Re: The Official JOURNEY Thread
I'm a pretty big Journey fan too. I got into them when Infinity came out and they were a big favorite of mine all through high school. My very first band covered "Lovin' Touchin' Squeezin'" at our very first gig when I was 17. My favorite Journey era is the Steve Perry/Gregg Rolie albums with Evolution or maybe Departure being my favorite album. I'm also a fan of the three pre-Steve Perry albums - the debut is probably my favorite. I also like the first three Jonathan Cain albums alot. After Raised On Radio I didn't keep up with them as much, but never stopped being a fan of everything up through '85.
I've seen them 7 or 8 times. I saw them the first time in '81, then saw them again in '82 and '83. Then I saw them a few times with Steve Augeri. The Escape shows were my favorites, but I saw them in '05 and half the show was pre-Steve Perry material with Jonathan Cain singing most of the leads and it was excellent. They've always been such a good band and it's great to hear them do stuff besides their hits.
I got to meet Gregg Rolie a few years ago. Our band played right before him at a big festival and I made a point to meet him and tell him I was a fan. He seemed like a pretty cool dude. The Hammond B-3 he used onstage looked like it was probably the same one he used in Santana - beat to hell...sounded great in sound check though. I actually couldn't stay and watch his show because I had another gig across town so I was disappointed.