it :D

what amazes me the most is that he's doing These Days VERY confidently and this same confidence is nothing but positive :)

Aloha !

Jon has been saying that ever since serious critisism on his vocals showed up during the Crush Tour. He's seriously convinced he sings Wanted better nowadays than what it sounds like on the Slippery record? No one but Jon agrees on that. He can't pronounce half the words of the song the way it was recorded. Even though his vocals have gotten better since the dreadful Bounce / HAND tour vocals, he still struggles with half the songs that are in the set and the only reason he gets away with it is because Bobby, Richie, David and Huey all save his ass every time.

Salaam Aleikum,
Sebastiaan

i agree that during the bounce-hand day tour jon's vocals were below average, thats the reason imo we didnt get any dvd from these eras. in fact i believe jons voice started going downhill from 97-98...i dont like jons voice in crush/own because he goes for notes he clearly cant reach, without any real technique or anything, obviously the smoking and the fact that jon lost his interest in music(imo he concentrated to far too many different things in that period which worked as distractions).
in lh tour a new-lower registered-more confident less powerful voice appeared, and in 2010-2011 he delivers songs decently, sometimes even great. bj's songs are really demanding vocally, the studio performances are top notch most of the times so i think jon deserves more credit than he gets, especially for his performances in the last tour. he is older, some years back we couldnt imagine he would ever sing always-blaze, dry county these days etc etc...we were discussing in this forum that we wont get a another electric version of blaze or bed of roses, at least not a vocally decent one...and see how far he has come...he is been able to sing all these songs and more in the same night, and most of the nights really delivered.
the last tour made me realize why jon is the leader-boss-ceo...noone cares more than him about the band-the legacy-the evolution of their music-of being releavant as much as him. no disrespect to richie-david-tico but sometimes they act like "hired guns" or session musicians in my eyes, its logical for them to be tired, fed up or anything but jon carries on the show and the guys take energy from him most of the times. seen the guys twice in o2 last year, and as a guitarist i was trying to "spy" richie but jon constantly managed to take the spotlight. i am a huge richie fan, and always go mad when they refer to bj as jbj...but the rest of the guys maybe should renew(if thats a word...)their love to the band, just my opinion of course:rainbow1:

Well see - Bobby has his uses after all LOL.

Last night at the SSJ show we were all saying how much better the newer guitarists were. Unfortunately, I miss Bobby's voice in the SSJ mix.

Anyone who has seen this band on every tour (which I have) is insane if they say his voice wasn't at it's best on the New Jersey Tour. I know many on here will argue 95-96 were his best years, but I think it's BS. Holding a note better doesn't mean you sound better.

Jon struggled with the end of Blaze on both nights in Dublin, but his voice grew better as the night went on.

I think it was better on the LH tour.