Its the prerogative of whoever paid extortionate amounts of money to see a Bon Jovi show and only got a partial part of the deal. He bailed on the fans. Without any explanation for months - until he could make up a non-sensicle load of bollocks how he wanted to spend time with his daughter. He spent a few weeks with his daughter, then ****ed off to spend time and money on pants and clothes, then perv over some Aussie rock chick who is barely half his age. He lied. Numerous amounts of times.

Then he goes and berates the man that gave him the wealth and success he has today. As talented as Richie is he can never be a front man. And he effectively threw 30 years in the face of Jon with that stupid Runaway comment. Oh yeah and he still didn't come back. He's shredding himself of all the dignity he once had by carry on like everything's ok.

I think people can be pissed for as long as they like thank you very much. I dont berate you for going to a Richie show. Good luck to you.

If its anything like the Aussie shows , you guys will ****ing love it !

Rather him than the Lund/Borg team Richie used this summer.

I wasn't angry in the beginning - hurt about the way he left but not angry. For me the anger has just come more recently from a lot of the things you mention. Not all, but ..... enough. When you burn bridges you had better be able to swim.

Glad you know exactly what happened and why and took the time to share it with us.

There are a few things that make me think you just love to bash Richie - The Runaway comment for one... if he was in the band and said he didn't like the song, no one would bat an eyelid. I agree he is making some stupid comments but as I've said before; I have no doubt we have a small percentage of the whole story and Richie is hurt and acting out because he's p*ssed off. Dissing Runaway is nowhere even near the ballpark of Jon's 'Edge' comment.

We know now that he didn't want to tour and that this was made clear to Jon - the fact that they went on tour anyway suggest this decision was out of Richie's hands - We know Jon does not get dictated to on when the tours happen, so maybe RS was told 'We tour with or without you' - Is that so hard to believe?! Now is arranging a tour and holding everyone to it when they don't want to commit not throwing 30 years of friendship back in someone's face?

Jon knew this was coming to the point he didn't even need his manager to explain the phone call to him. This is BOTH Jon and Richie being dicks.

"He never came back" - He clearly wanted to and was clearly being punished by Jon. If you had a ticket to a show from September onwards, then Jon is the reason you didn't see Richie. I can see why Jon did it, absolutely... it's a big 'F**k you' to RS and from Jon's point of view, he deserved it. And he clearly did the fashion thing last year because he wasn't contractually allowed to tour his own music - it was a way of staying in the public eye and it backfired on him. He's not a media animal, he's crap at it and it makes him look awkward.

I missed him at the Isle of Wight but I'm not angry about it now. I see people on here tearing him to shreds and it's like those people who just need any excuse to be violent, so they go to football matches and wait for it to kick off. What's the point? It's done. It seems you just enjoy kicking lumps out of a bloke from your favourite band for something that happened last year... but without any of the facts to back up your anger.

Couldn't have said it better myself!!

Is nickolai really worth all that effort to write a post like this? It's a thread about Richie Sambora's solo shows in Europe and people mock him for playing 'schools and pubs'. I find that absolutely amazing that he actually goes out and plays schools and pubs because let's face it, he doesn't need to. If he does it, it's for the 12.5 fans that he has and that's amazing.

Thierry trashes the last tour that he had. I have only seen the Shepherd Bush gig myself, which was ok. The setlist was crap and the band was a bit rubbish - but Richie rocked out. Energy levels, attitude, everything was there. What sort of expectations did people actually have from his solo tour? Richie hadn't played solo gigs since 1998 and that band had never toured together before. Usually - a band starts sounding good once they've done 50-100 shows together. Good example is a UK band called the Temperance Movement. Used to see them in 2011 when they started out and they were rubbish. Now they are the most promising band to come out of the UK in years and certainly my favourite new band.

Back to Richie - regardless of everything else that must be going on, the fact that he does this is admirable. He definitely makes no money out of doing tours like this. His record sales won't go up. If anything, he plays early slots at festivals or headlines 'schools and pubs'. Yet we are speaking about someone who is worth $100M + and only does it because he thinks he has something to prove as a musician. The fact that some people slate him for that is just ridiculous and underlines what pathetic people they are. Yes, you can go and criticise him for Aftermath, for his sense of fashion, for talking all the crap, for leaving the tour as he did but not for going out on the road and touring and playing small venues. That is just beyond my reasoning and I refuse to take anyone like that serious.

Based on the fact that it's only 2 months left, I also think it's only festivals. I'd think if this was a proper solo tour, he'd announced that more in advance.

However, if this turns out to be at least a few solo shows, it will be very interesting to see the amount of tickets it sells. His Every Road mini tour sold very well and established Europe as pretty much the only market that really cares about Richie. So it would be very interesting to see the ratio of loyal Richie fans vs. Bon Jovi fans who are pissed/dissapointed and won't go this time. Personally, I know I won't go.

My money is on festivals with a few side-shows in cities where he knows he can fill clubs such as Munich, London, Amsterdam, etc. It seemed to be working well in Australia and there would be little to no financial risk.

The last solo tour wasn´t great, but admittedly it wasn´t because Richie lacked the will or attitude. He was sloppy on that tour (I´ve only seen three shows admittedly) but you´re right, the energy and attitude was spot although that´s not everything.

While Richie hasn´t performed as a solo artist for ages, he has been touring for 10 years, so he was hardly rusty. I would put it down to being burned out more than out of practice. I sort of agree about a band needing shows, but why was Richie talking up that band as something special? I don´t have direct quotes to hand, but it was along the lines of "it just clicked" or that kind of rubbish.

Anyway, this is about the upcoming whatever in Europe and much like your a band needs time point, I expect a better Richie. I care almost nothing about the fact he left the tour, but I do care that he is not playing guitar as well as he could. I think he may bring his best to Europe, and in that respect Australia may have served as a nice warm up.

Edit: Besides this point I think Richie could fill bigger than pubs or schools in Europe if the tour is planned well.