That's an interesting theory. I have been thinking about this for a while and I still can't make out whether his on-stage sloppiness is due to him just not picking up a guitar when he is not touring or some other condition. I would tend towards the fomer:

I believe Richie has the same issue with his playing than Jon has with his voice. Both are fairly terrible and rusty for the first few shows of any given tour leg (due to them not practicing during their time off) but improve progressively with the number of shows under their belt. However, Richie has been playing relatively short legs recently and therefore his playing has been constantly below the level he had once BJ had the fist 10 shows of a leg under their belt (similar to Jon's pipes which, on recent tours, always needed 20 shows to reach acceptable levels but by then the legs was almost over and he started from scratch a few weeks later when the next leg began).

Then again there is this: While Richie is obviously still learning his chops as a frontman, I am amazed at the varying levels of his on-stage confidence. There is a clip of Rosie from the Fonda Theatre show in November 2012. He looks so much at ease (and peace) with himself here and comes across really naturally.


But then I went and saw him here in Dublin this summer and he seemed incredibly insecure, mumbled his way through certain songs and, as a result, completely overdid his playing and singing parts and constantly showed off to get some kind of appreciation from the crowd (who were eating out of the palm of his hand anyway).

Finally, a question to ponder: Does anybody think that Richie's recently discovered fondness of on-stage improvising and jamming is, in part, due to the fact that he himself has realized, over the course of the last 5 years, that he is no longer able to accurately remember 20+ songs on any given night?