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
 

April 6-9, 2017: Rock and Roll Hall of Fame Weekend

I'm still a bit amazed by all that happened last weekend in New York, it was a trip of a lifetime and I'll never forget it. Once it was announced in December that Journey would be among the 2017 inductees to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, I started making plans to be there. I had joined the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame when I saw Journey's name on the ballot on the likely chance that should they get in there would be a members only pre-sale for tickets to the show. Fortunately so did Cheryl and Mary Ann and between the three of us we figured we'd have a good chance of securing the seven tickets we needed for our group (with Leslie F., Jenn, Emerson, & Nicole.) Our group could have been even bigger, but alas, lots of our friends couldn't make the trip. We'd just have to celebrate on their behalf.

The members-only pre-sale came up towards the end of January and it was off to pray to the Ticketmaster gods at 7:00 a.m. Pacific Time. This was actually a pretty good thing as it meant most of us wouldn't have to try to get tickets while at work and could try our purchasing interruption free (no way would it be stress free!) We were a bit surprised that the ticket limit was 2 per member, which meant it was going to be challenging to get the needed 7 tickets, but at least the price range fell in line with what we were expecting with the top non-VIP tickets being around $500 (still, the most expensive single ticket I've purchased for a concert.) Ultimately though, whatever got all of us in the door was going to be the deal. We managed to have 4 of us available when the pre-sale started and away we went. After lots of texting back and forth, we wound up with 6 tickets before the pre-sale sold out. Four of the tickets were on the lower level and the other two were in the 200 section. We still needed 1 more ticket for our group, and so we planned to try again in a few days when the Citibank card pre-sale was scheduled. When that sale began, also at 7:00 a.m. Pacific Time, I wound up with the miracle luck and snagged a pair of lower level seats by 7:05! We now had 8 tickets for 7 people, but wanted to see if we could improve on the 200 level seats. That didn't happen with the pre-sale and attempts during the general public on sale also proved fruitless as no one could get in to even attempt to buy tickets. Mary Ann wound up with the 200 level seats, so it was her call as to who would buy the extra ticket (though we helped and let her know who we knew was looking for a ticket.) This was probably one of the most stressful ticket buying experiences of my life -- I could NOT fail at getting these tickets, it just wasn't an option, so to have managed to snag four was just a thrill.

February and March were spent coordinating with everyone on where to stay and what to do and, yes, plan a JPP-lite event. One of my cousins lived in New York for a while and met her husband there, so I asked them for a recommendation for a reasonably priced restaurant that was good for large groups. They recommended Tony's DiNapoli near Times Square, which turned out to be perfect. Good family style Italian and lots of it. I also went down to my storage locker and pulled out the box of JPP stuff left over from previous events and shipped most of it to myself at my hotel with the plan of not coming home with any of it!

Finally, it was time to hit the road. Things started out pretty rocky on Thursday morning, storms from Chicago eastward screwed up nearly everyone's travel plans. My flight was delayed leaving San Francisco for two hours, Jenn got delayed in Kansas City, Leslie and Cheryl were re-routed to Washington DC, the crew from Chicago sat at O'Hare for hours, and poor Mary Ann spent the night at the Atlanta airport and didn't land in New York until 4:45 Friday afternoon!!!! A few other people had cancelled and delayed flights, but eventually everyone made their way to New York.

Once I got to my hotel Thursday night around 9, I met up with Jenn, Leslie, and Cheryl, and we shared our travel woes and general excitement for Friday. It's always fun once the gang starts gathering and we chatted for a couple of hours before running out of gas and heading to bed. I woke up around 5:30 -- way too early -- only to discover that Mary Ann hadn't arrived in the night. I looked up the flight she said she was supposed to be arriving on and discovered it had been cancelled -- the third cancelled flight of her trip! I checked in with her stuck in Atlanta to see how she was doing and to give what moral support I could via text message then went back to sleep for about an hour. It was still too early to be awake and up, but there was just too much excitement and anticipation to really get more sleep. Morning was spent taking it easy, pulling things together for lunch, making plans for how to get to Brooklyn for the show, and what to do on Saturday.

Soon it was time to head over to Tony DiNapoli's in Times Square to meet up with a bunch of other crazies for a JPP-lite lunch. Cheryl, Leslie, Jenn, and I walked from our hotel to the restaurant with the intent of being a little early so we could set up and be there when everyone else arrived. Emerson and Nicole were already there when we arrived having had dinner there a couple of nights previously (they did the trip right -- a weekend in Cleveland and the RRHOF before spending the week in New York!) I went downstairs and set a few things up -- a little trivia quiz for the folks coming in which would result in prizes from the bag-o-JPP-stuff!

People started arriving not too long afterwards and it was time to catch up and visit. It was great seeing everyone who could make it for lunch. Unfortunately a few people, besides poor Mary Ann, got held up by travel snafus and missed lunch. We did meet a few other fans who hadn't RSVP'd for the lunch but stopped by the restaurant to say hello. Everyone was taking pictures and checking in with friends who couldn't join us when someone spotted a news alert from TMZ. They were reporting Steve Perry would be singing at the ceremonies Friday night! Well you can imagine the buzz among the group (including the fans who dropped in running downstairs to see if we'd seen the news) -- if this were true, it was going to be an even more memorable night than we were expecting. Fortunately, this was also a group of long-time fans who had heard rumors of all sorts before and knew to temper their expectations. While we all hoped Steve Perry would sing, we pretty much agreed that it probably wasn't going to happen. Still, he'd proven us wrong before, so we kept our fingers crossed that miracles would happen. Ever since the official split between Steve Perry and the rest of Journey I had felt if he were ever to sing with them again it would be at their Rock and Roll Hall of Fame induction, but twenty or so years of living in Journeyland (including about 10 pretty deeply involved beyond the level of normal fandom) had taught me to keep my expectations low.

Soon it was time to hand out prizes (and no the trivia wasn't too hard -- I said you could collaborate/cheat!) and everyone went home with some kind of goodie. This included Amanda winning an Evolution-era head shot of Steve Perry. This would prove quite important as the day progressed. Lunch wrapped up about 2:30 and it was time to head back to the hotel and freshen up for the evening. Since we were staying right next to Grand Central Station, we stopped in there first to pick up our Metro Cards for the subway including getting one for Mary Ann who, per her most recent text, was due to arrive around 4:00. Since we were planning to get to Barclays about 5:15 or so for the 5:45 doors, we didn't think we'd have time to connect with her before the show so wanted to make sure she had everything she needed to meet us when she finally arrived.

A group of us met in the lobby to caravan over to Barclays via subway. I had done some research on which trains would go where we needed and was fairly confident I could get us there safely, but it was great to have a local in Amanda to truly help everyone get through the subway. So as to not to lose people from one point to another, Amanda eventually pulled out her Steve Perry head shot and held it up over her head like a tour guide would as she led us through the tunnels. This was probably one of those "you had to be there" moments, but it was one of the funnier parts of the day. About a dozen of us arrived at the Barclays Center about a half an hour before the doors opened where we promptly ran into a few more of the Journey faithful we knew. As it was chilly and windy, some of us ducked across the street to a small mall to grab a quick drink and sit and chat.

Back across to Barclays to go through security, which was quite quick -- I had really expected much longer lines even that early, but there were almost no lines at all when we arrived. There was a DJ just past security blasting all kinds of classic rock. "Saturday Night's Alright For Fighting" was blaring as I passed through the security gate and I thought "Oh man, too bad it's Friday, this would be perfect!" Then it was off to find the swag. We were directed to where the swag was supposed to be only to find everything shuttered. Nothing. No swag anywhere! Well, that was quite disappointing. None of us could figure out why there were no t-shirts or any other memorabilia available for sale. Missed opportunity for sure. With no shopping to do, we all mixed and mingled and found our other friends coming to the show. I think I managed to at least say a quick hello to everyone I knew in advance would be attending (we did run in to a couple of other old time Back Talkers on our way out after it was over that I don't think anyone knew would be there.) It was fantastic seeing everyone, even if briefly.

While chatting with Deb, Lori, Teresa, and Barb, one of them mentioned Journey would be on first. I was hoping very hard that would not be the case. I had gotten a text from Mary Ann at 4:45 that she had landed, but she still needed to drop her suitcase at the hotel, pick up the Metro Card, and get to Barclays by the 7:00 start time. Who knew if she'd make it on time, and if Journey were on first, that would be a nightmare!

Soon it was off to our seats and time to get settled in for the show. I knew beforehand that Janice and Randal would be sitting next to Leslie and me, but had to laugh when we got in and they were sitting in the wrong seats! Once everyone got settled, we chatted and visited while waiting for the show to start and just before things got started I got a text from Mary Ann -- she'd made it! Thank God!

My previous two posts describe the show, so I'll skip over all of that except to say it was so much fun keeping up with the folks who couldn't make it via Facebook. The way the show was set up with videos and speeches meant there were lulls where it was easy to make a quick post about what was going on and check on responses without missing much of the action (and if I missed a random member of ELO or Yes thanking their wives and children, well it wasn't a big deal.) When Journey (or "Journry" as I posted) hit the stage, it got a little crazier trying to take pictures, snag a little video, and make a couple of concert calls while in a state of complete excitement and lunacy. I'm still shocked I didn't actually cry, and maybe that's because I was looking for Steve to come up from the floor with the rest of the guys when he came in from the wings so I didn't actually see him take the stage. I just heard this huge roar from the crowd and I knew what had happened even while I was thinking "Where the hell is Steve in that bunch?!" I'm really curious why he spent the whole show backstage instead of on the floor with everyone else. And from pictures I've seen since, he didn't stick around to chat with the press afterwards. He seems to just want to isolate himself from everything and that makes me sad. I do hope Neal's post-induction comments that he's going to try to reconnect with Steve come to fruition, and not in the sense of them making music together, but to rekindle a friendship. If something beyond that comes out of it, terrific, but those guys did so much together when they were younger it would be nice to see the bad feelings put in the past. It's reminded me of the conversation I had with Jon in Hollywood at the luncheon after the star ceremony. He made a comment to me about how nice it was that Steve had shown up for it, which none of them knew about until they saw him, and the way he said it was touched with the same kind of nostalgia that the fans were feeling. Hopefully some fences can be mended.

After five hours of a huge spectrum of music, we all gathered outside Barclays for the subway ride back -- again led by Amanda and her photo of Steve Perry, which was much more important for the return trip as subway construction required us to find a completely different platform than expected. We said goodbye to Amanda at Grand Central Station as she had to run to catch her train home and headed back to the hotel. My traveling companions all called it a night (especially poor Mary Ann who hadn't slept since Wednesday night!) but I grabbed my laptop and headed down to the lobby to meet a few folks for what was supposed to be a quick after-show drink. My plan was to have a quick drink and say good bye/good night to everyone as they headed off to their respective hotels/rooms and then work on the first report. A little proscecco and a lot of chat meant reporting was delayed, but it was great being able to visit with folks a while longer. Everyone started to fade around 2:00, so it was off to bed and farewell to most of the Journey-ers who'd joined us.

A quick wrap for the rest of the weekend. Cheryl, Leslie, Jenn, Mary Ann, and I set out Saturday morning to meet Deb A. and a friend at the 9/11 Memorial and Museum. Debbie is someone I've known from the Perry List since the late 1990s and was in the South Tower on 9/11, so going to the museum with her was special. I will say it was a complete 180 degrees opposite from the emotions of the night before, and being completely exhausted meant getting overwhelmed once or twice. If you ever get a chance to go to the museum I would say do it, but bring Kleenex and be prepared to be a bit emotionally wrung out when you're through.

We said our goodbyes to Deb and headed back to the hotel for a late lunch and a nap before grabbing a car from the hotel to go see the musical Beautiful which is about Carole King and features a lot of her music. Jenn managed to snag us 5 dead center orchestra seats and it was a fantastic show. I grew up on Carole King and just absolutely loved the show. It was a perfect addition to the theme of the weekend.

Mary Ann had an early-ish flight out Sunday, so we had a nice farewell breakfast at the hotel before she had to head off to the airport. My flight wasn't until 6 that evening, so I had half a day to spend with Cheryl, Leslie, and Jenn before heading home. We hopped on the subway up to Central Park to visit Strawberry Fields and then walked around the park a bit before hopping into a cab to Rockefeller Center. We grabbed mimosas at a wine bar at Rockefeller Center then walked down Fifth Avenue back to the hotel where I was to grab my shuttle to the airport.

I still can't quite believe I actually was in New York for Journey's induction to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. Part of that is due to thinking it would never happen and part of it is due to it just being such an exciting and whirlwind of a weekend. Attending the Giants home opener on Monday and getting to hear "Lights" play in the middle of the eighth inning took me straight back to Friday night and I rather ignored my friend for the duration of the song while I sat there listening and looking out at the Bay Bridge. My favorite band was playing, it was time to bliss out.

The Road to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame

I actually meant to write and publish this post six months ago when we hit upon the 20th Anniversary of the release of Trial by Fire, but as happens in life, I got busy with other things and forgot completely about it. With Journey's induction to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame now just days away, I thought it would be good to go back and revisit how that album kicked off a long strange trip down the highways and byways of Journeyland. No, this isn't about Journey's road to the Hall of Fame, it's about mine.

We actually start in late 1995 when I saw a blurb in the San Francisco Chronicle that Steve Perry, Jonathan Cain, and Neal Schon were talking about a Journey reunion. This was around the same time Steve Perry was out on tour supporting his solo album For the Love of Strange Medicine and I thought "well, that'd be cool if it happens" and then pretty much forgot about it. It had been 10 years since Journey was last together and I really didn't expect much to come of it. Come September, 1996 and I'm at work going through the day's mail. There was a new issue of Forbes magazine in the batch and one of my tasks was to review all the magazines for my boss and look for articles relevant to our research or, in the case of Forbes, our fundraising efforts. This particular issue had a photo of Kiss on the cover and a headline along the lines of "Rock Reunions" which caught my eye, so instead of just skimming through the issue as I normally would, I flipped through to the article on Kiss and read it on my lunch break. Most of the article was about Kiss's reunion with Ace Frehley and Peter Kriss, but made mention of a couple other reunions including a mention that Journey had reunited and there was a new album coming out in October. What?! Wait, what did I miss?! I spun in my chair, fired up Yahoo! to do an internet search (oh 1996!) on Journey. I immediately found three sites I devoured -- the first was the official Sony Music Journey site which was promoting the upcoming album release and had a series of message boards for fans to connect and chat about Journey. The next two were the great Journey Tribute Page run by Steve Lake (while it hasn't been updated in years, it still exists!) and the late great Journey Fans Network run by Jaspirina Mahyat (thanks Internet Archive.) Back in the days before official websites and social media these sites were where fans would go to get the latest and greatest info on Journey and connect with other fans. There were also the IRC chats, the Journey Digest mailing list, and the old tried and true newsgroups. Not having my own internet connection at home in 1996 (I don't think I even had a computer at home then, though it's close to when I got a laptop for work, so I might have) I couldn't participate in the chats and was wary of the newsgroup and mailing lists, especially since I only had my work email address at the time. So I devoured what I could from what I'd found and kept an eye on the message boards at the Sony site pretty regularly.

While I can't remember now exactly what was going on at work in October, 1996, I do remember that I was extremely stressed out and frustrated, in large part due to a senior manager who was making my life miserable despite the fact I didn't report to her. I had circled October 22 on my calendar -- the date Trial by Fire was due to be released. Since that was a Tuesday and back in a time when you couldn't order a new CD on Amazon and have it show up on your doorstep the day of release (forget downloading it!), I had planned to run to Tower Records some time that week. Sure, it meant maybe waiting a couple of days, but after 10 years, what's a few days? Silly me. Again, I don't remember exactly what happened that day, but I do remember leaving work and saying "I need that new Journey album RIGHT NOW!" I drove straight to Tower Records from the office then straight home where I immediately popped it in the stereo (not having a CD player in my 1991 Tercel.) Ahhhhh.... this is JUST what I needed.

In the weeks leading up to the release of Trial by Fire, I had actually been listening to a lot more Journey than I had in a while. In part this was due to being stressed out, which always and forever means pulling out Escape, and in part due to my upcoming 10-year high school reunion which meant pulling out Raised on Radio which came out right before graduation. Listening to Trial by Fire for the first time was special. Having that new CD after 10 years made me realize just how much I had missed listening to Journey. While I still had my LPs (from Captured to Raised on Radio) and the Greatest Hits CD and Time3 box set, I didn't listen to them regularly. Sure, pretty much every mix tape I made for my car had at least one Journey song on it, but I didn't sit and listen to Journey as often as I had in high school. I had started listening a bit more after Steve Perry's For the Love of Strange Medicine was released, but it really took Trial by Fire to reignite the passion I'd had for Journey 10 years earlier. I wrote a letter to my cousin Denise as I listened to Trial by Fire for the first time, giving my long-standing Journey compadre a blow by blow account of each song as I heard it for the first time. As I came to "Don't Be Down on Me Baby", I wrote "God, you don't hear stuff like this anymore. I forgot how much I missed Journey. I'm blissing out here." Then, after "It's Just the Rain" it was "God Steve Perry's got an amazing voice! I REALLY have to see this tour! I don't care what it costs!"

Listening to more Journey prior to the release of Trial by Fire was also partly due to connecting with other fans and talking about the love of this music that had meant so much to me since I was in junior high school. This was a new and amazing thing to me. Most of my close friends were, at best, casual/closet Journey fans. Other than my cousin Denise, I rarely talked to someone who loved Journey as much as I did. Now, I had found this whole group of people from all over the world who loved my favorite band as much as I did! Naturally, with the new album out, everyone was really excited and talking about their favorite tracks and oh when oh when will they announce the tour? Transcripts and links to interviews and press were passed around. And oh Steve, Jon, and Neal are going to be interviewed on my local classic rock station! We can't wait for more! Woo hoo! There was so much joy and buzzing excitement.

Well, time passed and as all Journey fans know by now, the Trial by Fire tour never materialized and it looked like Journey would be fading away into the sunset once again. The uncertainty and the rumors fed the on-line trolls as such things are wont to do, and it got to the point where Sony Music decided to shut down the message boards they had set up. Since there had been several different message boards on the Sony site, they were shut down slowly which allowed fans to set up their own message boards. One fellow, who went by the strange name "Skylord" had set up a message board. He was a fairly known entity in the Journey community at the time as he ran the IRC chat. So I migrated over there a bit and when the Sony boards were finally closed, that was my primary hang out. I was still leery of the mailing lists having heard that the Journey Digest was full of people arguing all the time and especially this one dude "Monker" who was particularly annoying and another dude "Meanie" who pretty much lived up to his handle. Not having a personal email address was also a factor -- I couldn't have all this Journey stuff coming to my work address if people were being rude and obnoxious. Somewhere in this time frame (mid-1997 or so), Jaspirina of the Journey Fans Network set up the Steve Perry Mailing List as a bit of a haven from the Journey Digest. That's when I decided I'd see what that group was like and signed up with my work address. Oh what a fateful decision!

The Perry List was seldom on topic (boy is that a huge understatement!), and every afternoon around 3:00 my inbox would start getting flooded with messages from the crew of Atlanta ladies who, now being off work, had hopped on line to chat. It wasn't so much that we didn't want to talk about Journey and Steve Perry, but that in mid- to late-1997 there just wasn't a whole lot to discuss beyond rumors and speculation and those subjects ran their course pretty quickly. So a community of mostly female Journey fans, along with a few brave male fans, grew into a community of friends who shared the ups and downs and ins and outs of daily life. It was kind of a weird way to make new friends, but it was fun, and several different groups would get together in the real world as there were clusters of fans in some areas.

By early 1998, it was clear there would be no more Steve Perry and Journey, but my oh my were there rumors about the band soldiering on without him. What?! That's impossible! No way no how, no no no no NO!

With rumors abounding, Jonathan Cain released a new solo instrumental CD For a Lifetime, which I promptly picked up. Shortly after it was released, I learned Jonathan had done an in store appearance at the Virgin Megastore in San Francisco about an hour after it ended. Dammit, missed opportunity number 9,648. A week or so later, I got a call from a good friend who alerted me to an ad she saw in that day's San Francisco Chronicle that Neal Schon would be performing with a band called Strictly Roots at the Maritime Hall in San Francisco. I talked her in to going to the show with me and made plans to get tickets. Back at work on Monday, ready to tell my friends on the Perry List about the show I came in to see a thread of messages with the subject line "Petaluma". I read through them all and discovered that Jonathan Cain would be performing a benefit show for his church the same weekend as Neal's show with Strictly Roots. Well, this was going to fun and make up for the unsettled state of Journey. Boy did it. Besides being a weekend with one of my most prized live music experiences, I had the opportunity to meet fellow Perry Listers "RknRlMom" and "The Great Demented One" (better known as Debbie S. & Liz.) Jonathan's show was the first time I got to meet other internet Journey fans in person, but it most certainly wouldn't be the last.

Not long after my first live Journey-related experience, it was officially announced that Steve Augeri and Deen Castronovo would be replacing Steve Perry and Steve Smith. My gut reaction -- forget it! No Steve Perry, no Journey. Oh silly me! I soon discovered my love for Journey transcended loyalty to any one member. Journey announced they would be performing a free show in San Rafael and all anyone needed to do to get tickets was to email road manager Rindell Ivers. The show was the day after I was to fly to Paris for a 3 week vacation. I wanted to throw myself on the floor and kick and scream like a two year old. That was the fateful straw that got me to finally subscribe to the Journey Digest so I could hear reports from those who attended the show. Those reports (along with a bootleg recording of the show) pushed me down a path I never expected.

Waiting out the summer between the free show in San Rafael and the official start of the first full blown Journey tour since 1986, I got to connect and meet with more Journey fans. First through the Journey Digest where folks mostly in the mid-western part of the US were catching Journey at one-off gigs at state fairs and the like and passing along reports of those shows. Then in person through a fan convention that was organized by folks mostly from the AOL forums but who also had some overlap on the Journey Digest. It was the first of several "what the heck, could be fun" decisions I would make over the coming months. I knew Debbie S. would be going and it would be fun to play tourist in my hometown of San Francisco. It was an interesting weekend that felt a bit cliquish to me, but I got to meet a few more Nor Cal Journey fans which would prove fruitful in the coming months as, holy smokes, I had people to go to a Journey concert with! Yay Kevin, Scott, and Janet! I did meet a few of the folks from the AOL group who made an effort to chat and visit with the broader group of fans at the show, so there was Carol from Buffalo and someone going by "Journeycat." The strangest highlight of the weekend though was meeting Neal Schon's mom and stepfather. Really? I'm meeting Neal's PARENTS? Too weird!

So fall rolls around and the "Vacation's Over" Tour was announced, and I find I have certifiably lost my mind. The tour is opening in Detroit a week after my 30th birthday, on a holiday weekend no less, and a group of folks on the Journey Digest decide to meet up for the first official show of the tour. Remember my comment about seeing the Trial by Fire Tour no matter the cost? Yeah, that kind of went in to over drive that fall. Buying a ticket for a concert in Detroit and flying most of the way across the country to meet a room full of complete strangers for dinner before a concert was WAY WAY out of the scale of normal behavior for me. I hate going into a room of complete strangers and make small talk for several hours. Only Deadheads travel around the country for concerts and I certainly am not a burned out hippie in a Volkswagon bus! I was so certain that what I was doing was insane, I was extremely cautious at work when talking about my plans for Columbus Day Weekend 1998 and made sure to schedule myself on a red-eye to Detroit so I wouldn't have to take any vacation time. I'm not some weirdo! At my birthday dinner the weekend before, several family members asked me multiple times what I was doing the following weekend. There were many strange looks and comments along the lines of "who are these people you're meeting? how do you know them?" Of course my thinking at the time was this is the first Journey tour in over 10 years, no way I'm gonna miss the first show, but this is just a one time thing. Oh my, how quaint!

I flew off to Detroit and met up with probably about 30 people from the Journey Digest before the show. I didn't mix and mingle much -- still the introvert doing something WAY out of her comfort zone -- but I did meet a few people including Journey Digest owner Dan Stacy and frequent commenter Moni. That happy circumstance led to getting an extra after show pass for the meet and greet in Grand Rapids. I've just seen Journey in concert for the second time in my life (the first being the night before in Detroit) and I got to meet the whole band?! This is not my life. I remember getting back to my hotel after all was said and done and being too wired to sleep. It was after midnight, but being in the eastern time zone it was still early enough to call my good friend Mary back home and tell her all about it. Mary's a casual fan of Journey (at best) but she's a big music fan in general and understood my lunacy. That she wasn't home when I called so all I could do was leave a message that said "Oh my god I met the whole band!" is one of my funnier memories of that memorable weekend.

I would hit six more shows that tour -- the entire California swing plus New Year's Eve in Reno. That show in Reno is still the biggest night out I've ever done on New Year's Eve. I usually have a quiet evening in with family and friends if I do anything at all, so to be in Reno at a concert and literally standing on my seat as midnight struck and then more or less sneaking back stage is way way over the top for me.

1999 rolled in and things really got moving. Several of the NorCal contingent of the Perry List managed to finally to meet up for lunch which led to semi-regular "grown up slumber parties" with Carla, Darla, and Ana Marie. Steve Smith was also doing a bunch of different local shows and so there would be nights out at a jazz club in North Beach including a couple where some out of town Perry Listers came in to hang with the rest of the crew. I still think Toni was nuts for driving all the way from Utah!

That summer, Journey went out on tour with Foreigner and there I was winging my way off again to a big fan gathering in Chicago. Moni and Dan Stacy had organized Journeyfest for the folks on the Digest. This included a night at a bar north of Chicago where Kevin Chalfant performed. By this time, I'd gotten familiar with the names of folks on the Journey Digest and had become a frequent poster so I wasn't my usual introverted self and actually mixed and chatted with a bunch of people and even volunteered to help check people in for soundcheck -- another perk the Journeyfest organizers had pulled off for us. That's how I got to meet Leslie F. who would go on to become one of my partners in crime for Journey Past & Present. The year ended with a benefit show in San Francisco and the soon-to-be usual preshow dinner rounded out the NorCal crew with finally meeting another Perry Lister in person as Cheryl was one of the new faces at the restaurant that night.

2000 was a pretty quiet year as fans waited in eager anticipation for Journey's new album, but one highlight was when a group from the Perry List decided to get together for a weekend in LA. It was a fun, if somewhat odd, weekend and a lot of us got to put faces to the names of people we'd gotten to know over the course of the previous few years. Deb A. flew in from New York, Leslie W. was there from Kansas City, Dale from Tampa, and so many more. The weirdness came with some discord among the organizing committee that the NorCal gang got roped in to due to some misinformation we were given. Fortunately, the fall out from that weekend resulted in something that would become so much bigger and beyond what most previous fan gatherings had been -- Journey Past and Present.

Somewhere in the 1999-2000 time frame I became much more involved in the on line Journey community. Jaspirina gave up running the Perry List in mid-1999, so a group of list members decided to take on the task and start a new list and I got invited to be one of the list moderators. By late 2000, Journey Digest list owner Dan Stacy invited me to be a moderator for the Digest and a contributing author to the JourneyDigest.com website. Meanwhile, Skylord's forum had gotten him an opportunity to run Journey's official website and his message board became the official message board for the band -- Back Talk -- and many more people joined the community. Somehow, in my 30s, I had become much more extroverted than I had ever been even if it was mostly in the virtual world of internet message boards and mailing lists.

Journey's first album with Steve Augeri, Arrival, would be released in Japan in late 2000 leading to all kinds of craziness with Napster that led to a revised version being released in the US (and globally) in early 2001. By this point, I had given in and realized I had become one of "those people" and planned to spend my vacation seeing Journey on the first week of their Arrival Tour regardless of where it may be. This led to two things -- me spending a week driving through New Mexico and Texas (NEVER AGAIN) and in my new role as a JourneyDigest.com contributor, promising to post the set lists to the Journey Digest for everyone to see. The Rockin' Road Report was born.

I traveled a lot in the summer of 2001. A good friend from high school had moved to the wilds of West Virginia and was feeling so isolated she sent me a list of Journey shows within driving distance of where she lived to entice me to visit. Feeling guilty that I had to be so bribed, I set off for West Virginia and a show in Pittsburgh. I also booked myself for every single show in California while ALSO helping to organize the first Journey Past & Present event in San Francisco. My assignment was working with the attendees because I was the one who'd traveled the most and had met most of the people we invited to this first little event. There were only about 15 of us, but we managed to pack a lot in to one weekend. We took some people down to Hanford, the central valley town where Steve Perry grew up on one day, toured The Plant studios in Sausalito the next, and managed to fit in two Journey concerts in Mountain View and Sacramento. That was the last simple JPP.

Things went so well with our first JPP event, that we decided to expand it in 2002 when we had about 40 people tour Fantasy Studios in Berkeley then trek up to Clear Lake for a luncheon and concert at Konocti Harbor Resort. It was during the planning for JPP2002 that we got the idea for Bammies Walk of Fame (after setting aside the Hollywood Walk of Fame for the moment.) Darla, Cheryl, Emerson, Mary Ann, Leslie F. & I had completely fallen into the role of part-time Journey PR/Fan Club operators and that was really only the beginning. It was an insane amount of work we were doing in our free time out of our sheer love for the band that had given us so much through their music.

In my role of fan contact point, my on-line presence in Journey-land grew even more and led to some interesting experiences. One I'll never forget is being at a pre-show barbeque at someone's house outside of Chicago with a large group of Back Talkers, some I knew, some I didn't. While chatting with one of the folks I knew, one of the other guests walked up to me and said "Oh YOU'RE MNM! So nice to meet you!" I'm pretty sure I responded politely with a similar greeting, but in my head I'm thinking "Who the hell are you and how the hell do you know who I am?!" My small community notoriety taught me quickly -- I'm glad I never had any desire to be famous! It was a very weird feeling, especially since by this time I had met so many people across the country at various Journey shows I was having a hard time remembering everyone's name and face. Still, it was nice to know that, should I so desire, I could probably find a place to crash in every major city in the country! The internet can be a weird place, but it was also a place I was able to find so many new friends it was worth some of the weirdness.

When the hordes of fans descended on San Francisco in April 2003 for JPP2003 and the Bammies Walk of Fame I got to experience one of my favorite moments in my Journey journeys. Beyond the feeling of accomplishment it took to get it done after a year's hard work and seeing the general joy the other fans were having, I got my biggest kick during the post-show/event hang outs in the JPP hotel suites. It was then that I actually got time to sit down and relax and talk with people instead of running around making sure things ran smoothly. There was the night with the crew from Kansas City hanging out into the wee hours of the morning and the following night with some local Bay Area fans. Those are memories that are burned into my brain.

JPP2005 in Hollywood was another crazy crazy weekend with now about 150 people in attendance (double JPP2003) and it got impossible to see and chat and visit with everyone that I would have liked. There was just so much going on with so many people that when I recently re-watched the DVD from that weekend I had a hard time putting names to faces. I did get to visit some with some people, but no where near as much as I would have liked and that is still one of the things I wish could have gone differently that weekend.

Things changed a bit after Hollywood. A combination of Journey burnout from six straight years of planning fan conventions, changes in the band, changes in online communications, and the growing expense of traveling saw me pull back a lot from the Journey community. I still see my local friends, but losing Darla in 2008 was an emotional blow that still leaves a big hole, especially when I'm at a Journey related event.

So now Journey is finally getting inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame -- yet another project that I spent some time on in the early 2000s -- and I'm flying off to New York for the ceremony. Not going was not an option. And with all of that the thing I'm most looking forward to is seeing some of those friends I met along the way. There's about 20 of us getting together for lunch before the ceremonies and at least another half dozen folks who will be in town for the show that I hope I can meet up with during the weekend.

There were a lot of adventures and experiences criss-crossing the backroads of Journeyland between the fateful day Trial by Fire was released and when I stopped my Journey journeys after the 2006 tour. The thing I still value above it all isn't the opportunities I got to meet and get to know the band a bit but the opportunities I got to meet and get to know so many of my fellow fans. It's a truly great bunch of people I've gotten to know over the years. Even if we don't see each other or even stay in touch as much as we once did, I will always cherish the times spent with everyone I met (even some of the odd ones.) So, to my Journey fan friends around the globe I say:

Don't stop believin'...

We Will Meet Again.

September 4, 2016: San Francisco Fest on the Green

San Francisco, CA
AT&T Park

Wow.... Just, wow. What a great weekend. It was as trip back in time on so many different levels. Things started out on Saturday night when we managed to get a group of 13 Journey fans together for a night-before dinner at Rosa Mexicano in San Francisco. We had a pretty good mix of locals and out of towners and it was go great to spend time talking and laughing with friends. Once I stopped road-tripping for Journey after 2006, this was the thing I missed the most. Sure, I had a ridiculous number of opportunities to meet, talk, and visit with the various members of my favorite band, but that was never my goal -- it was the frosting. The cake was meeting and making new friends who had the same love for Journey that I did and along the way we were able to have so many happy times and make lasting friendships.

The gang at Rosa Mexicana

Saturday night was much like so many of the pre-show parties I attended between 1998-2006. So, Adriana, Jenn, Barb, Valerie P. it was great hanging with you all. Cheryl, remind Charles he is on our list for not showing up! Hope, Jenny, and Darryl glad you could drive in from the Central Valley. Leslie, Linda, Walt, and Emerson -- we have GOT to get our act together and see each other more often! And special shout out to the attendant at the parking lot where I parked my car who waved off the $10 parking charge for me when the credit card reader wouldn't work! Woo hoo! Free parking in downtown San Francisco! SCORE!

When Journey announced their tour plans for 2016 back in November, the original schedule didn't have a San Francisco date. A bit annoying and with Steve Smith back touring with the band for the first time since 1983, I wasn't going to wait to find out when a San Francisco date would be added and hit the road for the tour opener in Irvine in May. Then March rolled around and WOW what a way to end the tour -- a Day on the Green-like show at AT&T Park with Tower of Power, the Steve Miller Band, the Doobie Brothers, Santana, and Journey! This was going to be one epic night of Bay Area legends! Especially since I was too young to go to the original Days on the Green shows featuring Journey in the early 80s.

So, Sunday rolled around and Ana Marie made the trek down from Sacramento to join me for the show. We met at my place and headed out to grab a quick lunch before getting on CalTrain to meet people at AT&T. I had suggested a meet-up at the Willie Mays statue in front of the park at 2:00 for a quick group photo and chat before the show started, so I wanted to be sure to be on the 12:48 train that arrived in San Francisco at 1:38, especially since when I'd checked the schedule for Sunday there weren't any plans for extra trains and the next train would be at 1:48 (arriving at 2:38.) We got to the train station a couple of minutes before the train was due and as we were walking to the platform I noticed my phone was missing! Ack! Quick jog back to the car to see if it had fallen out of my bag and not left at home. Yep, there was my phone sitting on the back seat. Run back to the station and get up to the platform and see that the train is running about 10 minutes late. Not a huge surprise, it tends to run behind when there are large crowds. There were a lot more people at the station than I had anticipated and when the train pulled in, we were all in for a surprise. The train was PACKED! They let about half of the people on the platform on the train before the conductor said the train was full! Fortunately she also let us know another added train was coming about 20 minutes behind.

We finally got on the train about 1:20 -- it was crowded, but not full and Ana and I were able to get a couple of seats -- and off to San Francisco. We got to the city about 2:10 and headed up to the ballpark and I could not believe the number of people everywhere! I've been to Opening Day and playoff games at AT&T a bunch of times and those were the only times I could compare it to. Maybe a bobblehead day back when the Giants only gave away 20,000 instead of 40,000. Lines everywhere! People everywhere! I knew immediately there would be no way we could meet up with people at Willie Mays in the masses of people. Ana and I did a quick circuit around the statue to make sure no one was waiting on us then headed over to the merch booth to pick up some swag. I spent too much money, but it was worth it! We got in line and waited to get through security. The lines were pretty long, but moved at a pretty good pace. Usually before baseball games they open the gates two hours before the scheduled first pitch, but on Sunday there was only an hour between the opening of the gates and the start of the show which explains why the lines were so crazy.

We were probably in our seats by 2:45 for the 3:00 start. Tower of Power was up first and put on a great set of soul and R&B with fantastic harmonies and their amazing horn section. They didn't have a very long set list, but covered the big hits which I always forget just how well I know them. They closed out with "You're Still a Young Man" and "What Is Hip," but I think my favorite tune is still "So Very Hard to Go."

Hail Hail the gang's mostly here!
(photo courtesy Darryl Croffoot)

After TOP, it was a dash up to the World Series trophy case to see if we could meet up with some friends (and no, Darryl, it wasn't to rub into the face of Dodger fans!) I had inadvertently picked the absolutely perfect spot as right next to the trophy case (with the beautiful triplets in their full glory on display) was a big back drop for group photos! Leslie F. was there when we arrived as were Matt, Wendy, Darryl, and Jenny. Eventually Cheryl, Scott, Adriana, and Jenn joined us and we all got in line to get our picture taken. We all chatted for a bit and then the Doobie Brothers took the stage, so we all dashed off to our seats.

We missed the first song or two, but Ana and I kicked back and enjoyed some more classics. Like in Irvine, the crowd wasn't completely up on their feet until the end of the set with "China Grove" and "Listen to the Music." I actually spent part of this set texting with a few people, but most importantly with Darla's daughter Telysa. If there was anyone at the show I absolutely HAD to connect with it was Telysa and her husband Rob. We've done a pretty good job at staying in touch via Facebook since Darla died, but an absolutely miserable job of seeing each other in person. We agreed to meet back at the trophy case between the Doobies and Steve Miller, so once the Doobies' set was done, off Ana and I went to meet Telysa and Rob.

We had a really nice visit and wound up missing most of Steve Miller's set, which was fine by pretty much all of us. I'm not a huge Steve Miller fan and I saw him a couple of years ago (last year?) with Journey so I was good. We took this break to grab a bite to eat before we headed back to our respective seats for the last few songs of the set. What I really wanted was to be set and ready to go for the next two acts -- Santana and Journey!

Before I get to the two headliners, a bit about the crowd. This was definitely an older crowd -- many of whom I'm sure attended those great Day on the Green shows back in the day -- but wow what a lot of energy. People were dancing and singing all over the place. It was clear everyone was having a fantastic time with all these local legends. I'm pretty sure that I saw a post on Twitter or Facebook after the show was over that there were 50,000 people at the show making it the largest crowd in AT&T Park's history (since baseball seating is about 42,000, that would be impressive.) I know I was amazed seeing people sitting in the far left field seats on the main and club levels -- those seats are totally angled the wrong way for the stage set up. And there were a smattering of people in the left field seats in the upper deck too -- though I suspect they may have been staff and/or folks wanting to get away from the crowd a bit. Still, those seats face home plate, not center field where the stage was. The field was completely filled (sorry Giants! I hope it's not too wrecked when you get back from this road trip!) and about half of the arcade seats above the right field wall were filled in too. Only the bleachers behind the stage in center field were completely empty! And with all those people at an all day concert, I didn't notice one bit of trouble. I'm sure there probably was some, but for the most part, it was just a great night out listening to great music

While waiting for Santana to come on stage I noticed the set up -- even from a distance it didn't look like a Hammond B3 was set up anywhere. That's strange, I thought, aren't Gregg and Neal and some (all?) of the other original members going to join the show? That was the implication I got when the show was announced shortly after the dual headlining Journey/Santana shows in New York this spring. Well, I figured, you're sitting pretty far from the stage, maybe you just can't see the organ.

Alas, my first instinct was right, and Gregg and Neal didn't join Carlos and the current line up of Santana for the show. Once I got over that little disappointment, I was able to really enjoy the set. Carlos has two guys on vocals and they did an amazing job harmonizing and trading lead on a variety of songs. Most of the set list was either stuff from the multi-platinum Supernatural album ("Maria, Maria", "Corazón Espinado", "Smooth") or classic original Santana ("Jingo", "Evil Ways", "Soul Sacrifice", "Black Magic Woman", "Oye Como Va".) Carlos's brother Jorge joined in mid-set and played the Malo hit "Suavecito" which was absolutely fantastic! I did rather laugh to myself whenever one of the classic-era songs was played -- I've never heard anyone but Gregg Rolie sing those tunes! And they sounded just a bit off with the programmed keyboard rather than the original Hammond B3 organ. One of the closing highlights of the set was the amazing drum solo by Cindy Blackman Santana. She is one bad ass drummer!

The show was running pretty smoothly and more or less on time until a couple of people came out to speak between Santana and Journey. The long and the short of it -- this show was a memorial/tribute to the late Bill Graham who had orchestrated so many great shows back in the day and most memorably the Days on the Green, some of the money from the ticket sales was going to the Bill Graham Foundation which supports local art and music programs, and that the show sold out completely in ONE DAY! Go old people music!

Journey came out to close out the epic evening of music and played a condensed version of the set list they played in Irvine back in May. As I let the music wash over me, I felt a lot of stress and tension leave my body. It had been a particularly stressful week at work leading up to the show and I needed a night like this more than ever. A couple of poignant moments came with Neal's two solos. His first, early in the set, was "Taps" followed by the "Star Spangled Banner" (most everyone was standing) which I'm sure was a partial tribute to his mom who passed away a couple of weeks ago and whose memorial service had been on Saturday. The second solo was definitely a tribute to his mom with "Amazing Grace" and I'm pretty sure a chunk of "Beyond the Clouds" from the Generations album. It was pretty powerful. Another highlight came fairly early in the set when Neal stepped up to the mic to introduce "Lights" which he said was a song he wrote with "Steven Perry" and then cracked "Steve are you here tonight? He's here a lot you know. Steve, if you're here, come on up!" (For those unaware, Steve Perry is a big Giants fan and has been in attendance pretty frequently over the last 5-6 years.) I laughed and leaned over to Ana and said "He usually sits up there" and pointed to the club level section next to the broadcast booth. Yeah, this Journey/Giants fan knows where Steve Perry usually sits (and hell, nearly ran smack dab in to the man back in 2010!) Neal also encouraged folks to light up their phones and wow... the stadium looked AMAZING with all the phones waving through out the song about our beloved home town. "Lights" is always the best when played at home in the Bay Area. To be in the city proper, sitting on the shore of the bay... couldn't get any better. I know I'll be picturing that scene every time the Giants play "Lights" during the 8th inning (of course, they need to start winning a few games for that to happen! ARGH are they frustrating right now!)

I ran out to the restroom during "La Do Da" so I wound up missing about half of Steve Smith's solo, but the part I did catch was amazing. As the set was winding down, the lady behind me started getting very worried, they hadn't played "Don't Stop Believin'" yet. I turned around and said "Don't worry, they will." And blammo, right on the heels of "Faithfully" there it was. The crowd went nuts -- or at least as much of the crowd as was left. Lots of folks headed out early for one reason or another. I'll never understand that, especially when the next day is a holiday that most people have off.

The show wrapped up with "Lovin', Touchin', Squeezin'" and then it was the mad dash back to the train station to catch the express to Belmont. We made it in plenty of time and even managed to grab a couple of seats. Ana and I rehashed the show all the way home (and even a bit afterwards before Ana made the trek back to Sac.) This was such a fun and amazing weekend that was so reminiscent of all those shows I took in over a decade ago now. I've said all along that the thing I miss most about my Journey journeys is getting to hang with all the amazing people I've met over the years. This weekend just reinforced that feeling. It was SO great to catch up with people I haven't seen in a while and a big bummer to not get to see everyone. Journey peeps -- you rock!

Set lists (all but Journey's courtesy of Setlist.fm, so any errors are not mine)

Tower of Power
We Came to Play
Soul With a Capital "S"
You Ought to Be Havin' Fun
Get Yo' Feet Back on the Ground
So Very Hard to Go
Soul Vaccination
You're Still a Young Man
What Is Hip?

Doobie Brothers
Jesus Is Just Alright
Rockin' Down the Highway
Take Me in Your Arms (Rock Me a Little While)
Dark Eyed Cajun Woman
Spirit
Sweet Maxine
Eyes of Silver
Clear as the Driven Snow
Bill Payne keyboard solo
Takin' It to the Streets
The Doctor
Black Water
Long Train Runnin'
China Grove

Encore:
Without You (I'm not sure this was played as I only remember one song in the encore)
Listen to the Music

Steve Miller

 I Want to Make the World Turn Around
Serenade
Shu Ba Da Du Ma Ma Ma Ma
Winter Time
Jungle Love
Take the Money and Run
Abracadabra
Dance Dance Dance
The Stake
Fly Like an Eagle
Swingtown
Jet Airliner
Rock'n Me

Encore:
Space Cowboy / The Joker

Santana

Toussaint L'Ouverture
Foo Foo
Maria Maria
Corazón Espinado
Jingo
Evil Ways
Soul Sacrifice
Suavecito (Malo cover) (with Jorge Santana)
Crystal Blue Persuasion (with Jorge Santana)
Black Magic Woman/Gypsy Queen (I don't remember hearing Gypsy Queen)
Oye Como Va
Smooth (with Jorge Santana)

Band introductions -- "Roxanne" (Police cover) sung by one of the guitarists, was quite fun!

Love, Peace and Happiness

Journey

Intro
Separate Ways
Be Good to Yourself
Only the Young
- Neal solo 1 - Taps/Star Spangled Banner
Stone in Love
Any Way You Want It
Lights
- Jon solo -
Open Arms
Who's Crying Now
Escape
La Do Da
- Smitty solo -
- Neal solo 2 - Amazing Grace/Beyond the Clouds
Wheel in the Sky
Faithfully
Don't Stop Believin'

Encore:
Lovin', Touchin', Squeezin'

JPP Meeting Minutes

August 22, 2014: So, you saw the agenda for our final Journey Past & Present 2005 meeting. What was the end result? Well, here are the minutes from that meeting. (Yes, we took minutes and recorded them. This was serious business folks!) You'll notice several tasks for Cheryl to do upon her trip to LA and the House of Blues. At the time, there were several Soul SirkUS concerts the week before JPP2005 in Hollywood. Cheryl was planning to attend the one at the House of Blues and thus able to do some advance work for us. Deen Castronovo got seriously ill and the Soul SirkUS concerts had to be postponed. It turned out to be a blessing in disguise. While it was disappointing that we didn't get to go to those shows when we planned and Cheryl was unable to do the final LA scouting, we had so many things to do before that trip to LA that two or three concerts probably would have put all of us in the hospital. (That's not a particularly large exaggeration either, every member of the committee was sick upon returning from Hollywood!)
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Shew... long meeting, lots of notes. I've put a To Do list at the end, but I may have forgotten some things so feel free to add to it. Rob, in particular the program notes -- I was busy flipping pages around and didn't jot too many notes. As always, comments, changes, and additions welcome.

Sunday, January 2, 10:00 a.m. - 1:00 p.m. (PST); Teleconference 

Committee members present: Mary Ann Bohne, Emerson Dong, Darla Ellis, Leslie Forsythe, Michelle Murray, Rob Rennert, Cheryl Simien, & Leslie White

I. JPP Agenda
     A. Wednesday -- prep work
          1. Who arrives when?
               -- Mary Ann: lands 11:30 a.m. LAX
               -- Cheryl: Approx 1:00 p.m. via Burbank
               -- MNM: Approx 2:00 p.m. via car
               -- Darla & Emerson: Approx 2:00 p.m. via car
               -- Leslie W.: Approx 5:00 p.m. via car/Anaheim
               -- Rob: lands 10:15 p.m. LAX (pending attending)
               -- Leslie F.: Arrives Thursday morning via Burbank
           2. What needs to be done?
               -- Assemble goodie bags
     B. Thursday -- registration 4-10 p.m.
          1. Schedule committee members to work reg table
               -- 2-hour shifts, 2 committee members per shift.
               -- Informal dinner at many restaurants at H&H complex
          2. How to handle auction/raffle
               -- Recruit volunteers to sell raffle tickets at registration table (2-hour shifts)
               -- MNM post-meeting thought: Need to be there to set up BEFORE 4:00.
               3:00 for committee??
               -- Cheryl & Darla to investigate "big ticket" item for silent auction
               (extra $$ for overhead?)
     C. Friday -- BIG DAY
         1. Overall Timeline
               -- 8-9:30 a.m. = Continuing registration (if necessary)
               -- 10-11 a.m = Travel to Star Ceremony (on their own)
               -- 11:30-12:30 = Star Ceremony (length approx.)
               -- 12:30-1:00 = Travel to Star Party (on their own)
               -- 1-4 = Star Party at the Highlands
               -- 4-6:30 = free time
               -- 6:30-6:45 = load buses
               -- 6:45-7:15 = Travel to House of Blues
               -- 7:15-11 = Concert (end time approx.)
               -- 11-11:30 = Return to Renaissance Hotel
           2. How to handle star ceremony
               a. Getting Fans to/from
                    -- Fans are on their own getting to the ceremony
                    -- MNM still concerned about losing people. While I know it will be
                    impossible to troop everyone down at once AND knowing people
                    are going to go early since we don't have a reserved spot, something
                    bothers me about this scenario. Also, like the idea of having the whole
                    group in one spot like in SF.
               b. Getting good spots for 145 people
                    -- Unless Hollywood Chamber of Commerce changes their mind about a
                    roped off area, hope for the best.
          3. How to handle reception
               -- We didn't address this (at least not in my notes) MNM concerned about
               getting fans in to club on time. Band may not be there long and late
               arrivals will not be happy if the band leaves before they arrive.
               -- We need to have a committee member (or two) at the door checking
               people in as they arrive.
               -- Any committee members arriving early to check on set up?
          4. Travel to HOB
               -- If attendees miss the bus, they will not get in with the rest of the group.
               -- Item not discussed = assigning bus numbers to attendees so we can
               track them. MNM to do using roommate list as basis for grouping people.
               No other concerted effort to keep specific groups together -- part of the
               objective is to meet new people! Committee members will be split up by
               room = MNM/Leslie W./Mary Ann; Darla/Emerson/Rob;
               Cheryl/Leslie F./Cat to track bus loads.
          5. Concert
               -- HOB expecting us to arrive no later than 7:15
               -- We should be let in approx 7:40
               -- Main doors open 8:00
               -- Concert starts approx 9:00
          6. Return from HOB
               -- 5 hours of bus time, period. Let attendees know if they miss the return
               bus (or want to stay late) they will be responsible for their own
               transportation back to hotel.

II. Reception Issues
     A. Speech(es) at the Reception
          -- MNM to do Welcome to JPP. Committee members on dais (or near mic stand
          as the case may be) at same time
          -- Present band with gifts. (Might help with that photo op we must have.)
     B. Menu
          -- Polls closing today. Run-off for desserts
     C. Band & Band Guests
          -- Design/print tickets for band and band guests. Give to Cat and/or JT to give
          to band to give to friends and family they want at the reception. 50?

III. Budget Issues
     A. Budget status report
          -- Good news! Found another tweaked number when I looked at it again when
          I got home. We now have a $30 surplus rather than a $150 shortfall.
          -- Only budget items available to "tweak" are program, passport, & video and
          not much wiggle room there
          -- I calculated today's teleconference at $108 (4 participant numbers x 180
          minutes x $0.15 per minute). Including the $55 from the last teleconference
          that's $163.00 on my Visa bill. Applied the $55 towards my deposit, but we
          may be cash strapped if that's the case. Will transfer full $215 registration
          from my personal account into JPP Checking account today and will apply
          the $163 to my "eat it" funds. If we have enough cash at the end of all
          expenses, I will ask for at least partial reimbursement.
     B. Band Gifts
         -- Cost is approximately $400 ($371 including tax, but adding one additional
          and may have some name overage costs.) MNM will come up with estimate
          for fundraising.
          -- MNM to post to attendee list fiscal scenario for band gifts and ask for
          donations to the cause. Include link to photo of star and text to be printed on
          front.
          -- Add a gold foil sticker to front that says "Presented by Journey Past &
          Present Committee & Attendees" (or words to that affect). HOW to do this??
          -- MNM thought on the way home -- buy gift bags & tissue paper to pack.
          Small gift cards?

IV. Status Reports
     A. Program
          -- Reviewed page by page. Rob has notes.
          -- Emerson to get captures of Rolie, Dunbar, Jackson & Baird for film strips
          page.
     B. Passports
          -- Change 1 autograph page to map/directions page
          -- Add Schon Girls bowling & Rock Walk field trip times
     C. T-shirts
          -- Waiting to sign off on proof. Delivery on time expected
     D. Goodie Bags
          -- Purchased goodie bags look like Hefty bags. Leslie F. to investigate
          alternatives
     E. Lapel pins & magnets
          -- Magnets arrived safe and sound in So. Cal. No horrendous problems
          -- Lapel pins on order
     F. Buses
          -- MNM to send payment/confirmation this week
     G. Highlands
          -- MNM to confirm with Margaux -- menu, band access, etc.
          -- Cheryl to take Cat to see club in LA next weekend
     H. Hotels
          -- Room requirements met
          -- Leslie F. to make final arrangements on signage, registration, & bus pick up

V. Other Issues
     A. Minors and the concert?
          -- No flexibility on the 18+ rule
          -- Cheryl to investigate diligence of ID check next weekend
     B. Videotaping
          -- Ceremony: Need/want press pass(es) for camera set up. Emerson to call
          Hollywood Chamber of Commerce re: details and technical requirements.
          -- Highlands: Have permission to film
          -- House of Blues: Ask permission from band AND HOB to film for posterity. If
          band says OK, see if they'll pick up some of the video tape expense.
          -- Emerson to confirm equipment rental costs
     C. Things to do on Saturday
          -- Schon Girls Bowling
          -- Field Trip to Rock Walk. (Walking Tour?? -- just a post meeting thought. Find
          an interesting route.)
          -- Cheryl to find out what's happening in LA that night if possible while at
          Soul SirkUS.
     D. Rock Walk
          -- See above
     E. Tasks for Cheryl's trip to LA
          1. HOB scout out
               -- ID
               -- Soundboard set up
               -- Where to line up/pre-show access
               -- Where to have bus pick up/drop off (MNM thought on drive home)
               -- Dress code, general environment
          2. What's happening in LA on Saturday?
               -- Who's playing at clubs?
               -- Other items of interest?
     F. What to wear when.
          -- Registration = JPP T-shirts and ID badges ("Committee" on badge)
          -- Star Ceremony/Reception = business casual
          -- Concert = Comfy!
     G. Requests for goodies from cancellations -- specifically DVD.
          -- Only 2, so go for it.
     H. New Business (dear god, no!)
          -- Include Randy Jackson in star award, just in case he shows.

TO DO LIST
1. Prepare registration table schedule
2. Prepare flier of miscellaneous information (e.g. Schon girls bowling, entrance to the Highlands, bus loading procedures.)
3. Recruit volunteers for raffle table
4. MNM to prepare welcome speech
5. Design & print guest passes for "reception only" people (band guests)
6. Finalize menu/Reception issues
7. Order band gifts, pray for funds
8. MNM to send email for donations
9. Purchase/design gold foil stickers for band gifts
10. Finalize program & order by 1/9/05
11. Finalize passports & order by 1/9/05
12. Receive pending orders (T-shirts & lapel pins)
13. MNM to confirm buses
14. Prepare bus assignments
15. Notify those traveling with minors of possible complications (pending Cheryl's investigation at HOB)