Journey Sheffield City Hall                                             Words and photgraphs By Carl Wragg

Thursday 1^st March 2007

Thursday night brought us the start of the long-anticipated tour from American AOR rock band Journey, and Sheffield City Hall was to be the venue to kick it all off. As most people are now aware, Journey’s front man Steve Augeri had to pull out of the band due to throat illnesses preventing him from continuing, which left them with a search for a new singer. It wasn’t long before the rumours were confirmed and it was announced that Soul SirkUS front man Jeff Scott Soto was to take on the role in Journey and lead them down a new path in their long and so far mighty successful existence. This led to a mass debate amongst the Journey ‘die-hards’ and other interested fans, as to whether or not Augeri’s replacement was the right one for the band. For myself, having never seen Journey live before, I didn’t have anyone to compare JSS to, which I think is part of why I left the gig thinking “Wow! What an excellent voice this man has!” But above all, his energy and stage presence was enough to impress even the harshest of critics. They opened the night with ‘Message of Love’ which is a really lively, up beat song and was without doubt an excellent choice to have as an opener. As is the norm at City Hall rock gigs, the crowd had surged forwards out of their seats and were standing all round the room and some right at the front able to lean onto the stage getting a much more personal Journey experience, but one thing that united everyone was the excitement and general buzz as they knew that they were about to witness an absolute blinder of a show.

 A short but effective guitar solo from Neil Schon lead the band into a song called ‘Rubicon’ before they started on the classic Journey hits – much to the crowd’s enjoyment. The first of these was ‘Stone In Love’ and right from the opening chords the crowd were going wild and clearly loving the song choice, joining in with the singing at every opportunity. ‘Ask the Lonely’ and ‘Wheel In The Sky’ were next on the set list and what a cracking performance the band made of them. All credit to Soto for his singing on ‘Ask The Lonely’ which brought out a whole new element in his voice - and it suited the band brilliantly. The tempo was slowed down a little next as the crowd enjoyed a performance of ‘Edge of the Blade’, a song found on the band’s ‘Frontiers’ album alongside some of their most well known hits. This was a good inclusion into the set as it paved the way into ‘Only The Young’, a highly under-rated song in my opinion. This track has Journey’s first singer, Steve Perry, stamped all over it but Soto didn’t let that put him off as he made the song his own. Continuing with the crowd-pleasing classics, the band went into ‘Lights’, which saw an excellent chorus ringing out from the audience as they joined in with the infamous ‘Ohhh Ohhh Oh Oh Oh’. All these lively songs had the crowd totally immersed in the Journey experience and what came next made the night so much more special.

 Perry and Augeri were known for their soft powerful ballad voices whereas it is no secret that Soto struggles with these numbers because of his rough classic rock voice, so it was good to see him acknowledge this by standing down to backing singing for a while to allow drummer Dean Castronovo to take on vocal duties for Journey’s collection of ballads – a bunch of songs which he sings so well and so close to the all too familiar voice of Steve Perry. ‘Who’s Crying Now’ was the first of these and although the down tempo would at any other gig bring about a downer in the crowds enthusiasm, it certainly wasn’t the case with Journey as was shown after the huge cheer of applause following ‘Open Arms’, the second of Castronovo’s ballads. Soto was welcomed back on stage to front the band for their performance of a fairly unheard of song by the name of ‘Open The Door’, perhaps not the greatest of choices as it seemed very few of the crowd were quite so enthusiastic about this one as what they had been the rest of the night. Nevertheless, the band received a strong applause and cheering from the crowd showing their appreciation.

 ‘I’ll Be Alright Without You’ was next on the set and it was a good choice to bring the crowd back into action with the singing – clearly a song that everyone enjoyed. But next came the start of a non-stop energetic performance of even more of the band’s greatest hits, kicking off with ‘Chain Reaction’, followed by ‘Escape’, ‘Mother, Father’ and an absolutely electric performance of ‘Be Good To Yourself’. The band were in full swing ending this run of energy with ‘Where Were You’ – yet again gaining a tremendous appreciation from the crowd. ‘Faithfully’ is probably the greatest of all the Journey power ballads, and it saw Castronovo take the lead vocals again, although he didn’t need to because of the overpowering vocal contribution from the crowd. What an excellent atmosphere I was submerged in as the band were performing this brilliant song with such high interaction from an amazed audience. It was simply an incredible experience.

 The end of the night was drawing closer as the band ended their set with two of their ultimate crowd-pleasing songs ‘Don’t Stop Believing’ and ‘Anyway You Want It’. Well after such an amazing performance and what proved to be a certain crowd-pleasing set list, we weren’t about to let the band leave it there. Cheering and whistling filled the room for a couple of minutes before Soto came to the middle of the stage, now sporting his England football shirt, to thank everyone for what had been an excellent start to their UK tour, and what better way to thank the crowd than by playing us out with ‘Separate Ways’.

As soon as that infamous keyboard intro was played the crowd went mad and were singing louder than ever and showing just why Journey are right at the top of the ladder of live bands. What a superb night it had been – there was absolutely no question about it, Jeff Scott Soto is the perfect candidate for the front man job in the band and long may they continue to wow their audiences with such spectacular performances. Let’s hope its not another 25 years before they tour the UK again!