Cheap Trick, Heart, and Journey
Chastain Park Amphitheater
8/4/08

It was my first day of high school as a junior, and the only thing I could look forward to was getting out of school, and making my way down to Chastain Park Amphitheater to see Journey. My day at school wasn't all bad, though. It was a bright sunny day, due to the fact that the concert was not at Verizon Wireless Amphitheater, so that was fun.

I arrived just in time to see Cheap Trick play. A drone filled the speakers and eventually the band came out. The last to come out was, of course, Rick with a checkered Gibson Explorer. They played, "Oh Claire" and followed it with an exciting song for me. I, personally, am not a huge fan of Cheap Trick, but I happen to be a huge fan of That 70's Show , so I was ecstatic when they played "That 70's Song (In The Street)". This cover of "In The Street" is shortened and played as the theme song for my favorite show. The rest of their set included favorites such as "I Want You To Want Me" and "Surrender". However, it also contained deeper cuts such as "The Flame". Many guitars were brought out for songs, too, like a silver Telecaster, a double necked person-shaped guitar, a five neck guitar, and a guitar with Cheap Trick's newest album on the body. This guitar was out of tune, though, and was brought backstage by an unhappy Rick. Finally, they ended their set with the catchy, "Dream Police".

After a short wait and "Shine On You Crazy Diamond" playing over the speakers, the music stopped again, and a cheer erupted from the audience. Debbie Shair, Heart's current keyboardist came out from backstage and played a cool keyboard intro and the band was off, with Nancy on a metallic blue telecaster. The main set consisted of hits like "Magic Man", "Straight On", "These Dreams", "Alone", and "Barracuda", but the girls threw in some surprises. For example, after the final chords of "Alone", the sound of rain started playing through the speakers. I remember thinking of a certain song, and then discarding it thinking they surely wouldn't play it. Sure enough, though, they did play this song. Above the sound of rain coming down, piano chords were played softly before turning into a string-like synth, and Heart played the famous closing song to The Who's masterpiece, Quadrophenia . The crowd cheered as "Love Reign O'er Me" blasted through the speakers. Ann and Nancy were very much into it, as Nancy jumped around all over the place during the song. The only song I enjoyed more was their first encore song. Nancy is a famous Led Zeppelin fan, so the band graced us with a rendition of "Going To California" with Nancy on mandolin and, after that, closed their performance with a heartfelt "Crazy On You."

As the crew began to tear down Heart's setup, the album cover for Journey's new album Revelation lit up the screens on top of the amphitheater. Little by little, the stage transformed from a small space for opening acts into a huge area for the headliner. Before we knew it, the lights went out and shone again in purple. The music stopped and the crowd went crazy. A video of the band walking out from backstage played on the screens, and soon enough, Neal Schon walked on stage going crazy on his guitar and led the band right into "Never Walk Away", an energetic opening song. Next, a song Journey recorded for the soundtrack to the film Vision Quest was played. The graceful "Only The Young" led into another great Neal Schon guitar solo. By the way, this tour has been the first time since the late 80's that "Only The Young" has not been the show opener. As the solo went on, it eventually transformed into a track off their seminal album, 1981's Escape , "Stone In Love". It was performed wonderfully, but I might be a bit biased toward this song considering I like it so much. New lead singer Arnel Pineda's voice on the next song, "Ask The Lonely", sounded eerily like that of Steve Perry's. Of course, on pretty much every song, you could close your eyes and swear Perry was on stage in some sort of ridiculous shirt like he used to be. After the song, Jonathon, the long-time keyboardist of the group greeted the audience. He had been doing a lot of switching between guitar and keyboards so far that night, but he manned the keyboards again for the sentimental new song, "After All These Years". Pineda's voice switched from "Steve Perry mode" into a slightly different voice of his own, and it fit nicely with the song.

After this one, Arnel asked the audience if they were ready for a "rocker". The fast-paced "Separate Ways" blasted through the speakers and charged the audience with energy. People couldn't sit still during it, and neither could the band, and it took its place as one of the best performed songs of the night. It was followed by "Change for the Better" and then a heartfelt "Lights". "Lights" was another one of those songs that Arnel just sounded so eerily like Steve, and it was followed by lots of cheering. This cheering was stopped, however, by a piano solo. Jonathon's fingers sped up and down the keyboard creating a melodic segue into one of their most famous power ballads, "Open Arms". Old couples everywhere started slow dancing to the tune. The dancing was awful, but the song was great, and Jonathon's excellent keyboard work shone throughout . This was only the first, though, of a triple attack of power ballads.

The next song was instantly recognizable to anyone that had been alive for at least a year. Cain was bombarded with applause when he began to play the opening chords to Journey's most famous song, which needs no introduction, "Don't Stop Believin'". Cain, being the multi-instrumentalist he is, switched from piano to rhythm guitar during Neal's simple but fitting guitar solo. As "Don't Stop Believin'" came to a close, the band played their third song of their power ballad bombardment, the chilling "Faithfully". The song was performed as usual, but the only thing I noticed is that Arnel seemed to have some trouble hitting some of those high notes that Perry threw in. It seemed like his voice was about to crack at times. "Faithfully" ended and people started to lose attention due to the next two songs being new ones. "Edge of the Blade" and "Wildest Dreams" were played, and I'm sure at least one of them would've been really exciting had the album been released earlier, but there's always a negative bias toward the new songs.

Following the two new songs, Neal came on stage with an acoustic guitar and a mandolin. The mandolin was on a stand, and he began to play as Jonathon belted out a cool harmonica solo. This bluesy jam led right into a fan favorite, "Wheel In The Sky". The live version of this song is a lot more interesting than the studio version, which I always found a bit bland, and it was a great second-to-last song. It was soon overshadowed, though, by the band's next tune, their famous rocker, "Any Way You Want It", which provided a fast and fitting end to the main set, but the concert wasn't over yet. The lights remained dim out and the Revelation album cover still stood out on the big screens.

The band was onstage again after only a few minutes and the speakers exploded with the title track of their 1981 album, Escape . It was then followed by "Lovin', Touchin', Squeezin'". During the "nah-nah-nahnah-nah" parts, Arnel led the audience in a sing-a-long. Although this was a cool ending, I think they could've done a little better. If the audience was a bit more responsive, that would've made this closer seem better too. All in all though, it was a fantastic show, and hopefully Journey will be good to their selves and come back real soon. Don't you love band puns?

Special thanks to Journey expert, Caroline Wuertz, and her fun facts.

-JJ