Journey Rocks Manchester Again!
Journey at the Manchester Apollo (6th March 2007)
Right then, last night's Journey gig in three words or less? "Absolutely fucking great" just about covers it.
We got to the Apollo in plenty of time (HA!) to get to our seats (6 rows form the front in the middle, great view) and only had to wait about 10 minutes until Danny Vaughn wandered on stage to a very warm welcome from the crown and entertained us for 25 minutes with a good selection of new stuff from his new seedee "Traveller" and stuff from "Don't Come Easy". He brought some Mancunian bloke, who's name escapes me right now, but Brad and I were sure that he had been in Shy or something like that, to do guitar solos and backing vox. It all sounded pretty good and The Voice was still there.
After the usual wait, the PA played a nice loud tape of "Won't Get Fooled Again" and the band ambled on to take their places. Schon started the show with a solo (typical guitarist) rendition of "Jerusalem" with keys from Mr Cain, which went on a little bit, but served as a nice starter before Jeff Scott Soto ran on and kicked the band into "Rubicon". From there on, it was all go. The set was good with some interesting changes from the set last year. Line of Fire was a surprise, as was the "Rubicon" to be honest, as that was never my favourite tune off "Frontiers" but it sounded great live. My only criticism of the set is that I'd love to hear more stuff from "Arrival" and "Generations" as the material on those albums is better than some of the older stuff. Still, with the quality of the material they did play, this is not really a big deal.
The band sounded tight and hard (excuse the terminology) and more "rocking" as it were than they did last year with Steve Augeri. Soto really seems to have picked up the band and made them into a harder and more focussed unit. Also, the band seemed happier. There were lots of smiles on stage and they really seemed to be enjoying themselves with no hint of "going through the gig motions" at any point during the gig. The other difference was the amount of jamming and soloing going on. There was a lot more of it last night, which I was so-so about as I prefer to hear songs and not noodling, but it was all kept neat and not too gratuitous.
It really was Soto that was the star of the show, although Deen Castronovo gave him a run for his money as he took lead vocals for some of the big tunes. His vocals really are stunningly good. Apparently, he's been singing "Mother, Father" on this tour, as he did at Manchester last year, but we missed out on that this year. It was a shame that Soto sat out of singing "Faithfully" though as that tune does benefit from having a frontman to focus on during the tune and not a drumkit. All power to DC though for doing a great job of singing and drumming it though!
There was a nice surprise of Mr Vaughn during the sing-a-long bit at the end of "Lovin' Touchin' Squeezin'" too, which brought another ex-member of Tyketto into the Journey family, albeit fleetingly."
The audience were well-up for it and gave the band a great reception. There was singing and dancing from all. Even those who were dubious about Mr Soto were convinces by the third song. The age range was massive too, from eight year old kids to the old guard who had been there in the 70s, which gave a great friendly atmosphere to the show. We were all singing along as much as we could, dancing and giving it some serious air-guitars... Like you do!
So there it is. The show may not have been as magical, as it were, as last time, but it was an amazing gig and in terms of pure performance, it was much more passionate and fun to watch than the SteveA-fronted Journey. I'm really looking forward to hearing some recorded stuff and I'll be going again if they come back next year.
Journey Set List
- Jerusalem (Schon Solo Intro)
- Rubicon
- Stone In Love
- Ask the Lonely
- Wheel in the Sky
- Keep on Runnin'
- Who's Cryin' Now
- Edge of the Blade
- Faith In The Heartland
- Chain Reaction
- Lights
- Still They Ride (DC Vocals)
- Open Arms (DC Vocals)
- La Do Da (with Ross Valory Solo and Deen Castronovo Solo)
- Line Of Fire
- After The Fall
- Blues Jam / Lovin' Touchin' Squeezin'
- Escape
- Dead or Alive
- Faithfully (DC Vocals)
- Don't Stop Believin'
- Anyway You Want It
- Separate Ways
Danny Vaughn Set List
This in not in order apart from the first few and the last few!
- Wings
- New Song 1
- New Song 2
- Burning Down Inside
- Traveller
- Forever Young
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© 2006 Graham T. Ebbrell