Evolution and Departure -- Looking Back at 2005 Through 2007

November 26, 2014

As has been the case from the minute I started copying these old tales from the bowels of my computer and putting them all together in this blog, I re-read all of the stories and events as they transpired more or less in chronological order (not to mention getting side tracked with old emails, news articles, and god knows what else.) Going from the highest of highs in January 2005 with Journey receiving their star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, through the chaos that surrounded the band in 2006, and ultimately to 2007 which saw no Journey tour for the first time since 2000 and left the band with out a lead singer for the second time in a year. That was a complete roller coaster of events, and I've yet to get to all that transpired in 2008 (a year burned so vividly in my brain that I can't forget it no matter how much I wish I could.) It was odd to relive many of those emotions again in 2014.

The thing I remember most about 2006 is feeling burned out by Journey. Having helped organize 4 fan conventions of growing magnitude over the course of 5 years and planning yet another for that year was finally catching up with me. It seemed that all of my free time was being consumed by Journey and I was in need of a break. Journey started their tour in Europe that year, and when they started talking about the tour, I thought about flying half way around the world to catch them. As it turned out, the dates the tour started conflicted with some family commitments, but having started thinking about spending my summer vacation in the UK and Ireland, I decided I needed a vacation more than another Journey concert and arrived in London a week after Journey had come through.

Another objective of my three week vacation was to unplug from the Internet. Other than a couple of emails to my mother letting her know where I was heading and a few others to friends I was meeting on my travels, I pretty much avoided everything. Visiting with a few of my Journey buddies (though unfortunately not all) did get me some gossip and tales, but for the most part I was out of the loop when the US leg of the tour began and Steve Augeri had to drop out of the tour and all the chaos and craziness that surrounded that began. When I returned to the States, I caught up somewhat with what had happened while I was out of the country, but was so tired of the chronic bickering and battling that I eased out some what. I was beginning to understand what Steve Perry meant about re-entering the earth's atmosphere without heat shields. I was in Journey over load.

We pulled off another successful JPP, though a vastly lower threshold of excitement than we'd had in 2005. By the end of 2006, Steve Augeri was officially out and Jeff Scott Soto was named his replacement. I was less than thrilled and decided I was done with my road tripping around the country for Journey shows. It was an expensive hobby and after seeing four shows with Jeff on lead, it wasn't working for me and not worth the time and expense.

That Jeff was let go six months later -- announced literally the day after "Don't Stop Believin'" closed out the finale of The Sopranos, an event that gave Journey HUGE exposure -- added to the burn out. With no Journey tour that year and a reunited Police, I took my traveling to them and spent a lot of time on their message boards. The Police fans were so happy and excited that their band had reunited when everyone on the planet had expected hell to freeze over before that happened, I soaked up all their positive energy. While the Police weren't "my" band, I had been a fan for years and I totally understood the feeling those fans had. I know I talked about it with several of them, including likening it to the ill fated Journey reunion with Steve Perry in 1996. I loved that feeling.

So I spent 2007 mostly seeing bands I'd never seen before (or hadn't seen in over 20 years) and wrote up a few reports for friends along the way. My status as a Journey "super fan" started to fade then, and has continued to do so ever since. Oh, I'm still a fan of the band and will continue to see them when they play in a reasonable proximity to home, but the days of cross-country travel and fan conventions are long behind me now. I do miss getting to see the many friends I made between 1998 and 2006 and try to keep up with as many as I can and every once and a while I think "maybe I should try to put together a JPP Family Reunion one of these years." No big fancy get together, no recording studio tours, no receptions with the band, no group seating at the concert. Nothing like that, just a nice, simple family picnic. Bring your blanket and something to share and hang out and chat about old times and new.

Perhaps I'll do that one year (if I can get what's left of "the band" back together.) For now, I can look back at a really fun time of my life and think, yeah, it was totally worth it all.

October 25-26, 2007: The Magic of Springsteen

Oakland, CA
Oracle Arena

Had a great end of the week this week, taking in both of the shows Bruce Springsteen & the E Street Band put on here in Oakland Thursday and Friday nights. For openers, I have this to say...

BRUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUCE!!!

Anyone who's ever seen a Springsteen show knows that they are always high energy, great time, rock and roll shows. This past week was no different with two incredible nights. The Friday night show went on sale first and I got a ticket the minute the show went on sale and was a little disappointed that the best seat I could get was a seat to the side of the stage, so when the Thursday night show was added about 2 weeks ago I said "gotta try again!" Best I could do for THAT show was BEHIND the stage. Well, hell. Fortunately, what I thought would be a disappointment seat-wise, turned out to be anything but.

Thursday night I raced to BART from work, but even if traffic had been breezy smooth, work to the Millbrae BART station plus the ride to the Coliseum station is still a 2 hour trek! UGH, no time for dinner and please oh please oh please don't have a line for will call or I'm gonna be wiped out before the show even starts! Fortunately got through will call in record time so grabbed something to eat inside and went to take my seat. Lesson one -- Row 27 behind the stage is NOT a bad seat -- the rows start at about number 15. Turned out that my seat was dead center of the row right behind the stage AND was the last row in the section with wall behind me so I could stand and dance all I wanted with no one throwing things behind me! Woo hoo! (Of course, I had forgotten that Bruce really doesn't allow sitting at his shows and makes sure everyone is standing up!) So 7:30 comes and goes and of course the show doesn't start when the ticket said it would. 8:00 comes and goes and the two seats to my left and four seats to my right are still totally empty. Could it be that I've got a huge chunk of space all to my self at a near-sell out show?! Yep, it could be -- I had a ton of room to dance and bop around all night long.

8:15 Bruce and the band came out in total darkness and then kicked straight in to "Radio Nowhere" from his new CD Magic. If you've not heard it yet, it's just a kick ass rock song and great opener. The show rolled on from there and I had a great view of the band, the stage, and the CROWD. Kinda felt like a rock star myself looking out at what the guys on stage were seeing. Naturally, the crowd goes wild. If you've never been to a Springsteen concert, you really don't know what you're missing. I was up and dancing from the first note and barely sat all night long. There was a group of people a ways down the row from me and one of the guys kept coming over to dance and high five at different parts of the show. There's just that much energy going on.

Thursday night's set list was filled with new material -- 9 of the 12 songs on Magic were played, plus a song off Patti Scialfa's new CD. That made 10 of the 20+ songs totally new and reasonably unfamiliar to the audience and while the band played the hell out of them with enough energy to keep the crowd with them, the energy of the crowd wasn't the level of previous shows I'd seen. The album's only been out for three weeks (wasn't Bruce nice to give me a present for my birthday?) and I've played the hell out of it since I got it and I probably know about 75% of the words to 75% of the songs. Most other people in the crowd knew far less. That didn't stop him from having the crowd sing back on "Girls in Summer Clothes" during the encore. And ya know, I loved it. Too many established performers don't believe enough in their new material and/or their fans to really go out and sell it to them on stage, which considering that's how so many legendary acts got famous in the first place. If you've got it, play it, believe in it, work the crowd so they're into it.

The crowd Thursday night did get into the new material, though not like they did with the old familiar favorites where they would sing along and drown out Bruce at points. The show closed out with a rousing version of "Badlands" which had all 20,000 people singing along at the top of their lungs and, to my mind, has one of the greatest lines in rock history -- "For the ones who had a notion/A notion deep inside/That it ain't no sin/To be glad you're alive" and the crowd WAS so alive.

Of course, no Springsteen show is over until you hear "Born to Run" and that was the third song of the 5-song encore (following "Thunder Road" which the audience ALMOST took over on, but lost the lyric somewhere in the first verse). With full house lights on and everyone singing along I could watch that every night. He closed out the night with "Dancing in the Dark" (ironically with the full house lights still on) and an Irish jig of a tune he wrote as part of his Seeger Sessions work "American Land" which was just great fun. Headed back to BART for the hour ride home and got ready to do it all again on Friday night and had a nice bookend moment to my night as "Born to Run" was the last tune played on my iPod as I pulled into the Millbrae station.

I wasn't nearly as harried getting to the show on Friday as I had been the night before and when I got to my side-view seat, I was again pleasantly surprised. Close to the stage, on the aisle of a 3-seat row. I chatted with the couple sitting next to me before the show started and it was the wife's first time at a Springsteen show and she was so excited it was incredible. I told her that the show the night before had been fantastic and she'd really enjoy it but she'd have to calm down a little since the band wouldn't take the stage until 8:15.

Once again Bruce and band came out and kicked off with "Radio Nowhere" and followed it up with one of my all time favorite tunes "No Surrender" from the Born in the USA album. I love love love that song and my night was completely made by then. The set list on Friday was significantly different than Thursday night -- only 6 new songs and no Patti song. According to his official website, they debuted three songs on Friday night -- "Two Hearts", "Racing in the Street", and "Working on the Highway." Every one of them played to perfection. Making that change in the set put even more energy into the sell-out crowd and people were on their feet most of the night dancing and singing along.

The energy level on Friday night was definitely higher than Thursday, and the response to the new songs was stronger, especially for the moving rocker "Last to Die" and the catchy "Living in the Future". It's pretty incredible when you look down the set lists for this tour (which can be found here*) and you see the catalog of songs performed. Between the radio hits and the concert anthems, there's just not a weak point anywhere in this show, no songs where you think "okay, I'm a bit tired of this one, move along please."

I was talking to one of my co-workers before heading out to the shows this week and he was telling me how he doesn't particularly enjoy concerts as they seldom live up to his expectations. Having seen Springsteen about 6 times now -- both with and with out the E Street Band -- I can say I have never been disappointed, usually it's beyond my expectations. I also recognized that one thing I take away from most any concert I attend is that two hours (or more) of stress free, live in the moment, let the music wash over you joy. Makes it worth every penny of the over priced concert tickets (though I will say at $93 before fees, Springsteen is pretty reasonable considering what he could charge) and hassles of transportation.

Finally, if you've never seen Springsteen, what the hell are you waiting for? Go. Now. I promise you will have a great time.

*The original link went to Bruce's official website which will post set lists for the shows, but it appears they've pulled anything before 2009, so that goes to the fan-zine Backstreets which pulls reports from fans.

September 18, 2007: An Unplanned Review

Concord, CA
Sleep Train Pavilion at Concord

Normally, I probably wouldn't bother with a RRR for this show, but there were sufficient things happening last night in Concord I thought I'd shoot out a quick report.

A Tuesday night show in Concord is not the greatest plan to have as it's a 50+ mile drive through the worst traffic in the Bay Area and ends with an 8-mile stretch of road that is always seriously congested before a concert. Miraculously, it only took me a little over two hours to get there -- including stopping for gas and to grab a sandwich! Gobbled down my dinner and met Leslie, Darla and Emerson at the show and headed on in.

I had expected Foreigner to open and they were really why I had decided to pick up a ticket for this show since this year I had planned to only see groups I'd never seen before (or haven't seen in 20 years), so I was quite surprised to see Styx take the stage shortly before the 7:00 start time! Just as they were taking the stage, Leslie tapped me on the shoulder and pointed out Mary Valory entering the show. Styx kicked it in gear and I looked around at the sparse crowd -- I'm betting a lot of people were expecting Foreigner to open -- and who should I see strolling down the aisle one section over from me, but Jonathan Cain! My turn to nudge Leslie and point. Guess he headed over after his little performance in San Ramon!

Styx blazed through their set which was a condensed version of every other show I've seen of theirs in the past 5-6 years. It was pretty good, though I think I've seen them better. Of course I was distracted quite a bit between people watching, checking in with friends via text messages, and getting interrupted by a call from work, so my inability to really get into the set may have been entirely my fault.

Between Styx and Foreigner, Darla and Leslie decided to go say hi to Jon, so I made a mad dash after them and tallied another "god I'm a geek" moment. Didn't really get to chat at all -- it was just a quick "hi, good to see ya" kind of thing. Was cool to see him in his seat through all three sets though!

I was really curious about the new Foreigner line up and was completely blown away when they took the stage. They kicked some serious ass! Truly incredible performance. Their new singer (whose name I've forgotten) was unreal and, in a truly surreal moment, looks like a young Steven Tyler including having a very compelling stage presence. They blazed through their hits and gave Jason Bonham some "rehearsal" time when they played a bit of Led Zep in the middle of "Jukebox Hero", once again confirming for me that so long as Robert Plant isn't singing, I like Led Zep. (I know, rock god, hero to millions, yadda yadda yadda... he sounds like a cat screeching while clawing a chalkboard to me.)

Def Leppard took the stage around 9:30 and, much to my relief, played a somewhat different set than they played last year. It was nice to hear some different tunes and the two-song acoustic set they had was fantastic. I'd heard they had a catwalk this tour and was wondering if they'd be able to use it at Concord -- forgetting that the seats in the pit are removable. They're about the fourth or fifth act I've seen use a catwalk in the last couple of years and I've gotta say, it really does add to the show. It's nice having the performers out in the crowd somewhat. Bolted from my seat as the last note of "Rock of Ages" played and miraculously was in my car and out of the parking lot in 20 minutes! (Last time I was there it took me well over an hour.)

Didn't bother to track set lists since I wasn't planning on making a report, but there wasn't anything too obscure performed. Did have a chuckle when Joe Eliot was introducing something from "High N Dry" by way of introducing Vivian Campbell and saying "he wasn't in the band then but he can play the fuck out of it" as I thought "Well, Phil Collen wasn't in the band then either...."

June 13 2007: Bring on the NIght

Oakland, CA
McAfee Coliseum

My friends and I took BART over after catching an early dinner, so we missed all of Fiction Plane and most of the Fratellis. Wish I'd missed all of the Fratellis... ugh sonic noise for which I had to use my ear plugs.

Now, going in I knew it would be a completely different experience than the fan club show since, duh, 4th row seat with 4,000 people is totally different than a 40th row seat with 60,000 people! It's been a while since I've had a "video screen only" seat for a show, but okay, I can deal. I'm just happy I'm in the building... It was kind of funny -- my seat was almost in the exact same site line as the Fan Club show, just WAAAAAAAAAAAAYYYY further back. Had the best view of Stewart all night since he was on the riser, but with proper angling I could see Sting. Andy, alas, was just sound and projection ... Or possibly he was in Idaho, not too sure about that.

Anyway, while waiting for the show to start I was talking with some of the folks around me and it was really fun once again seeing all the excitement. When "Get Up Stand Up" started, everyone was instantly on their feet and cheering. Stadium lights go off, stage lights come on, and here comes Stewart and the gong. CRASH! And away we go....

The video screens were dark for "Message in a Bottle" which meant all I could really see was a brightly lit stage. It's actually a cool entrance -- just the band on stage playing for one whole song before the cameras kick on -- but when you're short and 40 rows back (or more for the poor folks in the upper decks!) it just stinks that you can't see what's going on!

The upside of being further back though was getting to see the production of the show, which was really impressive. The sheer genius of having cameras BEHIND Stewart was one of my favorite highlights. It was seriously cool being able to see what he was doing, especially when he was on his percussion set. Just wow. The camera work was really impressive all night (though I think the guy behind Stewart fell over a couple of times -- there were some weird shots popping up once and a while) and watching the guys rotate from screen to screen was quite helpful.

The set list was reasonably unchanged from the Fan Club show with the exception of "Murder by Numbers" which was dropped. The pacing of the show was much more dynamic than the FC show, which I had expected would be the case. It's apparent they're still working on some of the arrangements as some things sounded a bit different to me than they did in Vancouver.

A few personal highlights... "Invisible Sun" was amazing with that video. I was nearly moved to tears. Really excellent use of imagery to reinforce the lyrics. "Walking in Your Footsteps" just sounds incredible (though I liked the ghostly images from Vancouver better than the digital images superimposed on the band on the video screen, but hey, whatcha gonna do?) I turned 12 years old again with "De Do Do Do, De Da Da Da" and I really liked how they closed out "Every Breath You Take" during the 2nd encore.

My complaints are relatively minor -- once or twice the lighting at the back of the stage was in position in front of the video screens making them somewhat useless and the crowd, while definitely having a blast in the seats around me, was kind of weak on the audience participation points. Really, 60,000 people should make more noise than that!

One of my favorite part of concerts is watching band interaction, but since that wasn't possible for me last night I got to just focus on the music and they sounded wonderful last night. It's still an early tour vibe, so I can imagine how much tighter things will get as the tour progresses, and it's in pretty good condition now.

I can't believe that this show I was so eagerly anticipating is now in the past! Guess I'll just have to keep reading reviews and keep waiting for the later fall dates to fill in so I can figure out when my next show is!

No pictures this time, since, well, 40th row....

Set List:

Message in a Bottle
Synchronicity II
Don't Stand So Close to Me
Voices Inside My Head
When the World Is Running Down, You Make the Best of What's Still Around
Spirits in the Material World
Driven to Tears
Walking on the Moon
Truth Hits Everybody
Every Little Thing She Does Is Magic
Wrapped Around Your Finger
The Bed's Too Big Without You
De Do Do Do De Da Da Da
Invisible Sun
Walking in Your Footsteps
Can't Stand Losing You
Roxanne

Encore 1:King
of Pain
So Lonely

Encore 2:
Every Breath You Take

Encore 3:
Next to You