As I said for the July 25th thread - when hell freezes over LOL. This will be the last show for a month and a half, why the fcuk would Richie bother to show up for this show?

For my money, this band has gotten very tight with the current lineup - leave it alone - it's very enjoyable. Yes Richie is missed, mostly his vocals and harmony's. His guitar is not missed at all in my opinion, Phil has better tone which is what has been missing for quite a while.

I am looking forward to tomorrow night and whatever changes are in store for us :-)

Pretty much agree with all of this. Hoping you get Dry County, This Ain't A Love Song, Love's The Only Rule, and maybe something off the radar. I love the 2nd night of back-to-back's. Enjoy round 2!

My predictions: Blood on Blood opens, Radio, What's Left Of Me, Amen, IBTFY, and LTOR in the main set. Dry County and TAALS in the encore,

This is the last show before a long break and it's in new jersey so that makes it really special, after seeing first night's setlist I think tonight it's going to be stellar set. More songs from what about now, something like room at the end of the world and some rare old stuffs like i believe or hey god would be nice and I guess they gonna play either living in sin or wild is the wind, anyway it will be an amazing night. have fun for the ones going.

How quick can one fall from grace.

His guitar not being there, and the lame WAN album are the main reasons for me to skip the tour. A first since since 2000 and I hate that, after all the passion invested in this band. The Jersey show are supposed to be a blast. So I wish you have fun on night #2, but that Richie comment is painfull to read. Either all of them or nothing (for me anyway).

i also find it difficult to accept how many people dont miss richies guitar at all...how can this even be possible? the guy was up with the legends for many years, in his bad day richie is still better than all these shredders with no personality...richie may have dissapointed many of us but all these comments are hard to read...who wrote all these songs? all these licks? is there a single song that is performed better now than with richie??? jon may always want to prove himself but this tour was a disaster for the band.., they sound like a cover band, and jon sometimes is so delusional that thinks that people want to listen to kings of suburbia...for gods sake...
richie let us down with his attitude and all but there is no band without richie...just some backing musicians.

Thanks Kathleen! I've been saying this for years and you're just proving it. Bon Jovi fans have no f*ckin' clue about music.

I love WAN, and they were great in Manchester and Sunderland

I miss Richie as much as the next person does but no way do they sound like a cover band, you've got to be kidding me with that comment. Pisses me off that Phil doesn't get the respect he deserves.

Aloha !

I partially agree. I feel that all the demand from people wanting Richie back is based upon performances of over 10 years ago or just based upon a gut feeling saying "it doesn't sound the same" while it's only the visual that's different to them. Phil's tone is much closer to Richie's tone from the early 00's than Richie's own sound is nowadays, it's only the build ups in the guitar solo's that's not good as the ones for Richie, probably because Phil has "only" played most of the stuff live for just a year and is not as familiar with the band like Richie, and in fact we are.

Richie's last truly great tour was in 2003, when he could still properly improvise and was actually willing to show off. Ever since the Have A Nice Day tour Richie has more or less sucked as a guitarist because, with the odd exception here and there, Richie has been on autopilot as much as Jon has the last few years. His tone only got a little bit better since the Lost Highway tour, but was back to being terrible on The Circle tour, albeit the odd song played on a Fender or Gibson. If he'd just drop that ESP and effects rig and would go back to just plugging in his Fender and Gibsons into his regular amps, chances are his signature sound would come back as well.

Salaam Aleikum,
Sebastiaan