RockDog:
Dropping you a few lines to let
you know how the concert went here in San Antonio. It was awesome. The
band was in top form the sound was excellent. We were a little
disappointed that security would not let us rush the stage. They played
for 2 hours. I apologize that I can not remember the Set List. But i
can tell you that they did not play Still They Ride. We got to meet the
band after the show. I got a kick out of Dino he came out first after
the show and innocently asked, "does anyone want my autograph". We also
met the rest of the band. The one that stands out was Jonathan Cain.
When i asked him when was he going to join us in DeepGroove he got all
PISSIE. For a second there I though that he would walk off. He said
DeepGroove was Steve Perry's chat room. He did calm down somewhat when
i mentioned that i visit his web site also. Ross was a character. He
seemed to like talking to the fans. Neal we did not get to talk to
because he was surrounded by females. During the concert we would call
him over to our side of the stage and he would shake his head no at us
but he would go to the center of the stage where my Wife was. Go
Figure! Steve only came to our side of the stage once I think we scared
him. We all ran up to the stage to shake his hand. He would not come
back often but NOT TOO CLOSE. Then after the show is was a very nice
guy. He wanted our imput of the show was there things they could change
or add. We did not mention the Still They Ride thing. He took time to
take pictures with all of the fans. Well all of the guys did. We did
not have any film left to take pictures with them, but we got every
thing under the sun autographed! 2 T-shirts 1 ticket stub 1 drumstick 1
Fan Club Club Registration card. If we could have gotten them to sign
the 3 guitar picks we would have gotten them autographed also.
My final comment. The only bad thing i noticed about the concert was
that the audience took a long time to get into it. That may have been
due to the fact that we were confined to our seats. Neal appeared to be
upset about us not being allowed to rush the stage during the concert.
After the 1st encore we were allowed to rush the stage. The audience
was alot more into the concert then. Singing dancing clapping giving
better feed back to the band.
Chris Neel:
Back on July 2, 1983, I saw Journey at the Houston Summit on their
Frontiers tour.... the second night of three sold out shows....There
were 19,000 people at each of those shows... This was the second
concert which I had ever seen ( the first being Rush on their Signals
tour - basically 3 guys on stage playing cool music).... The Journey
concert totally blew me away..... to date, the best show I've ever
seen...... The passion and the energy they put into the show came to
be the basis of what I thought the ultimate concert should be.....
4 December 1998, The Municipal Auditorium, San Antonio, Texas - this
place seemed smaller than the auditorium at the high school I had gone
to... Had to have been less than 1,500 people there - the place wasn't
even sold out....
It wasn't quite the same..... I had reservations of what the show would
be without Steve Perry, but the previous reviews I had been reading on
this web site made me curious as to what the show would be like.....
Technically, it was a very impressive show and I'm glad I didn't miss
it... It a very tight set with an awesome selection of songs
played.....
The main reason I finally wanted to go was to see Neal Schon play in the
auditorium environment as one other reviewer had noted as a plus for
this tour..... during the Spartuscus instrumental when a lot of the
people near the front got up and went to the lobby, I walked up to the
stage front and watch Neal play at close quarters..... At least until
one of the ushers told me to go back to my seat...... Neal was
AWESOME!!!!!
As for Jonathan Cain - singing lead vocals on Just The Same Way and
Anytime was a really nice touch - paying homeage to the "other lead
vocalist" of Journey.... Almost wished that they had added more J. Cain
vocals to the show (All Thay Really Matters....) He made it a point
that Journey was not touring to support an album ("....they told us that
we were crazy to be touring without an album.... but we are working on
a new one...") but he really didn't say why they were touring at this
point.... (They didn't play anything off of Trial by Fire)
Dean Castonova
Steve Augeri..... Interestingly, the songs by which I was most
impressed with his performances on were songs which I had not heard
previously performed live with Steve Perry....... Most notably: Girl
Can't Help It, I'll Be Alright Without You, Just The Same Way (which
they performed in the same way as on the Captured album - with the
vocal additions at the end), Be Good To Yourself, and Ask The
Lonely..... he also did very well on Faithfully.... For the most
part, he did extremely well.... I noted that the crowd gave him
standing ovations for Open Arms as well as many of the other songs just
listed above..... for the most part - his voice didn't seem to be as
strong as Steve Perry's, lacking the range to go from the low notes and
transition to the high notes (such as the ending on Wheel In The Sky as
recorded on the Greatest Hits Live album).... I also had a little
difficulty believing in the sincerety which he was putting into the
songs he was singing, being that they were all orginally done by someone
else (namely Steve Perry)....
I feel like it would have been a better show had they focused more on
newer material and less on the classics already in the Journey
catalog.....
