I have loved Journey's music since I was 10 years old. I am 41 now, and I still love it. In fact, I have met Steve Perry twice and his solo band members several times, and I have met all the bandmates of Journey several times over the years, even had my picture taken with them.
For several years in the 90's though, I had some unpleasant experiences with Journey employees, Allen Craft, a sound engineer, and John Toomey, the road manager. Both men harrassed me, and Craft sent me over 120 pages of nasty emails, telling me personal secrets about each band member that he had no business repeating to anyone--then he crashed my computer by creating malicious code to attack my IP address when I logged in to the official Journey web site. I had the crash traced by IT guys I worked with who signed a legal document attesting to this.
Toomey grabbed me by the arm and dragged me backstage to his makeshift office to yell his head off at me for bringing a camera even though I showed him the email giving me permission from the production company to take photos and write a review for a fan-based web site. He made me leave the camera in my car, gave me a backstage pass and asked me to write a review for HIM instead. I did not write anything for him, but a scathing criticism of his ridiculous behavior was published the next day.
I swore off this "dinosaur karaoke band" for many years after these events took place, and stopped listening to Steve Augeri blow the lyrics and miss the high notes. I got disgusted when Neal Schon, who had recently married a then 19 year old girl, invited me and a few other girls who were backstage to come to his hotel room. At that point I gave up completely on Journey. The magic was gone the day Perry left.
But then I heard Arnel Pineda's voice and chills went down my spine. Somehow, half a world away, this man restored my faith in the music of Journey again. His love for Steve Perry shines like a much-needed beacon of hope for those in the band, as well as for the fans who miss him. Journey is redeemed for their past mistakes (Jeff Soto) and are now humbled into submission to Perry's legacy rather than rebelling against it like juveniles. The renewed energy is undeniable, the songs, once sounding stale, boring and ready to retire, now sound fresh and new like they have not sounded in decades. The teamwork is evident, the perspective is positive, and I truly believe that the magic is back.
This concert renewed me, it brought me back to my youth and gave me all the great memories and happy feelings in my soul that had been eroded away.
Steve Perry will always be my favorite human, but Arnel Pineda is a very close second!!
Thank you Journey for coming back and redeeming yourselves from sliding into the abyss of being a dinosaur karaoke band on it's way into faded oblivion. Thank you Steve Perry for creating the magic, and thank you Arnel Pineda for bringing the boys back to that magic again.
--Rebecca Gray
1 comment:
thanks for the message, it's good to read positive message from a Steve Perry fans who don't feel guilty about liking Arnel Pineda.Somehow there are still lots of sensible Steve Perry fans out there who are reborn when they see the concert of the new Journey with Arnel. You belong to SP fan group that move on and continue living.
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