I zoomed out for this picture as they were playing “Lights” and everyone had their phone out. And actually, I think I liked the song solos better than his 2 guitar solos…that is right, he had 2. He is something special and he turned each song into like a 10 minute guitar solo that were all amazing (not really 10 minutes, that is called an exaggeration to get a point across that they were long). Neal is a little off-putting to me, but the man can certainly play guitar. This one wasn’t too long, but in reality every song for Neal was an individual guitar solo. We then come to the first of many solos for Neal Schon. My first thought that Neal was a douchebag and needs to give the vocalist the spotlight instead of him, but I think it was a mistake as by the third song it was finally corrected.Īfter all that, things really got rolling as they plowed through hit after hit and the fans were loving every minute of it (wait…that is Loverboy…bad reference). For this song and the next, “Only the Young”, Arnel was running around the catwalk with no lighting. But they eventually got into Separate Ways and that was a good energetic song to open the show. The band came out on stage and had a rather uneventful opening. Jonathan Cain – Keyboard solo (with a little Send Her My Love & When You Love a Woman).In the Def Leppard review, I discussed ticket prices, beer prices and our seats so no need to rehash any of that here, we will just go straight into the set list and then talk about the highlights of the show (no song by song as that would take too long cause this is going to be long enough as it is). Piano on the left, drums in the middle, Ross and Neal up front and Arnel all over the place (more on that later). Journey stripped back all the risers and platforms that Def Leppard used and had a much simpler set up.

They both used the big 40 Foot screen in the back and the 3 large screens up top on the front of the stage. The stage set up was slightly different than Def Leppard’s, but not by much. I still wish they would have done more with Jeff Scott Soto, but oh well. 11 years ago they added vocalist Arnel Pineda who they found off Youtube and let me tell you what a find he was. All these guys were there doing the early 80’s and their heyday. You have founder Neal Schon, Jonathan Cain, Ross Valory and Steve Smith. At least the band from the era I grew up with. I mean “Don’t Stop Believin'” might be the most recognizable song around the world. Journey’s hits are some of the most loved and admired songs ever. Journey has survived all these years because they have something a lot of bands don’t really have and that is songs.

I have never had the pleasure and I can’t believe I missed them in the Steve Perry years. After seeing Lep, I was really pumped and excited to finally see Journey live. Now, it is time to talk about Journey’s portion of the show. Yesterday, I did the review on the Def Leppard part of the show (since they opened the show they should get the first review).

The journey back arnel