Cheap Trick/Journey

Got to go see Cheap Trick and Journey in concert on Saturday, and I was pleasantly surprised.

I had never been a Cheap Trick fan. I liked a few of their songs here and there, but never bought an album. I'm still not a Cheap Trick fan. Despite Wikipedia saying they have a "reputation as "the greatest live band ever", their live performance was lacking. The audio sucked and their singing was awful. It was more like screeching. You could not make out the words most of the time, even if you knew the song by heart. While I recognized most songs, the most recognizable was their cover of The Beatles' "Magical Mystery Tour" and "The Flame". I simply was not impressed.

Journey, however, was a different story.

My first impression of Journey when I was a kid was that they had very cool album covers. They still do. They have a lot of cool songs too. Obviously, the Steve Perry years defined Journey as a band. That's why I was somewhat apprehensive about going to this concert. They have a new lead singer that they found on YouTube, who has only been with them since December of 2007. And he's some guy from the Philippines.

Well, I decided to go. After all, it was free tickets and I really had nothing better to do, so why not? Let me tell you, this Filippino guy, Arnel Pineda, is incredible. He sounded so much like Perry that if you closed your eyes, it would be hard to tell that it wasn't him. It was the first time I had ever seen Journey live, and I'm glad I went.


It was really fun watching the stupid drunk college kids too. One of them only knew how to do 'the pony', and he did it for the entire concert. It was hilarous.

All in all it was a fun night. I got to spend some time with my friend Russ and hear some good old classic rock.