After seeing Bruce in Portland a couple weeks ago, then John Waite and John Cafferty in Tacoma last week, my Pacific Northwest concert tour continued last night in Spokane. I saw my third Journey show!
It was a good show, but probably my least favorite of the three.
They’re doing a farewell tour of sorts, but I think only Jonathan Cain has officially said he’s done. I don’t follow all the gossip, but Arnel Pineda allegedly didn’t want to do this tour until he was reminded that they had contractual obligations to fulfill. So there was a kind of weird vibe going on if you were aware of all that. I’m betting most people weren’t — they were just there to enjoy the show, and enjoy it they did.
I don’t know this is related to the rumors around Arnel, but he didn’t sound as strong as the first two times I saw them. The social media critics are saying he’s lost his voice and sounds like shit, which isn’t true — dude can still belt! But he was definitely struggling to sing like he used to, especially the upper registers where so many of their songs live.
The band promised die-hards a lot of deep cuts and songs from the ’70s on this tour, which is awesome for the die-hards. I’m not in that group, so I didn’t know a bunch of the songs, which is fine. Nothing wrong with hearing “new” old stuff. It was also a good opp to walk around the arena and get some pics from different angles.
So that’s three shows this month — Springsteen, John Waite/John Cafferty, and Journey. Nothing booked until October, but I’ve got my eyes on some shows in June/July/August that I think will pan out.
Oh, I almost forgot to mention, got ANOTHER high-five from Arnel as he jogged around the arena, so that’s two shows in a row he’s high-fived me. Clearly we’re now besties.
