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Why didn't The Circle songs take off live?

Other than WWBTF, WFTWM (yuck) & WWWB, why didn't more Circle songs take off?
ST, Thorn, Bullet, LTOR, HN are great songs no? I was lucky enough to hear HN, ST, WWBTF, WWWB and LTOR a few times but not enough. Did JBJ bail too early on them or did they just go over bad live?

WWBTF was alright, IMO.
WWWB was a snoozefest.
WFTWM was alright, but overplayed.
Superman was pretty good, IMO, but was a tricky song to win the crowd with.
Bullet was quite good, and should've gotten more airings.
Thorn should've been an everynighter.
BPL was very flat, but could've been worked out if they tried.
LTOR was pretty good, but not as good as some people made it out to be. Should've been played every night, though.
Happy Now was good, too, and should've opened more concerts.

That's my take on how The Circle works live, and as you can see, the Circle staples weren't the best songs. WWBTF, Thorn, LTOR, and Happy Now should've been the main staples, and Bullet, Superman, and Beautiful should've been the 50% of the time songs.

It's really too bad they never kept their promise about playing The Circle in its entirety a few times. That would have been fantastic.

A bigger shame is that they never kept their promise of playing Slippery in full but once the first 2 albums stopped getting played I gave up on that one.

Quote:

Originally Posted by TwinFan (Post 1071405)

WWBTF was alright, IMO.
WWWB was a snoozefest.
WFTWM was alright, but overplayed.
Superman was pretty good, IMO, but was a tricky song to win the crowd with.
Bullet was quite good, and should've gotten more airings.
Thorn should've been an everynighter.
BPL was very flat, but could've been worked out if they tried.
LTOR was pretty good, but not as good as some people made it out to be. Should've been played every night, though.
Happy Now was good, too, and should've opened more concerts.

That's my take on how The Circle works live, and as you can see, the Circle staples weren't the best songs. WWBTF, Thorn, LTOR, and Happy Now should've been the main staples, and Bullet, Superman, and Beautiful should've been the 50% of the time songs.

I disagree with all that is bolded.

I've seen Happy Now open 3 times now and all three times it sucked donkey balls as an opener. People had no idea what they were playing and just kinda stood there watching. People obviously cheared and screamed when Jon came on stage, but other than that it went down like a lead balloon. It was a decent song live, but NOT as an opener.

Bullet (IMO) is a stupid song with stupid lyrics and a stupid solo that was "supposedly" supposed to show off Richie. It did the opposite for me. And from what I've seen on youtube, Bullet worked just as well as Happy Now did.

Superman Tonight always bored and killed the crowd the 4 or 5 times I've seen them do it.

I liked Thorn as an occasional song. It still held its magic till the very end of the tour and no one got bored of seeing it in the set or hearing it live.

Brokenpromiseland only sounded flat because Jons vocals SUCKED at the beginning of the Circle tour. He couldn't even sing Bed of Roses properly. If he tried it somewhere where his vocals were on fire (Any of the North American Stadium shows, South America, Australia or the European leg of the tour) he would've nailed it. Although, like every song on The Circle apart from Thorn In My Side, Loves The Only Rule and We Weren't Born To Follow, it would've bored the crowd.

Basically, The Circle doesn't work live because of:

A) It's lack of known singles
B) Layered guitars in the studio that just doesn't sound good live
C) Lack of energy to the songs

90% of the audience didn't know the songs.

Simple as that.

Thorn In My Side was the only track with the wow factor and that was due to Jon And Richie's dual solo at the end.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Panda (Post 1071415)

I disagree with all that is bolded.

I've seen Happy Now open 3 times now and all three times it sucked donkey balls as an opener. People had no idea what they were playing and just kinda stood there watching. People obviously cheared and screamed when Jon came on stage, but other than that it went down like a lead balloon. It was a decent song live, but NOT as an opener.

Bullet (IMO) is a stupid song with stupid lyrics and a stupid solo that was "supposedly" supposed to show off Richie. It did the opposite for me. And from what I've seen on youtube, Bullet worked just as well as Happy Now did.

Superman Tonight always bored and killed the crowd the 4 or 5 times I've seen them do it.

I liked Thorn as an occasional song. It still held its magic till the very end of the tour and no one got bored of seeing it in the

set or hearing it live.

Brokenpromiseland only sounded flat because Jons vocals SUCKED at the beginning of the Circle tour. He couldn't even sing Bed of Roses properly. If he tried it somewhere where his vocals were on fire (Any of the North American Stadium shows, South America, Australia or the European leg of the tour) he would've nailed it. Although, like every song on The Circle apart from Thorn In
My Side, Loves The Only Rule and We Weren't Born To Follow, it would've bored the crowd.

Basically, The Circle doesn't work live because of:

A) It's lack of known singles
B) Layered guitars in the studio that just doesn't sound good live
C) Lack of energy to the songs

Because I'm lazy I've quoted this as I agree with 98% of it.

WWWB and WFTWM were real low points for me during this tour I heard both at least 6x and hated every performance. Of course Jon ignored the fact that they went down like a lead balloon and kept playing them anyway.

Really pleased I got to hear TIMS, that was way underplayed and had a chance of going over well for a new song. Would have loved to hear BPL too and although not a favourite around here, Learn to live.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Panda (Post 1071415)

I've seen Happy Now open 3 times now and all three times it sucked donkey balls as an opener. People had no idea what they were playing and just kinda stood there watching. People obviously cheared and screamed when Jon came on stage, but other than that it went down like a lead balloon. It was a decent song live, but NOT as an opener.

The only reason I thought it should open more is because I thought Blood on Blood had lost some of its magic after a while. I heard Happy Now live, not as an opener, and I thought it sounded quite good.

Quote:

Bullet (IMO) is a stupid song with stupid lyrics and a stupid solo that was "supposedly" supposed to show off Richie. It did the opposite for me. And from what I've seen on youtube, Bullet worked just as well as Happy Now did.

I think Bullet is a very good song. The only thing I've got against it is the opener that goes nowhere. I didn't hear it, but it seemed to sound quite good live from the videos I've seen. It should've been played more than three times.

Bon Jovi O2 Arena 26.06.10 Bullet HD - YouTube

Quote:

Superman Tonight always bored and killed the crowd the 4 or 5 times I've seen them do it.

I thought it sounded good musically, but killed the crowd when I saw it. It lost some of the power it had from the album version.

Quote:

I liked Thorn as an occasional song. It still held its magic till the very end of the tour and no one got bored of seeing it in the set or hearing it live.

Maybe it shouldn't have been played every night, but certainly it should've been played more than it was. It was too good a live song to be played less than 25% of the time.

Quote:

Brokenpromiseland only sounded flat because Jons vocals SUCKED at the beginning of the Circle tour. He couldn't even sing Bed of Roses properly. If he tried it somewhere where his vocals were on fire (Any of the North American Stadium shows, South America, Australia or the European leg of the tour) he would've nailed it. Although, like every song on The Circle apart from Thorn In My Side, Loves The Only Rule and We Weren't Born To Follow, it would've bored the crowd.

BPL depended too much on synths and effects to ever sound great live. It was never going to be better than the album version. I think they could've worked it out eventually, but sadly they just gave up on it. Same as TILTIL. I think you're right about the voice, though. Apart from the synths and effect dependence, the lone performance they gave was played well by the other guys.

Quote:

Basically, The Circle doesn't work live because of:

A) It's lack of known singles
B) Layered guitars in the studio that just doesn't sound good live
C) Lack of energy to the songs

I agree, especially with point B. They need to make a record that's not overproduced with walls of guitars. Sometimes simplicity can be better.

I think LTOR worked real well and would have liked to see it with more frequency. Hopefully it survives to make reappearances on future tours. FOr me, despite it being the lead single, they should have dropped WWBTF ages ago and hopefully it'll never return. Maybe it'd work at a different point in the set but especially back when they went from BOB to WWBTF to BN it just killed the flow and felt sorely out of place.

I´ve heard live WWBTF (4x), LTOR (2x), ST, TIMS, WWWB, WFTWM (all of them 1x) and definitely the best was Love´s the only rule (mainly in Mannheim). This song should be played every night. The second best was Thorn in my side - really good song with great solo, unfortunately very underplayed song this tour. Superman and Born to follow are good songs and they work live...I think this songs can be played at most of shows. Working man and When we were beautiful - this songs aren´t so terrible as somebody says but they shouldn´t be played very often.
And from the songs I haven´t heard live...my favourite is Happy now. I hope they will play it next tour few times.

It's a huge disappointment for me that not every song got played live at least once. I like every song off the Circle, I will be completely honest. Live Before You Die and Learn to Love would have both worked as songs played on the Circle. I absolutely love Fast Cars too. Really wanted to see that one get an airing.

Brokenpromiseland would have been great if they played it with Lorenza - the song was missing the female backing vocal during the intro, and could have used some violin. She played several shows on this tour, it would have been cool to see them try it those times. It's a real shame they never gave it another try.

I think the Circle songs could have gone over better if they played different ones. They played WWWB and Working Man too much instead of other ones. I liked Superman Tonight live...I liked how it was played a little heavier, especially the intro, and the production with the video screens was cool (I say this having seen the song live before the video coming out).

LTOR and Thorn should have been every night though.