July 19-20, 2003: Loopfest

Tinley Park, IL
Tweeter Center

What can be said -- two days, 8 bands, and 13 hours of rock and roll! Wow, what a weekend! First off the sheer number of Journey fans that descended on Chicago was amazing it was great to see so many familiar faces among the crowd of 17,000 -- including our Journey Digest owner and fearless leader Dan Stacy! (A true treat after 4 years! Really Dan, you've gotta get out more!)

My trip kicked off on Thursday with a bang -- a big ole mid-western thunderstorm erupted just as I was picking up my rental car. This California girl sure as heck had never seen anything like that before in her life! (Golf ball sized hail! Good grief that's insane!) Gotta admit though, all that lightning was really cool! (We just don't get that out here!)

Fortunately, the weather cleared up for a fairly mild Friday that was very pleasant. After joining the contingent of Back Talkers for a huge pre-show BBQ (my head is still spinning from all the people, especially the ones who seemed to know ME that I'd never seen before in my life!) it was over to the Tweeter Center in Tinley Park.

This was my second trip to Tweeter (the first being the famed 1999 "Journeyfest" show with Foreigner) and I didn't remember things being quite as annoying as they were this time. I should have known this would be an annoying venue as I was walking up to the entry gate to the sounds of "Welcome to the Tweeter Center. Don't do this. Don't do that. Management reserves the right to not let you in. Enjoy your stay." YIKES. It's the stupid little things like "I'm sorry, while the contents of your bag are fine, the bag is too big. You have to check it" and "No, you can't have the top to your bottled water. People might throw them on stage." that just make a venue very unfriendly to the customer. The layout and the lines were insane and criss-crossing everywhere. Very poor design for crowd flow. And then there was the smoking. Okay, I realize I'm a California girl where the only place anyone is allowed to smoke is in the privacy of their own home, but come on people -- there are 17,000 people crammed together SOME of whom are allergic to cigarette smoke! I wasn't sure I'd make it through Journey's set my lungs were burning so bad from the smoke!

Icky venue issues aside, it was a fantastic show. 38 Special kicked off Friday night and were terrific. I'm not a huge fan of theirs and really only knew two songs from their set -- "Hold on Loosely" and "Caught Up in You" -- but they were very entertaining. Wouldn't necessarily go out of my way to see them again, but wouldn't mind if they teamed up with some one else I was interested in.

Sammy Hagar came out next. No doubt about it, Sammy flat out kicks ass. This was the third or fourth time I've seen him and I've enjoyed his high energy show every time. Yeah, it's a little bit juvenile best suited for hormonally challenged teen-age boys, but it just works and is so Sammy. (Amazingly his "waitresses" who bring him Waboritas throughout the show were the most clothed I've ever seen!) And he's got such an amazing catalog of songs with an incredible backing band (particularly the hell on wheels bass player, Mona) he just rocks the night away. Add in his amazing interaction with the crowd (including the handful of fans who stood on risers at the back of the stage) and he's just someone I will continue to see when I get a chance. Anyone who's never seen him really should -- if for the set list alone, everything from his days in Montrose to Van Halen to solo past and present.

Sammy's set ran longer than I had expected, when Journey took the stage around 9:30, I doubted any special treats of Planet Us or even Sammy joining for an encore would happen.

Journey got off to a rocky start when Steve's in-ear monitor wasn't working during "Separate Ways" when the show opened. This was resolved fairly quickly, but it was apparent through most of the song Steve was having trouble hearing what was going on. Given a 90-minute set rather than the 75-80 minutes they've had all summer enabled Journey to add a few more songs to the set list, but nothing that hasn't otherwise popped up over the course of the tour. I was pleasantly surprised when they pulled out "Dead or Alive" towards the end of the set. Never having heard this song live, I wondered if they could actually pull it off -- it is such a FAST song. Not only did they pull it off they NAILED it. My eyes were popping out of my head watching all the frenetic activity on stage. "State of Grace" has made it's way back into the set, but with out the Intro it just sounded a bit odd to me and I'm not sure how well it worked over all. One other memorable moment from the night was during "Be Good To Yourself" when Steve shouted to the crowd "If you're having a good time say YEAH!" and stuck his microphone out towards the crowd -- only to have it fly out of his hand and ka-thud on the front of the stage (thank goodness for the cord!) Steve started cracking up on stage, but soon regathered himself (and his mic) and said "Let's try that again -- if you're having a good time say YEAH!" I've seen elsewhere people comparing this show to the Warfield show in April and while it was a good performance from the guys, it didn't come close to the magic of that night.

Saturday was another long day -- 5 bands from 3-11 -- so I'll just do a quick run through for ya. Night Ranger opened the show at 3 and despite my best efforts, I didn't get to my seat until 3:15 (the line at the gate to get in was incredibly long) which was rather disappointing since I'm a fan and really wanted to see their whole set. Jack Blades is seriously hyper on stage. I did enjoy the 30 minutes of their show full of their classic hits.

Shooting Star was the second band. Can't really say much about 'em. I had never heard of them before the show and when they hit the stage my seat was directly in the sun, so I ducked out to find some shade and half listened to their set from the side.

Heart came out third and WOW. One of the reasons I decided to make the trip for this two day event was to see Heart. Incredible. Ann and Nancy Wilson are just queens of rock and roll. Their set was a mix of the old and the new and got a predictable response -- old songs people on their feet rockin' out, new songs people sitting down in wonder. The new tunes sounded pretty good to me and were pretty rocking, but I'm going to have to hear them a few more times to really form an opinion. In my next life, I'm coming back as Nancy Wilson.

REO was up next, and I held my breath. Kevin Cronin had 10 extra minutes to talk or sing, which would he choose?? Amazingly, it was singing. They added two songs to their now familiar set list ("Music Man" and "Golden Country") I've gotta say, this was the best performance I've seen from them all summer. I'm sure it had to do in part to being a (near) hometown crowd. The crowd was absolutely wild during their set and I was amazed hearing the crowd singing back to the band -- it was so loud! This was the kind of energy every concert should have.

Styx closed out the weekend and despite playing for the hometown crowd, they just didn't grab the audience as well as REO did (which shocked me completely.) Part of it had to do with having four songs from Cyclorama in the set list. Unfortunately as good as the new tunes are, they just suck the life out of the crowd (with the usual exception of the stadium running "Kiss Your Ass Goodbye") and following up "Fields of the Brave" with a medley of Styx tunes just didn't work. The medley was good -- per Tommy Shaw containing parts of one song from each Styx record -- but it didn't bring the crowd back into the show after the new tune. So the Styx set was mixed and I didn't feel the same energy as I usually do during their set.

I did note at least parts of all the set lists (except 38 Special & Shooting Star due to complete unfamiliarity) but will only post the Journey one below. If anyone is interested in any of the other set lists, let me know and I'll shoot it off to ya.

This is my last "Main Event" tour stop for the summer, so everyone enjoy the remaining shows. Up next for me -- an evening with Journey in Konocti!

Journey's Set:

DVD opening intro
Separate Ways
Stone in Love
Wheel in the Sky
Star Spangled Banner
Only the Young
Dixie Highway
Lights
-- Jonathan's solo --
Open Arms
Precious Time
Feeling That Way
Anytime
State of Grace
Chain Reaction
Be Good to Yourself
Dead or Alive
Don't Stop Believin'
Ask the Lonely
Escape
Any Way You Want It

Encore:
Lovin', Touchin', Squeezin'
Faithfully