June 29, 2025: It's a JPP Reunion!

Alameda County Fairgrounds
Pleasanton, CA 

 

Living in the San Francisco Bay Area is a treat when your favorite band is Journey. They're a hometown band, so they're almost always going to play a hometown (area) gig. Steve Augeri, however, is not a Bay Area resident, so his appearances out here on the West Coast have been few and far between since he and the rest of the band went their separate ways (pun absolutely intended!) So when I saw he was going to appear at the Alameda County Fair this weekend, I definitely wanted to go. I had just one concern -- it was the Sunday after my company's annual conference ended. At the beginning of the year, there was a good possibility that I would be in Las Vegas working twelve hour days and in need of some serious rest this weekend. That fell through, so it was no worries about hitting a Sunday night show.

I grabbed a pair of tickets for Ana Marie and myself a few weeks after they went on sale. This meant front row was out of the picture, but I was able to snag seats about 10 rows back. Now it was just time to wait. About two weeks ago, Darryl sent a group text to the Nor Cal Journey fans to see who wanted to get together for dinner/drinks before the show. After a bunch of back and forth, the pre-show gathering was just five of us -- Darryl, Jenny, Chris, Ana Marie and me. We'd meet up with everyone else at the show.

I headed out Sunday afternoon about 3:30 to make our 4:30 meeting time and cruised into Pleasanton with out hassle and arrived at McKay's Taphouse and Beer Garden right on time. It was a nice little spot, very casual, with picnic tables and couches set out for people to sit and visit. Ana had arrived a few minutes before me and had ordered some cider and a sandwich and after I got settled, I promptly followed suit. Darryl, Jenny, and Chris arrived shortly after me and we all settled in for some tasty food and good company. We hung around McKay's for a couple of hours catching up and telling old stories.

Soon enough it was time to head over to the fairgrounds and meet up with everyone else. Since we'd all driven to Pleasanton from varying directions, we arrived a bit staggered at the fairgrounds. Ana and I headed in ahead of the others and wound our way through the fairgrounds to the amphitheater. As soon as we entered the gates, we ran in to Renee, Debbie, and Krystal. Quick hellos and hugs while I followed the usher to find our seats -- two rows behind Linda and Walt who were visiting with Emerson. A few rows down in the seated pit, there was Robin and her daughter. Soon we were all gathered at the stair boundary and catching up, when Scott appeared behind me. More hugs and hellos followed when Matt and his wife Wendy arrived. We had most of the old NorCal contingent gathered for the show. I smiled as I looked around and saw all the familiar faces of the friends I'd made during those crazy Journey journeys of the late 90s/early 2000s. Twenty-five plus years on, and we quickly fell back in to the groove.

With about 20 minutes left to settle in our seats, people drifted off to grab last minute drinks and chat. I went over to say hello to Scott's wife Kim and meet his kids. Kim joked that the Journey gang had known Scott almost as long as she had. I laughed and reminded her I first met her the same weekend I meet Scott -- at the 1998 Fan Convention in San Francisco!

I headed back to my seat and settled in waiting for the show. Steve started out right on time with "Separate Ways." Unfortunately the mix was terrible and Steve's voice was totally drowned out. It took a few songs to get sorted, but finally things sounded better by the time Steve and the band kicked in to "Send Her My Love." That was immediately followed by "Lights", which, as always, got a great hometown reaction. Steve introduced it by talking about how much he loved San Francisco and the Bay Area and had considered moving out here back in the day. That would have been interesting for this home town fan. 

Steve's voice isn't what it once was and there were some rough spots, but getting to hear him sing again was all we needed. The old gang stayed on their feet as Steve introduced "Higher Place", and I was instantly ported back to that long ago November weekend when the band first played songs from Arrival. The set moved along briskly and soon we were hearing "Faithfully" and "Don't Stop Believin'" Looking at my phone, I realized that we'd blazed through the show in just an hour.

The main set wrapped up with "Lovin', Touchin', Squeezin'" which included a bit of a guitar duel between Steve and his long-time guitarist Adam Holland. This bit was delayed briefly as Steve's guitar somehow got disconnected from the sound system, resulting in a roadie coming out to fix it and Steve standing at the edge of the stage rubbing his eyes with mock tears. After a few moments things were fixed and Steve and Adam played back and forth and morphed into a bit of "Rocky Mountain Way" before seguing back to LTS.

Steve noted the time and let us know that the "next band up" was "Hard Curfew" at 9:30. After a chuckle from the crowd, the set went into a vamp mode as apparently, Steve didn't put together a set list. One of my personal highlights of this section was when Steve covered Rod Stewart's "Forever Young." It's one of my favorite Rod Stewart songs and just as it did the last time I saw him with his full band, I got a bit teary eyed. Both because Journey's music will always take me back to my teen aged years, and because hearing Steve will always take me back to those crazy days in my 30s of dashing around the country catching another show and meeting more fans. I may be getting older, but my heart stays young.

With some time yet to kill before the curfew, Steve decided to sing "Open Arms" which he prefaced by saying he was in no condition to sing that vocal. He did a great job. The show closed out with most of "Be Good to Yourself" combined with bits of "Whole Lotta Love" and "Won't Get Fooled Again."

The show was over much too soon, but there was still time afterwards to gather and chat with all the friends who had made it. Linda and Walt had to duck out right after the show as they were heading on vacation in the morning, and Robin and her daughter got shuttled out a different exit, so we didn't get to visit with them after the show. My favorite part of all my Journey journeys was never the concert -- it was always meeting and hanging out with my fellow fans. It was terrific to get to do that again for a few hours this weekend. I did take time to think of the people I missed - especially my fellow JPP crew. Cheryl and Leslie F. have moved out of the Bay Area, Mary Ann and Leslie W. were never local, and of course we lost Darla seventeen years ago. They were all forefront in my mind during the show, but so were the memories of so many others and so many fun times.

We will continue to meet again, and of course the memories always remain. 

photo courtesy of Emerson Dong

Set List

Separate Ways
Ask the Lonely
Stone in Love
Send Her My Love
Lights
Higher Place
-- guitar solo --
Wheel in the Sky
Faithfully
Don't Stop Believin'
Lovin', Touchin', Squeezin'
Rocky Mountain Way

Encore/Vamp

Anyway You Want It
Forever Young
Who's Crying Now
Open Arms
Be Good to Yourself/Whole Lotta Love/Won't Get Fooled Again
 

June 22, 2025: Not Your Mother's Mosh Pit

Levi's Stadium
Santa Clara 

 

One of my regular job responsibilities is to work with the hiring managers on my teams when they hire interns -- make sure the intern has a desk and a computer and help get them get settled into their roles. Because my office is 5 miles from the main Bay Area campus, we are included in all their activities, but for the first couple of years we had interns back in person it was a challenge connecting with the site intern coordinators, so last year I volunteered to join the committee so I could be better informed of the planned activities and plan my teams' activities accordingly. I'm part of the committee again this year, and about two weeks ago, and the leader of the intern coordinating committee posted on our Slack channel -- "We've been offered tickets to the Metallica concert on June 22, is anyone available to host this event?" Well, you don't need to ask me twice -- I checked my calendar and it was clear, and the only concern was the intern orientation scheduled for Monday that I was co-leading. I'll survive, so I said yep, I can host.

There were only 20 tickets available, and after confirming I could bring a guest, that left 18 slots for our interns. After going through all the sign-ups and the waiting list, we only had 15 interns who were able/wanted to come which meant my co-worker Jennifer and her husband could also join. Jennifer and I are the two executive assistants in our office and do a lot to support the interns, so I was glad she could attend too. As it turned out, all 15 interns were part of our teams, so that was a nice treat (though it would have been good to have interns from the San Jose campus join us also.)

Since I could bring a guest, I invited my friend Ana Marie who has been a Metallica fan since the earliest years and is much more a fan of heavy metal music than I am. She was really excited because one of her favorite metal bands is one of the opening acts for the two-day concert schedule. Unfortunately, Ice Nine Kills was one of the openers for the Friday show, so she couldn't see them. We got Suicidal Tendencies and Pantera.

Since I was the host, I was responsible for distributing the tickets and parking passes. Three of the passes went to the interns, one to Jennifer, and I got to use the Gold VIP Lot 1 parking pass. Oh yes... did I mention our seats were in the company suite?! That meant that our food and beverages were included. I was sent a copy of the menu for the Friday show with the expectation that Sunday's menu would be similar. Along with your typical stadium fare (hot dogs, pretzels, nachos, etc.) there were things like sushi and grilled lobster tails. Oh this should be nice!

Player Parking Lot!

Ana drove down early Sunday afternoon as I wanted to be at the suite early to get my bearings and welcome the interns. We headed down to Santa Clara about 4:00, and after being directed to the wrong parking lot and having to detour around to get where we were supposed to be, we finally arrived at the Gold Lot right behind the stadium. We paused to check with the lot attendant to confirm we were in the right place, and he let us know that yes, we were in the Gold Lots, but we'd passed the entrance to Gold Lot 1. We turn around and head where he directed us and are confused by the barricaded gate. That's when it hit me -- OH MY GOD... we're parking in the Players' Lot! As a second generation 49er season ticket holder I was completely geeking out. Over a parking lot!

We pull up to the security gate and get issued yellow wrist bands by one security guard while the other walked around the car with a dog to inspect the car (including inside my trunk.) We passed through the gate and pulled in to the valet station and handed off my car. The attendant handed me the claim ticket and said I should text the number he'd written on it about 5 minutes before we planned to exit and he'd have the car ready.

We head towards the stadium and our entry gate. After passing through another security check, we head inside and show our tickets and are directed to an elevator where we're given an orange wrist band -- all we needed to show we were where we were supposed to be. We got off the elevator and got directions to the suite and wandered down the hallway passing a bunch of fantastic artwork celebrating the 49ers (another thrill for this lifetime fan.) Once we find the suite, we find it's set up with some popcorn, soft drinks, and some sweets. There's a grill for hot dogs, but it hadn't started going yet. We also meet Tony, our suite waiter. Yes, we also have a waiter.

There's time to kill before the show starts, so Ana and I head off to find some food. I wanted to see if it were true that there were grilled lobster tails and we found the sea food/sushi stand a few sections down. The lobster tails weren't ready yet, but we were able to grab some crab claws, jumbo shrimp, and a fancy shrimp cocktail. When we got back to the suite, Tony had stepped out, so Ana went back to the bar which was a few steps away and picked up a couple of cocktails for us. I had been told when the tickets were sent that only non-alcoholic drinks were provided, but nope, turned out the booze was included too! (I suspect that "non-alcoholic drinks only" was due to the guest list being "interns", but most of our interns are graduate students and thus over 21. I did confirm which of our undergrad interns were at least 21 when they arrived.)

The interns gradually arrived and most were in the suite by the time Suicidal Tendencies took the stage. All were very excited about the show and kept thanking me for arranging it. I kept saying "thank the Sales team -- they gave us the tickets, I just said I'd host!" (This week is our major company conference so most of the Sales team was headed to Las Vegas on Sunday, thus not available to host customers. So consolation prize to me being unable to attend the conference this year and missing Kenny Chesney at the Sphere.)

I'm going to skip over Suicidal Tendencies and Pantera since while I'm familiar with the band names and recognize the names of a few past/present members, I have zero knowledge of their catalog. Additionally, everything they played sounded exactly the same to me. (Apologies to any metal fan friends reading this, but metal has never been my scene.)

I will however, use this as an opportunity to describe the stage. I was surprised to find the stage was set up in the middle of the field and that it was more or less a ring with an open area in the middle. Not surprisingly, the entire field was general admission. While Suicidal Tendencies was playing, there were two drum kits on risers on opposite sides of the stage (roughly 3:00 and 9:00 from my vantage point) that were covered with drapes. Ana and I assumed one kit belonged to Pantera's drummer, and the other to Lars Ulrich. It turned out that both kits were for Pantera. More on Lars's kit shortly.

I should also take a moment to discuss the food and beverage scene. Between sets, Ana and I would go off to check out the different food stands. I eventually got my grilled lobster tails (small and chilled, fairly good considering they were a stadium concession.) Ana grabbed some nachos and pretzels. (Our German interns did not consider them actual pretzels largely because they were pretzel sticks.) We both went off to find the ice cream stand and got a couple scoops of ice cream that we could top with a variety of things of our choosing. Meanwhile, waiter Tony would pop in and out of the suite dropping of assorted treats -- a charcuterie board, some sushi, assorted sweets (including some yummy cream puffs!) -- and got the hot dog grill going. All while keeping the drink fridges filled and offering to refresh mine and Ana's drinks.

Metallica took the stage about 8:40 just as it was getting dark. All of the interns were in the outside seats, so Jennifer, her husband, and I stayed seated on the indoor stools behind the plexiglass. Ana stood behind the outside seats. As I've noted, I'm not a huge metal fan, but I do have a basic familiarity with their catalog. I joked with Ana that I totally understand why fans like her don't like the Black Album -- it's the one people like me are most familiar with! Even with that caveat, while I didn't recognize the opening song, I did know the second "For Whom the Bell Tolls." The set continued with more unfamiliar (to me) material, so I sat back and watched the interns who were thoroughly enjoying themselves. Nearly all the interns are foreign nationals most of whom are either from Germany or China. One of the German students mentioned to me that this was his first concert ever - not a bad way to start, but seriously spoiled with the suite and free food!

Ana decided to go in search of some merch during a couple of Metallica's newer songs, and while she did perhaps my favorite moment of the show occurred. James and Lars took a break while Kirk and Rob had a little jam session of their own. Rob stepped up to the microphone and let the crowd know they were going to play something by legendary Bay Area punk band the Dead Kennedys. Well cool. Then Kirk starts playing his guitar. I may not know the Dead Kennedys catalog either, but I'm fairly certain it does not contain "Do You Know the Way to San Jose!" I started cracking up and looked around me and shook my head -- I was the only one in the suite who knew what was going on. Twenty-something interns and my thirty-something colleague are not going to know the 1968 Dionne Warwick classic. 🤣

The second half of the set contained a few more songs I am familiar with so I popped out from behind my plexiglass protection for "Wherever I May Roam" and "The Unforgiven" (Ana laughed at me, but hey, what I can I say, those are the songs I know!) It was about this point in the show when I finally saw how Lars's drum kit was moving from one section of the stage to another as I saw the set nearest our section descend below the stage while another one appeared on the opposite side. I had figured that was what was happening as Lars moved from place to place on the stage, but it mostly happened in the dark so I never saw it. With the center of the stage being open and holding a several hundred people, I wasn't sure how much of it was a tunnel.

Towards the end of the show, James stopped at the beginning of a song ("Moth in the Flame" thanks to setlist.fm) because someone near the stage had fallen down so he alerted security to help get things sorted before starting the song again. The show closed out with two more songs I knew, "One" (I had to ask Ana to remind me of the title, because all I could remember was the video. I'm fairly sure it's the first Metallica song I ever heard) and "Enter Sandman."  Sandman, of course, got everyone going and giant black and yellow beach balls dropped on the fans on the field. I once again popped out of the suite to hear that classic live.

The show ended there, and I took a look at the clock -- 10:55. Levi's Stadium has a usual curfew of 10:00, but can have it extended to 11:00 a few times a year. Nope, no way there was enough time for Metallica to follow up with an encore. And given that there really wasn't anywhere for them to go as "off-stage" it made sense to end there.

We wrapped up the evening with the interns all being thrilled and amazed after a great time. I checked in with our German students to see if they were planning to attend the intern on-boarding session the following morning which they were invited to but were not required to attend having been employees for several months already and not needing much of the information provided. They looked confused, so I told them to come if they wanted, but don't worry about it if they didn't make it.

Before heading to the elevator, I texted the valet as instructed, and when Ana and I got downstairs (passing through a security check verifying our yellow wrist bands) to find my car ready and waiting for me to exit once I retrieved my keys from the valet.

As I've mentioned a few times, I'm not a huge metal fan, but I thoroughly enjoyed my first (and likely only) metal concert. Ana said it was one of the best Metallica shows she'd seen, so I'll take her word on that. It was definitely the LOUDEST concert I've ever attended and I was eternally grateful to both my ear plugs and the plexiglass of the suite. I only had one complaint about the show. Sitting in the suite put us further from the stage than I normally like to be, and thus most of the show was viewed on the screens. Ana countered that with "Yeah, but we had Tony to bring us drinks!"

 

Metallica Set List

Whiplash
For Whom the Bell Tolls
Ride the Lightning
The Memory Remains
Lux Æterna
Screaming Suicide
Kirk and Rob Doodle 
    --“Do You Know the Way to San Jose” (Dionne Warwick cover 🤣)
    --“California Über Alles” (Dead Kennedys cover)
Welcome Home (Sanitarium)
Wherever I May Roam
The Call of Ktulu
The Unforgiven
Whiskey in the Jar (preceded by Lars & Rob jam)
Blackened
Moth Into Flame
One
Enter Sandman  

Postscript: Both I and the German students survived the intern on-boarding session Monday morning.