November 28, 2001: Gregg Returns to His Roots

Palo Alto, CA
Icon Supperclub

I'm exhausted and can't hear very well out of my right ear, but it was so worth it! Last night a friend and I took in Gregg Rolie at the Icon Supperclub in Palo Alto and had a fantastic time!

The Icon is a fairly small club that has gone through a number of permutations over the years and has turned into a pretty nice little place. The show started about thirty minutes late, but it didn't seem to bother too many of the 150 or so people that were in attendance -- many of whom looked to be Santana-era fans. I felt like a kid! LOL!
 
The show kicked off with "Going Home" from Gregg's new CD Roots (for those of you who haven't gotten it yet -- what are you waiting for?!) Gregg and his band followed with a fantastic version of "Jingo," and the night proceeded with a great mix of new tunes and Santana tunes. I seemed to be the only person in the audience to actually KNOW the new tunes, which was rather amusing.

The band was unbelievable. You'd think they'd all been playing together for years. Dave Amato (from REO Speedwagon) handled the guitar duties and just blew me away. With percussion provided by Adrian Areas (son of Chepito Areas) on timbales, Ron Wisko on drums, and Michael Carabello on congas the beat was huge and full of energy!!
 
Gregg was fantastic and very loose on stage. A minor technical problem mid-way through his set had him joking with the audience until he and his tech could get his keyboards on the right setting.

There were a few guys in the back of the club that would periodically call out "JOURNEY," which I found amusing as I figured there'd be no way he could do any Journey with the set up. I was, therefore, pleasantly surprised when towards the end of the set they launched into "Just the Same Way." I'll give Dave Amato an "A" for effort in covering the Perry part, but he did a much better job on Neal's guitar than Perry's vocals! The crowd went nuts for it too.

If there was any doubt that there are still a large faction of Journey fans that prefer the pre-Perry material, I can tell you, last night I ran into a dozen! Between the cries for "On a Saturday Nite" (which got a laugh from Gregg and the comment "but it's Wednesday") and the woman next to me who commented to another fan "no, I want old Journey, when HE sang." there was a definite early-Journey presence among the crowd!

Looking forward to Friday night's show in San Francisco!