Richie Sambora | Stunning 1st Night at Shepherd's Bush Empire | London 1998

A magical night from Richie's solo tour! And I guess the thumbnail photo gives away who appeared for a jam session :)
The first time Jon and Richie shared the stage in 19 months! And an absolute top-notch show! The setlist had a great flow and that IBTFY performance was so "basic" and pure, only to be topped by The Answer. I love all renditions of that song, but there was something here like an underlying deep sadness in Richie's voice. Hard to explain, but it hit even harder. And that jungle-like 10+ minute rendition of Undiscovered Soul wasn't too shabby either, just like the vocal battle with Crystal in Wanted. Man that solo band was something else! :)
Richie's UK fan base has always been one of the most, if the not THE most dedicated one and it gives you goosebumps hearing the crowd singing the choruses to some of the songs like I'll Be There For You! The recording was quite dull and had some issues like "sound blops" or minimal "CD jumps" and they're definitely still audible, but not as distracting as the sound going out on the recent MSG premiere. When remastering, I noticed that the recording actually had some "frequency dent", leading to me thinking that it either wasn't captured properly or some noise reduction filter had cut it afterwards (the slight metallic undertones lead me to thinking the lattter). I applied some experimental method by trying to recreate a bit of the lacking sound info with some sort of enhancer that tries to "guess" the missing information by judging the surrounding frequencies. It certainly created some slight metallic overlay, but also helped give us clarity back as well as more details on acoustic guitars and vocals sung in higher keys. Overall, also by comparing it to some of the stuff around here, I think it's the best balanced and clearest version of this show. The lower end was captured very well initially and I tried to preserve that :) It's not top tier material, but I'd say it's a quite nice listen!
This was most likely the first time that Jon and Richie had shared a stage in 19 months!

Setlist:
01. Made In America [0:00]
02. If God Was A Woman [5:30]
03. Stranger In This Town [10:03]
04. Fallen From Graceland [16:49]
05. Bad Medicine [26:26]
06. I'll Be There For You [37:00]
07. The Answer [45:29]
08. You've Got To Hide Your Love Away (acoustic) [50:58]
09. In It For Love [54:40]
10. Undiscovered Soul [58:40]
11. Papa Was A Rollin' Stone (with band introductions) [1:09:23]
12. Hard Times Come Easy [1:16:33]
13. Midnight Rider [1:23:53]
14. Wanted Dead Or Alive [1:25:57]

Encore 1:
15. Get Back [1:32:52]
16. Livin' On A Prayer [1:38:27]

Encore 2:
17. With A Little Help From My Friends (with Jon Bon Jovi) [1:46:03]
18. Never Say Goodbye (with Jon Bon Jovi) [1:54:33]


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Also make sure to check out the new website dedicated to Bon Jovi Tours that a friend and I are working on:
https://bjtours.jimdo.com/
It's steadily growing and includes a lot of background info and trivia on the albums as well as a lot of setlists (older tours are still under construction, but constantly added).