Saturday, August 26, 2006

Don't stop pouring sugar on me!

Ok, I totally succumbed to my 80s roots this weekend. (Hangs head)

Let me start with "I love the unfortunately named Sleep Train pavilion". Three miles from my place, free parking, friendly ushers, kick-ass sound system and $5 Corona. Light years better than the Tweaker Center with its Clear Channel stormtroopers. And seats 30 feet from the stage.

I didn't really know what to expect out of Journey, but they sounded as good as I've ever heard them--even on the drawn out Stars&Stripes opener. Jeff Scott Soto has a great voice and is totally cute, but he channels Morrison far more than is good for him. Occasionally it was eerie to watch a blond Jim playing with Journey.

When The Sun Goes Down in the City still puts me to sleep, but hey, the place overlooks the bay. They were really tight on their more uptempo stuff. Neal still brings the 'tude and Ross looks like a mix of the druggy firefighter from Rescue Me and Cliff Richards, but still plays a hell of bass guitar. Standing ovations--encore--setup change to (inconceivably) a mix tape of The Who and Blondie.

And three bars into Let's Get Rocked, everyone was Jour-WHO? Def continued to kick Journey's ass into another dimension. The were beyond awesome, not letting up for two hours--let's just leave it at that--including something like a 20 minute rendition of Rocket and the entire stadium singing Happy Birthday for Vivian.

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