Sometimes you don't know something was on your bucket list until you've checked it off. Sing along with Journey to the greatest hits of Journey: check.
Their songs are so ubiquitous over the past 30 years, they've been waved so hard in the radio air, that they can be easily taken for granted, treated with a shrug, considered commonplace. Seeing them live at CN Centre shoots that complacency to hell. These guys can play.
Yes, it tumbles out as a long string of familiar favourites, but when you get to see it right in the same room, you see the levers being pulled and the foundations being laid, you realize the musicality of it. The five members of Journey are certainly not just an autobiographical juke box. They accomplish a show, not just perform it.
Perhaps the best example for me was Who's Crying Now. It sometimes gets forgotten behind their monster hits like Separate Ways (that's what they led the night off with), Any Way You Want It, Open Arms, Lights and of course Don't Stop Believin' but if you want to believe in Journey's abilities, try to follow Who's Crying Now note for note. It sounds so sweet but it's a vocal torque wrench and the instrumentation is built on a bed of complexity.
Some of Journey's songs are straight-ahead, blues-rooted rock 'n' roll, but often you get a little extra with those guys. They are formidable players of their instruments and strong in their grasp of composition.
Their skills are hard-earned by countless hours of practice and instruction, but if they have a gift it is making it all seem so easy. As an audience you just can't help yourself, you have to sing along. And I mean sing. Close to 3,000 people went home from the Wednesday show (that size crowd, midweek, for a band that hasn't had a Top 10 single on the mainstream chart since 1986 - I smell a return visit being penciled into their tour plans) with hoarse voices because you don't lip-synch these songs. You're belting them right out alongside frontman Arnel Pineda.
Speaking of Pineda, did you know he actually has a Top 10 hit with Journey to his credit? They reached No. 9 in 2008 on the adult contemporary charts with the tune After All These Years, so it's not like they are just hanging on by the threads of past glories. Pineda punches way above his weight class as a performer - it is so refreshing to see a lead singer actually look audience members in the eye, not just aim their generic gaze into the blank middle distance - and even their superstar former lead singer Steve Perry would appreciate the power and tight control in Pineda's voice.
Plus, Pineda and the rest of the band all seem to genuinely have fun. It's easy to enjoy yourself in the seats when they are having a good time on stage, and letting you in on their happy trip. Pineda was a generous showman, and when you know he came off the impoverished streets of Manila to international stardom, it makes you root for him and the whole developing world, because that man is a bundle of energy, wrapped in talent, slathered in handsome and topped with gratitude. So who else might be out there just like him, in a slum or ghetto they can't get out of?
And for all those waiting for a train wreck at the drum kit, your time has been wasted. Yes, new drummer Omar Hakim has only been with the group for a few weeks, but he is one of the best rock drummers on the planet and we in Prince George got the privilege of watching him work. Maybe it was dicey for the band members, I don't know, but I caught myself staring at his whirling sticks several times and I never detected a single slip-up in the rhythm. And I know these songs like I know my own handwriting. Escape and the Greatest Hits album... those were tapes I wore out (if you know what I mean, you are probably over 40) in my teens and had to buy them again.
Somewhere between the chorus of Lovin' Touchin' Squeezin' and the entire word-for-word lyric story of Faithfully I realized that this band had been on my bucket list all along. So, since the wheel in the sky keeps on turning, make sure you take the lesson from every step of this journey, and be good to yourself.
