Journey Live

My wife wanted to go see the Journey/Def Leppard tour this past week. While I was not super excited, having seen Def Leppard back in 1988, and not being a fan of the 80s production on the Journey hits, I have to say that I was pleasantly surprised by both acts, especially Journey (which is basically the Escape/Frontiers line-up with a different singer). They did rock out a lot harder live, and Schon is a pretty solid guitarist (I knew he was a talent, but he exceeded my expectations). Hearing the arrangements centered more around the guitar and less around the synths/keyboards made me appreciate the songwriting a bit more & Arnel Pineda may sound like Steve Perry, but he is also talented enough to put his own stamp on the songs. Anyone else catch them recently?

 

Saw them at MSG on Weds, which was my first time at the Garden. Journey was simply ruined by horrendous sound. Compression city... simply hurt to listen. I'm not much of an earplug guy, but I was glad I had them. As past reviews of this tour eluded to, Leppard was truly the headliner, even though the tour is billed as a co-headliner tour. I thought Def Leppard was indeed better, and the sound (though still bad) was better. I was in section 207 , front row. I saw Whitesnake/Foreigner @ SPAC last night...The sound was night and day better. Foreigner was indeed excellent, as was Def Leppard on Wednesday. I guess I'm spoiled by smaller venues like The Egg, The Palace (Albany), Troy Music Hall, Tanglewood.... Unfortunately. less than optimal sound may be the nature of the beast with big sports arenas. To call what I heard less than stellar would be generous. Fortunately, it appeared that the Leppard sound guy addressed the issues, and made adjustments.

 

I'm going to see Def Leppard in Glasgow this December for the first time in over 20 years (last time was the Adrenalize tour I think), but in the UK it's Cheap Trick that are playing with them, would have much preferred Journey, but not to be.

 

I've heard good sound at arena gigs, but it's really dependent on the band, their gear, and their sound person. Tears For Fears sounded incredible at our arena last year, and then followed by Hall & Oates who had some of the worst sound I'd ever heard at a gig, despite playing through the same PA and same room as Tears For Fears had an hour earlier.

Def Leppard still sounds great, but I'm very skeptical on how much of Joe's vocals are actually live these days. You don't have those kind of throat problems and then go out a couple months later and sing that catalog. Once I saw this video, which is basically Joe lip-syncing the whole song to the vocal tracks from the Mirror Ball live album, I kinda lost interest in ever seeing them again.

I only ever saw Journey once, from the nosebleeds in 2011 maybe? But I've always enjoyed live recordings of theirs...more guitar-heavy for sure.

 

I've seen Journey live six times overrall. The most recent was April 2017. I think they put on an excellent show. I've never been disapointed by them. Now, Def Leppard, i've seen them three times. The first in 2003 was pretty good. The second time that I saw them was when they toured with Journey in 2006. Def Leppard was horrible! Joe's voice was shot, it was so bad his voice was almost non-excestint. The third time I saw them was 2015, I mainly went for REO Speedwagon, and the concert was only an hour from home. This is when a lot of talk about Joe Elliott lip syncing starting appearing online. His voice was way better than the 2006 tour, which kind of makes me believe the lip sync rumours, as his voice was so far gone in 2006 that I don't think he could regain much of it. Also, have seen some of the videos on youtube where he's supposidly singing, but the mic is to far away.

 

I was generally not impressed with the sound either, but I was able to listen. I saw the show in Newark (went to Robert Plant on the date of the MSG show), which might have made a difference.

 

I thought that might be the case, but I still enjoyed the band's performance.

 

Oh, wow. That's disappointing. And the video does seem to offer evidence that at least some of the lead vocal tracks are canned (@~2:23 in the video). I've seen Def Leppard several times over the years. The first was on the Seven Day Weekend tour (Adrenalize) and I thought they sounded great. The next time I caught them was at Atlanta's Music Midtown Festival in 2005 and I was amazed at how much Joe's voice had deteriorated. Not surprisingly, his lead vocals were buried in the mix when I saw them the following year with Journey. Still, I guess I'd rather that scenario than paying to watch a lip sync performance.

 

I honestly think the whole track is canned, that section is just where he blatantly made it obvious. I've heard rumblings over the years of them doing this, but this was the first time I'd really seen heavy evidence. I think when the "we're gonna set <city> alive!" line went back to the album lyric is when you can tell they started using tapes.

I have some sympathy for these guys...it's a tough spot. That was challenging music to sing 30+ years ago, let alone still sing at 58. Def Leppard (and Journey, for that matter) vocal melodies aren't the kind of things that can be re-arranged vocally the way some older guys do to 'cheat' their way out of tough spots as they get older (or how Freddie Mercury used to do to save his voice over long tours)...they're absolutely integral to the appeal of the song. I think an underappreciated part of Mutt's genius on those Lep records was emphasis on every aspect of the vocals, making sure every part of it was melodically interesting and catchy, making them stand out from a lot of other hard rock bands of the time. But then it's 30 years later and every scream or high note of "Photograph" needs to be more or less replicated. And for most singers who aren't Robin Zander or Tom Jones, your voice just can't do the things in your late 50's that it did in your early 20's, and that sucks for some of these artists. But I don't think the solution is just to try to fool the audience and do a canned gig.

 

so, i ask, how many songs did journey play that steve perry did not originally sing?

i ask because there are 6+ albums of material that they never play because it basically isn't very good and no one would go see them if they played the non-perry material.

 

They played one non-perry song from 2008. FWIW, I always liked the first few albums, before Perry.

 

oh, i agree, those first 3 albums are wonderful....santana without carlos, and with schon trying to be him. (and he actually does a decent job of it)

the post-perry albums are truly wretched, if they weren't by "journey" no one would would have ever bought any of them.

 

Yeah, they know the stuff people want to hear.

 

Yeh , i saw one of the Gigs that was Lip-synched 2 summers ago , there was no doubt it was a vocal track the way it sat in the mix .................... My Biggest Gripe with Def leppard is the LAZY setlist they play year after Year after year , at this point as a fan i'm pretty bored , i can set my watch by what time they kick into the cover of "Rock on"

The Two Albums with Arnel are really great albums Revelation being the better one , great songs .....

 

I agree. "Revelation" is a great album. Sounds like a post "Frontiers" Journey beefing up their sound to compete with the hair metal acts in the 80's, except it came out in 2008.

 

I saw Journey on April 10, 1977 at the Orpheum Theater in Boston, along with Starcastle and the headliner, the Atlantic Rhythm Section.

The lineup I saw was Gregg Rolie (lead vocals/keyboards), Neal Schon (guitar), Ross Valory (bass), and Aynsley Dunbar (drums).

They were a very different beast from what they evolved into after Steve Perry joined and Gregg Rolie left the band.

 

I get that's what pays the bills, but I really don't know why people still go see them. Surely everyone who wants to has seen them at some point in the last 10-15 years? I'm a huge fan, but I don't need to see that setlist more than once.

I thought Revelation was a fantastic album, great songwriting. Eclipse was...not so much.

 

that they never play any songs from live..................................

 

Yeh , last summer they stopped playing that stuff VERY bummed about that , that said they tossed 2 Revelation songs out just over 2 weeks ago

 

yeh i stopped going to see Leppard Unless there is someone good on the bill i want to see , i don't need to see it either ....

Eclipse is certainly not in the ballpark of Revelation , but i liked it .............. weird as Neal prefers Eclipse & thinks it's the better album , With revelation i like every song , s few songs even remind me of the Infinity days .

 

Here we go again....

 

that's your opinion...the same one you voice every single time a Journey thread appears....give it up.

 

I think Arnel Pineda is mostly the real deal, and the two two studio albums he's done with Journey -- especially the 2nd one (the most recent one) -- are really great.

I only knew their hits for the most part, which my wife really likes. But then on a lark, we saw a documentary about the Arnel Pineda era of the band (with the director in attendance doing Q&A afterward), and I was really sold on Arnel.

I've never seen the band live, but I'd be temped if they ever came around here (the D.C. area), to a venue we didn't have to rent a car to get to.

 

Eclipse was the guitar-centric record Neal always wanted to make. His playing on it is great, they just forgot to write any memorable songs first.