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If you make music, and especially if you don't, chances are your work will never be as well known Def Leppard or Journey. After 30-plus years, both bands have reached global omnipresence -- a punchline in movies like Talladega Nights: The Ballad of Ricky Bobby that still inspires screaming fans everywhere from Topeka, Kansas, to Tokyo, Japan. Snicker all you want, but there's no one waiting on the runway in Barcelona or Melbourne to sing your songs as you walk by.
Both bands excel at common denominator pop -- neither the lowest (Poison) nor the highest (Beatles) of its kind. Call it International Pub Rock, an -- ideal soundtrack for stadiums and bars with chicken wings. It's unabashedly good-time music; that's why millions have belted out "Don't Stop Believin'" and "Love Bites" with the gusto usually reserved for national anthems.
With these thoughts bouncing around my head, I threw on a Black Crowes t-shirt and waded into the well-fed suburban hordes descending on a 25,000-capacity outdoor amphitheatre. The strains of Creedence's "Fortunate Son" blasted from the side stage as luxury SUVs and foreign sports cars rolled towards the parking lot. Making my way up the sidewalk, I marveled at the many eras of fandom represented on tour shirts: from ghostly faded '80s originals to crisp, new Hot Topic tees.
Of course, the pre-distressed Hysteria tour shirts on sale inside made me wonder about the authenticity of the nostalgia. Besides the headliners, I saw a lot of Rush, AC/DC, and Scorpions, along with a sprinkling of Blue Oyster Cult, UFO, and Y & T. What I didn't see were Dave Matthews, Sheryl Crow, or John Mayer shirts. In an odd way, it seemed to indicate that the past 15-20 years of mainstream rock just hadn't registered with this group.
The crowd was a healthy mix of blue collar and white collar: bikers, gray-haired professionals out on the weekend, the teenage offspring of said gray-hairs, lifelong metal heads, college kids who enjoy the music on an ironic level, and more than a few office staffs brought by their employers for an alcohol-guzzling field trip. The crowd seemed evenly split in its enthusiasms, with both Journey and Def Leppard inspiring fans to bedazzle cotton and denim with their logos and members' names. You haven't really lived until you've seen the word "Faithfully" spelled out in tiny metal studs across the harrowingly busty chest of a 40-something soccer mom. I raised my $8 Kirin to the future ex-wives of my region and raced in to catch the opening chords of "The Star Spangled Banner."
Journey
To the strains of The Who's "Won't Get Fooled Again", guitarist Neal Schon and keyboardist Jonathan Cain entered on the same Daltrey scream that opens every episode of CSI. Neither headliner is shy about piggybacking on the audience-tweaking power of their ancestors (later, Def Leppard would blare Queen's "We Will Rock You" for their intro). The pair then whipped up a strange duo version of America's national anthem, one part Hendrix, one part Windham Hill. The video monitor behind them showed flags and stars, and all I could think was, "The Colbert Report does this so much better."
The rest of Journey came out for the true opener, "Stone In Love", with its "those summer nights are calling" chorus pushing all the right buttons for a balmy August evening. These are hymns to "backseat rhythm & blues" that take your mind off the boss man with a heart of stone. These are anthems for folks "payin' anything to roll the dice just one more time." Love and lust, dreams and time clocks, home and the road, these are the juxtapositions that make Journey what they are.
If there's one overriding theme to their catalog, it's longing in all of its forms. And the band poured it on with extra feeling at Shoreline, trotting out "Keep On Running", "Anyway You Want It", and "Open Arms" as if they hadn't played the songs thousands of times before. Their appreciation of the time, money, and feeling lavished on them by their listeners was immediately obvious.
Singer Steve Perry hasn't been with the band since their ill-fated 1996 reunion when gifted soundalike Steve Augeri took the mic. In July, Augeri was forced to leave the tour due to a chronic throat infection. Enter Jeff Scott Soto from Talisman and Schon's side project, Soul Sirkus. Soto is a '80s-hair-metal veteran who got his start with Yngwie Malmsteen's Rising Force. He's worked with a veritable spandex-lovers who's who, including the Michael Schenker Group, Stryper, Axel Rudi Pell, and Lita Ford.
Soto is American Idol in his look and manner, but, that said, the brother can sing, and he doesn't flinch in front of a huge audience. His energy clearly had a positive effect on the rest of the band, most of whom are about to enter their 50s. He's no Steve (either of them) but the indestructibility of Journey's riffs and chant-a-long choruses hid any deficiencies. Soto also wore the tightest pants I've seen in years. Really, you could see everything. And, after drenching his long sleeve number, he did a shirt change mid-set only to return in a Bon Jovi-snug tee that made the ladies sigh.
Drummer Deen Castronovo handled the ballads, and despite a natural aversion to singer-drummers -- ever since Phil Collins and Night Ranger -- I found myself totally surrendering to Castronovo's clear, true readings of "Who's Crying Now", "Faithfully", and "Open Arms." The close-ups on the video monitors during these tunes revealed a man who wouldn't have looked out of place on any of Journey's '70s record sleeves: pimpin' moustache and soul patch, shirt open to the nipples, abundant chest hair, and multiple silver chains swinging to the beat.
Neal Schon kicked it in the ass throughout the band's 90-minute set. His guitar work combines the pyrotechnics of the Guitar Center with brevity of wit and melodic grace. He's been a pervasive influence on popular music since the '70s, even if he is rarely credited. You hear Schon's sound in everyone from Motley Crüe to the Red Hot Chili Peppers. His memorable, compact solos are the model FM radio has followed for decades. And the man himself still plays with flash and imagination. Never like the blowhard Santana (his former boss), Schon lets his playing speak for itself.
The softer side of the band reached its height with "Lights", which Soto introduced saying, "This is a summer night in Northern California, right? Well, this song goes out to you since this about the City by the Bay." Schon paused, so the collective roar didn't drown out his signature guitar lick. The video screen behind the band dissolved to a nighttime shot of the Golden Gate Bridge. By the end, complete strangers were swaying and singing with their arms around each other (when's the last time you saw that happen at a Modest Mouse or Bright Eyes show, eh?). While a shameless assemblage of clichés worthy of Spinal Tap, "Lights" is also an unerringly effective piece of concert dynamite.
Pushing cynicism aside, it's not hard to understand how these guys were able to play to a similar amphitheatre only an hour away the night before. The harmonies are rich, the tunes infectious enough to warrant a shot of penicillin, and, instead of just standing there, they put on a show as they reproduce old glories. They reached past the obvious hits to include ace album cuts like "Dead or Alive" and "Chain Reaction." And, the hard storm they kicked up during "Wheel in the Sky" was strikingly similar to that conjured by Wolfmother and other, similar return-to-the-rock outfits. Of course, their clothes were just a little more dated.
Check Back Tomorrow for part two of this review, an analysis of Def Leppard's set
— 21 September 2006
