new Journey....thoughts?

Bass player in our local friends Petty tribute band just got tapped to take over touring bass duties with them....not a real surprise as the guy is a badass and already played with Schon and Deen Castronovo in Hardline.....
 
talk about bland recordings :bleh: i really cant stand Journey, but with their stature id hope theyd at least still have top notch production worth listening to but it appears thats not the case
 
no disrespect to them but not my thing
the guitars are not featured enough in the mix imo

im happy they keep on going, making money doing what they enjoy, but id like hints of more aggressive tracks from time to time, if anything just to remove some of that time capsule sheen associated with them....



as i typed the song is growing on me, but i maintain that the guitars need more lift in the mix. the song itself sounds very much like "classic" journey

again not a huge fan but this isnt a bad track. TURN DOWN THE DAMN SYNTHS,,,,
 
* velcro-fly * said:
Bass player in our local friends Petty tribute band just got tapped to take over touring bass duties with them....not a real surprise as the guy is a badass and already played with Schon and Deen Castronovo in Hardline.....
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You mean Todd Jensen. Dude's been around awhile. Played with Roth, Hardline, Alice Cooper, Doro, Paul Rodgers etc...

The tune is ok. But it kinda personifies the whole Jonathan Cain era with Journey. Heavy on the keyboards etc... It's why the Rolie era is so incredible. Gregg was very much into the Hammond, layering and providing depth and allowing the music to breath. It allowed Neal to carry the load. Where Neal with Cain is often having to compete with the keyboards and filling up every musical space.

For Journey fans there's three bands. The early jam band, the Perry/Rolie era that IMO produced their best music and the Perry/Cain era which was basically pop music. The crossover album was Escape. It still had the feel of the Perry/Rolie era but looking back you could see the pop direction there were going in. Based on interviews they really hadn't fully tapped into Cain at that point. Afterwards though Cain and Perry pretty much took control of the direction.
 
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I just saw them in Phoenix with Toto opening the show. Toto was amazing, Schon overplayed on every song. You can play, I get it, but it gets old having him prove it on every song. Band sounded tight, however after about 45 minutes I was done with it. Very manufactured and corporate feeling show. Schon was using a Fractal FM9 with no backline. Sound was pretty good, but not great.
 
jabps said:
You mean Todd Jensen. Dude's been around awhile. Played with Roth, Hardline, Alice Cooper, Doro, Paul Rodgers etc...
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Yep, Todd is who I was referring too...he's been a PDX fixture for as long as I can remember, was / is a monster player going back 30+ years. Good guy on top of it. Have to admit I was kinda surprised he did the Petty Fever thing given his track record, but those guys had some good shows booked and Jensen did that gig for at least a year or two. Old bass player from the band I'm in now, Steve Kuepker, does the Petty Fever gig playing guitar and other strings...he quit the Radio Riots to do Petty Fever full time, his sub took over with us.

https://pettyfever.com/home
 
eecamichael said:
I just saw them in Phoenix with Toto opening the show. Toto was amazing, Schon overplayed on every song. You can play, I get it, but it gets old having him prove it on every song. Band sounded tight, however after about 45 minutes I was done with it. Very manufactured and corporate feeling show. Schon was using a Fractal FM9 with no backline. Sound was pretty good, but not great.
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Yeah it's just the big hits now.

Saw Journey in 1980, the Departure tour. Was the tour they were recording for the live album. Easily in my top 5 of all time best shows. Was a kid in HS, we snuck into their soundcheck sat on the risers the whole time, then a couple guards tried to run us out and Schon over the PA said "leave em' alone". Not only was that cool af but the show, so much energy. They sounded incredible, of course Kevin Elson who produced some of their records was their live sound engineer. They were platinum level, selling out arena's at that point but not the super pop group they would become. Opening the show with freaking "Where Were You". I wonder if the pop Journey fans even know that song? Saw them again on the Frontiers tour and though good, it was different. Then saw them on Raised on Radio, and I was like no mas. Next time I saw them was a working situation. They had Augeri at that point and Ratt was opening. Not bad, certainly better than Raised on Radio but then again Augeri is no Perry. The final time I saw them I got to see them with Jeff Scott Soto and frankly, I thought he was great because nobody was trying to sound like Perry. Dean filled that gap. Nothing against Augeri as there's some decent tunes on the album he did with them. And nothing against Arnel but at this point, I'll pass.
 
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I saw Journey in 81 and they were fantastic. For me, they lost their magic a few years after that. The current release doesn’t reverse the trend.
 
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