The Goos definitely didn't sell out. They evolved, like all bands do. Personally, I think Johnny is a really great guy, and a talented and hardworking artist.
I spent the latter half of the nineties listening to alternative rock radio, so I've hung on to a lot of bands from that period. Seeing Soul Asylum at the club last St. Patty's Day was a dream come true for me, for example, not to mention the Gin Blossoms at the State Theatre. So you can understand why I'm still a fan of the Goo Goo Dolls even though their last couple albums haven't been all that great. They've put on an amazing show every time I've seen them, including one of the best encores I've ever seen (Merriweather, '99).
That said, I had a lot of fun at tonight's show. The lack of "Long Way Down" (both nights, apparently) bummed me a bit, but that's okay.
And this board is a lot more elitist than you might think. And I don't really mean that in a bad way. You've got to realize that the vast majority of people out there get most of their music from the radio. Most of the people who know me don't even talk to me about music anymore, because they've never heard of any of the bands to which I listen. Someone was looking at part of my CD collection recently and recognized one artist out of over a hundred. I'm only mentioning this because I imagine it's rather typical of many of the folks on here. Perhaps I'm wrong, and the world I live in is just way more sheltered or something. But anyway, the people on this board go crazy (myself included) over bands most people have never heard of. And pretty much any "major" band that comes to the club or even the area is treated like a joke and gets almost no serious attention. Yes, there are a lot of people out there far more elitist than those on here. But compared to casual music fans who only listen to the radio (the vast majority of people in my experience), this place is definitely atypical.
Like I said, I'm not really saying it's a bad thing, at least not most of the time. But it does get annoying when people who actually like a "major" band once in a while are treated like outcasts from some hip club.