RS - TOKYO, Summer Sonic 17.08.14
 

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SET LIST
A Song for You (Leon Russell cover)
Lay Your Hands on Me
Nowadays
It's My Life
Every Road Leads Home to You
According to You (Orianthi song)
I'll Be There for You
Burn the Candle Down
Stranger in This Town
Livin' on a Prayer
Wanted Dead or Alive

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/BvYkkWFCYAANkWa.jpg:large

Prayer
Its My Life + Every Road (Orianthi on vocals)
Wanted

Prayer solo: lol

Electric version of prayer featuring orianthi is really cool, the band sounds quite good, i hope richie will do some festivals in europe next summer, I wouldn't miss that

Lol that was terrible!

Aloha !

Yeah, especially the key change that's not there, the guitar solo he ****s up, and half the words he's not singing sound really great. It really, really sounds like a second rate cover band right there.

Salaam Aleikum,
Sebastiaan

the sad truth is that richie is really great as a sideman, co writer, right hand man...he is not a frontman and imo he shouldnt try so desperately to be even if he has a great voice...he should be happy in his shoes and not trying to be jon...he surely is talented even if he is not as good as he once was.
bon jovi would never be the same without him but seeing SO sloppy all the time makes me feel weird, richie was the man back in the days and now he embarasses himself.
there has been some cool moments but most of the time he is not focused, sloppy and puts the bar low imo, jon & richie together is the magic, seperately there are some good songs but live sth is missing

That solo for 'Livin' On A Prayer' is ridiculous.

I really don't mind the mistakes or changes he makes on the songs, he's an awesome songwriter, guitar player and artist, he has a solid band and solo album. and he doesn't have to be an entertaining frontman like jon, his shows does not require that, he is not playing stadiums with big production. Anyway I like his style and music for this moment

Making mistakes/forgetting chunks of songs should have nothing to do with the size of the place OR the production. If anything because it's scaled back it's more important to polish yourself up.

It's really surprising (at least to me) how much Richie has been screwing up lately (The Distance taking the cake on that one). This dude has been a professional musician for over 30 years. Hmm, not good...

Richie looks totally wasted and on drugs. A new low for the king of swing.

If Richie had been more careful, this would have been ****ing memorable.

Stranger in this town HDTV Quality Pro Shot
Wanted dead or Alive HDTV Quality Pro Shot
Living on a Prayer HDTV Quality Pro Shot

Haters will enjoy with it.

the video quality would make a great bootleg if richie wasnt sooo bad...i dont think anyone here is happy with the way richie acts and performs these days, may be some blind followers but its really disheartening...
http://youtu.be/pdqqau2v3k8
the stranger in this town video is the worst i ve ever seen the man perform ever...
its sad because even in a video like this you can see the man has talent but makes him look so bad...richie should know better in this age, with fb/you tube such bad performances destroy some of his legacy

I'm agree. But He have still a good voice, but damn, he not used properly because it does not focus on the performance. I hope Richie get fix this disaster soon, he could be so big now ... **** Richie, wake up! time is running out, you're 55 year old, have to take it more seriously.

Ok, I'm deaf probably because I don't the performance is the disaster you talk about. Yes, it's far from perfect, his voice deteoriated as his playing did but I think this is his standard these days and it wasn't particulary worse than what he was perfoming thoughout the tour.
Actually I really enjoyed the video probably because of the amazing quality of the video.

I'Ve accidentaly watched a few song from the Ferguson show... well, I can't believe how good he looked back then and the perfromances were miles miles better than now. Dispite all those things and knowing it could and should be much better I still enjoy what he is doing.

I enjoyed it also

I only watched stranger , i thought it was fantastic ! Thx for sharing .

I've watched it and have to say once more people are over-reacting big-time. So he ballsed a bit of the Prayer solo but he actually saved it pretty well and I reckon 90% of people there probably wouldn't even have noticed. Granted, he shouldn't be screwing it up but shit happens live. He's finding his feet as the frontman so perhaps I'm more generous in cutting him a break for little things like that.

My only issue with his shows have been the setlists but that has been my gripe with Jovi every tour apart from around the 2008-2010 period where they started changing things up a bit - even then, I was just lucky with the shows I attended as they rotated the same tracks at most of the other shows on the tours at the time.

But hey, we've got something new to micro-analyse now that he's broken away from the band though in much the same way we dissected every element of Jon and the band for years about stagnant setlists, Jon's attitude, piss-poor vocals and the way he used autopilot at so many gigs. This isn't a dig at Jon in particular either. It's a dig at the constant empty whining of people around here that the shows are less than perfect - oh and the drink/drugs stuff gets old too. I'm sorry but I just can't see any of that in those pro shot vids above.

I'd still take a Richie solo show with a bit of difference and freedom over a Jovi show from the last ten years any day. That's just me though.

I agree 100% with RS8MB0R8. I watched all three performances and I loved all of them. Double guitar solo at the end of Wanted - good stuff!

Was actually really enjoying that until the solo, but as said at least he recovered it. He needed to be closer to his singing mic if he intends to flit about between talkbox and vocals, or get Orianthi to cover.

Don't know why he bottled the key change, he seemed to start singing vocally like the acoustic version which took everything out of the performance and it ended with a whimper. Again, use the crowd or Orianthi to help you out. That aside, was actually pretty enjoyable, was expecting a car crash based on the comments, but it was decent and hope he does the electric version more.

That's pretty rough stuff. Richie looked like he was fuming when his guitar failed at the start of Stranger and he never really recovered from there. Once he takes a knock he struggles to shake it off it seems.

The drummer change did them no favours either. He was all over the place. He made a few silly mistakes in the Wanted outro and it took him forever to get started on Prayer. I'm all for rock that's rough around the edges but as Supersomic said, that sounded like a 2nd rate cover band.

It's a shame as those videos were very nicely filmed and the sound was great. But hey at least Kenny Powers turned up to sing Prayer.

http://smilepolitely.com/images/uplo...lanta_card.jpg

The audio is great!! Thank you Rolo!

About Richie, he still shows some stints of his geniality, specially on Wanted, and should be praised for trying something different of what he does/did at Bon Jovi.

Sadly, as a genious he is/was, it's unacceptable for him to make so many errors at Prayer (first the solo, then he lost the rhythm on the -inexistent- key change, then the mumbling of random words), song that he has played for 28 years now. It looks like he knows he's screwing but he doesn't give a f_ck.

I think ticos_stick hit the nail on the head - it's a confidence thing. After he botched the solo in Prayer, he was distracted, no doubt kicking himself that made the mistake at all, and that threw him off completely. He needs to learn to pick himself up, refocus more quickly and not let it affect the rest of his performance.

That was horrible !

To be fair Roly, Stranger is pretty good. Listening to it as we speak. Richie vocally sounds decent and the solo sounded good - the odd bum note but who cares. I'll admit it (as a hater) Stranger aint bad.

I'll listen to the rest and pass judgement

EDIT: Wanted isn't as bad as people make out. The band that are playing with Richie are pretty shit. His blonde bint looks a right miserable cow as well. I listen on.....

EDIT: Not feeling it with Prayer. That chick. Nah. Infact its pretty awful. And the solo....disaster

The only positives I can take from this is that Richie hasn't let his voice go as much as Jon has.

The guy needs to get back into Bon Jovi pronto - because even though this isn't as car crash as I thought it would be it aint working. Stranger was pretty good though. Prayer was a catastrophe

That is hands down the worst version of Prayer I've ever heard!

Have you been at any of Richie's gigs on this tour? Cause this is very typical performance from the band. Nor Richie or Ori knows when or what should they sing. Richie's trademark: he doesn't know how to start a sentence. For me it's not the worst, it's bad but typical.

Very typical? That's just nonsense. This is Richie at his worst. His tour was far from this bad.

Well not in my opinion.

Yeah, it's obviously your opinion. A nonsense opinion.

Yeah whatever

Been to any of the shows? No. Seen the recordings? Yes. To see him completely butcher a solo that he has played flawlessly for 28 years? Come on!

Butcher the solo? I think not.

Made a mistake and saved it. Do you play live at all? If you did, you might understand that this shit happens and tends to happen more often if you're less comfortable as well. Considering this was a new rendition of Prayer for them, they're bound to be less comfortable with it.

I highly doubt this is the first time he's fluffed some notes in this particular solo as well. :roll:

Fair points but at the end of the day, new rendition or not, it's still Prayer at it's core in the same key with the same notes in the solo. You'd think something like that would be muscle memory after this many years.

I can see the argument that he shouldn't be making mistakes on something so straightforward but it does happen - he's only human.

Complacency is also how many mistakes come about. He's been playing it for decades and was probably not concentrating on it as much as he should have been. It just seems like one more over-reaction to say that he 'butchered' the solo though. I reserve that sort of terminology for Bandiera's attempts tbh. ;)

Agreed with Bandiera's one note-wonders. Richie probably lost his train of thought and slipped up, but I still think something's wrong with the guy. The amount of bum notes and slip-ups increases every year. He used to be such a fluid and proficient player but he's mumbling his way through lyrics now, dropping words and forgetting licks completely. I'm kind of worried about the guy.

Aloha !

When seeing videos of Richie of the past few years I started wondering the same thing. I think people who don't play guitar will realize how sloppy he really is, but also won't notice how odd his mistakes are. It's not a matter of him just not being able to play as fast anymore, or hitting the odd bum note. It's really basic mistakes that don't make sense at all, and hitting bum notes that don't make sense, if you know what I mean?

I talked about this with Thierry as well, both kind of agreeing that there's more wrong with Richie than just substance abuse. When looking at Richie's "symptoms" (And I don't really like playing doctor), I've been thinking he's got Alzheimer's decease, or another dementia related illness. His lack of focus, poor judgement, slurring words when he speaks, change in behavior and incapability of just playing any song without error all leads me to believe it's more than him being a **** up.

Salaam Aleikum,
Sebastiaan

Agree. Don't know if quite as far as Supersonic feels but something is just not right. To me, Richie was never the "brains" of the organization and now it appears the only people around him are on his payroll - so everyone will kiss A. You can't even post a remotely negative remark anywhere but here and not be jumped or deleted by his minions. I don't think it's healthy to live in a bubble. I've thought before he is thinking with the little head and it has no ears, eyes or brain. :"God gave men a penis and a brain but only enough blood to run one at a time" Robin Williams:

I think he is back on the bottle, I fought it but seems too many comments and videos from people who have nothing to gain. As to the dementia theory? Possible? I will add my experience. My mother was a raging alcoholic and I remember vividly her brain scans. It looked like someone who had severe acne scars and was alcohol induced dementia. It is real. It can be improved but takes at least 7 years of sobriety - she died, and never improved even after being placed in a rest home. She managed to have someone sneak alcohol into there. I have 4 decades of experience. I recognize enablers and manipulators a mile away and Richie seems to have a few.

He was and still should be one of the best but for some reason, especially in the past year, he is not. I'm concerned too.

I know, off topic - back to your regularly scheduled programming.

I think he's just heavily into his booze and drugs. He's gone through stages since the HAND tour where he's been either boozed up or sober and it's always clear to see. At the moment he's been off the wagon for a long time and what's worrying is that he's surrounded by enablers. Half the people working on his tour looked out of it. In Bon Jovi he had a boss, now he doesn't. Lets hope his wake up call isn't an over dose or liver damage but with substance abusers going cold turkey is the last option.

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?