Turned off

I can only imagine what a trauma was last year for Joe. One doesn't go through something like this unchanged. I certainly don't think he became arrogant and not humble, but I think he sat down and looked back at his body of work, his musical legacy, his charitable work and realized how high on top he was as a human being, musician, businessman, male and social class figure. All done by working hard and being extremely focused and dedicated to his art. I am pretty sure thought process like this does things to one's views of society and other people as individuals.
In spite of all this I think it was probably extremely hard for Joe psychologically to go back to touring, thus breaking a promise of a power trio and turning it into a quartet ( although I love Jade and didn't mind it at all ). Also some weird choices for the fan curated set list  ( scuttin buttin? what? crossroads? wondering earth? who's favorite songs were those lol).

  My personal struggle was ACL concert. Everything he did in it that was not music, hit me extremely bad and hard, starting from his drum covers, his attire and especially what he said in between songs. Being his very close follower for a while, I knew that every little thing he said was there for a reason, thus making it even harder to accept. The concert itself though was extremely revealing and told me more about Joe that he wanted to. He definitely had his guard down and bared his soul deeply in this one. Almost sure they will edit chunks of it out for the dvd.

signed: poor Yorick, lol... poor Reo

  PS: love Joe's merch, but have to admit, it became a bit silly lately.

Interesting thread. I dont follow things as closely as I used to.
Seems like he is more outgoing on his  opinions as time goes on.
  I do think he is genuine as being a nice person from afar. The more success brings more trolls and haters so who knows how someone processes all that.
In the end I tend to focus on the music as thats the product. He has at least not i erly duplicated himself which is very important to longevity. Many people find that musical sweet spot but then that moves on.
Perhaps that is why this forum has slowed down so much over the last 5 years or so.

Joe's music has always hit me perfect. I like his early stuff, I like his full band with horns and back up singers. One thing you always know is that anything Joe is involved with is first class. I think there has only been one album I was disappointed in, and the disappointment was not in the playing, but the songs chosen for the album. Joe knows his audience. They are 55+ with money to spend. As he has often said he dresses on stage the way he does out of respect to his audience. If his audience was in it's 20's that would not work, but they're not. There are 2 sides to Joe's persona, on stage and off. Business and casual. My impression is his off stage persona is showing through when he talks to the audience and he's losing his bearing and the worst part is he doesn't care any more. I can and often have a bad attitude, I can swear with the best of them, ask my wife, but when I'm around my clientele my best side comes to the front. Joe's latest attitude was either I don't want to or don't have to do that anymore. I would not try to guess the motivation behind his change in attitude, but it's there and it's a turn off. The statement that he repeated twice was, why do I  do certain things, because I #%×&<:# can. With the insinuation, whether you like it or not. Is that a joke? And that pretty much went along with the rest of the evening.
We were coming off a year of a pandemic, people were excited to be there. No matter what any of us had endured over the past year, this was a light at the end of the tunnel for all of us.
Still love Joes music, always will. Probably won't defend him as much on line as I used to and his t-shirt sales will take a hit.lol. Will I go see Joe again...I don't know. If I do it will be because I really liked his last album and I want to see it live, it won't be because Joe's in town, we gotta go see him. It's been a great run, not over, but re-evaluated.

Joe and his team have done a brilliant job of identifying his audience and then litterally playing to that audience. Other musicians are looking at Joe and saying, how did you do that and how can we get in on it. First of all, you have to be as talented as Joe and few are. Second you have to have some real business acumen to pull off what J and R Adventures have done.
Joe's audience is 55+ with money. Nice target audience to have, a little narrow but the fact they have the largest disposable income of any other demographic makes up for it. One thing people need to know about this age group is it is discerning. Things an entertainer could get awayl with 20 or 30 year olds you're  not going to get away with in this group. Don't like that pressure, think that "Boomer's are a pain in the butt, that's fine, go find another audience that pays as much, or and I could see this being the reality, he's made enough he just doesn't care. If that's the case, good for Joe. We all hope to get to that point someday.
As far as coming through covid, we all had our difficuties, Joe's brand of suffering was no better or worse then anyone else. Putting a tour together was no more difficult then the poor guy that was trying to get toilet paper to 330 million Americans. We all have our challenges.
Are entertainers supposed to put a certain face forward even in difficult times, YES, that's their job and discerning customers are going to notice. Back in the day Iggy Pop could spit on you and molest your girlfriend and that was part of the show. We've grown up.
See my answers to Jane, I didn't want to repeat it all here.