Karen W. Longobardi:
Journey performed for two hours and fifteen minutes, including two encores,
for a very enthusiastic full house at Houston's Aerial Theater at Bayou
Place on Wednesday, December 2. It was a real treat for me to finally get
to see this band play live. Considering the shoes he must fill, and knowing
that everyone who hears him will be comparing him to Steve Perry, Steve
Augeri did a fantastic job on lead vocals and kept most of the audience on
their feet for the whole evening. Everyone contributed, from Neal Schon's
blistering guitar solos, Jonathan Cain's jammin' keyboard work and lead
vocals on the old Gregg Rolie tunes, to Ross Valory's backbone bass riffs,
and Deen Castronovo's thundering rhythms. My only disappointment was that
the time flew by, and the show was over too soon. (Plus the fact that no
songs were performed from the Trial By Fire CD. Does anybody know why?)
Tory:
The show was scheduled to start at 8:00 p.m. but actually started @ 8:30. The main sound was incredible (and a bit loud) for the small venue (Aerial Theater). The stage was a bit cramped however, most of the left side was taken up by Jonathan Cain's piano. Everybody, with the exception of Deen Castronovo, talked to the audience. Even Ross spoke a little (who I can't ever remember talking - Escape, Frontiers and Raised on Radio tour).
Steve Augeri found all of the notes that Perry pioneered. Maybe not as much sustain but he is pretty damn close to the original sound as one can get. The beginning of the set, Augeri was somewhat uptight but as the night wore on he loosened up. The duet songs (with Cain filling in for Rolie's part) Feeling That Way / Anytime was a special treat. Even his mannerisms were reminiscent of Perry.
Neal played against Marshall half stacks and sounded great. He talked a bit about a jazz guitarist that he, as well as Carlos Santana, "copped" licks from. The band then broke into two instrumentals to demonstrate his statement.
Deen Castronovo's introduction was less impressive but after the solo opinions changed. However he is definitely a rock drummer who hits hard. In contrast, Smith is more technique based. Castronovo was hitting his drums so hard that he lost one of his sticks twice during the show. He recovered without notice. Castronovo copied most of Smith's licks perfectly. For caring drummers - Smith uses the bell of his ride for the ping sound in "Don't Stop Believing", Castronovo used a Z-Bel (specialty cymbal) to produce the same sound.
Finally after two encores, the show wound up at 10:30 p.m.. Crowd was standing through all of the encores. The change in the final part of "Anytime" that Journey did for their live performances in the Perry days (On the latest greatest hits CD - Live) was copied note for note.
The major disappointment was the fact that the new material the last studio album was hardly touched. The set was primarily based around the Greatest Hits live CD that was released earlier this year. It will be interesting to see what happens in the next studio album (Cain stated that it will be out early next year). We shall see.
