Big Concert Review

It is around 1:30 in the morning and we just got home from an intimate concert for around 20,000 at the Superpages.com Center in Dallas. Tonight’s concert was billed as the most important musical event of the year as three major bands from the 70’s & 80’s combined forces to provide a monster show that rivaled the legendary line ups of Rock & Roll’s distant past.

First up was one of my favorites of all time, Cheap Trick. Their music was really good, they played a solid set of all of their biggest hits peppered with a few lesser known numbers. The obligatory Kiss album was thrown into the audience as they sang Surrender and the crowd was excited when I Want You To Want Me started up. All in all, they put on a decent show, the time between songs seemed a little long but what do you expect with all of Rick‘s guitar changes (it takes a little time to lug a 5 neck guitar on stage). One thing that was new, at least to me, was Tom Petersons 12 string bass guitar, very cool. The crowd was rather thin at the beginning of their set but was steadily filing in towards the end of the set. I have seen Cheap Trick when they were the headliner and was a little disappointed (not much) in their performance tonight.

After the Cheap Trick set was scratched it was time for the Wilson sisters to grace the stage with a powerful performance. I have never seen Heart in a live show and was not disappointed. Dreamboat Annie was in tip top condition to belt out the tunes with her trademark lungs, that girl can whale! And then there is Nancy, sweet Nancy, absolutely one of my top teenage crushes, alive and in person. There was just something about such a pretty girl who can pound an axe the way she does that just set the pre-pubescent hormones of a little redhead into overdrive. But I digress, these ladies still have what it takes to bring down the house in short order. Their band was spot on and ripped through almost all of their greatest hits with ease. The only downside that I saw was the fact that they played two cover songs, one from The Who and the other from Led Zeppelin. Both songs were perfectly executed , but it just seemed to me that they have a large enough library of hits that they shouldn’t have to rely on covers to get the job done (I like to pick nits).

And then we witnessed what is arguably one of the most exciting and power packed performances that I have ever seen, when Journey took the stage. If you haven’t heard yet, Journey is making a comeback that will blow you away, if you are a fan. They have struggled over the years trying to find someone to fill in the gap left in the band after Steve Perry left. They have had some really good front men, but it just didn’t seem to jive. Well, after the last singer took his leave, Neal Schon (lead guitar) decided to start cruising the You Tube pages to see if there was anyone out their that would catch his eye. To make a long story short, his eye got caught and put into a massive eye lock. He came across a little cover band from the Philippines named the Zoo. Their front man was a young man named Arnel Pineda who had mastered Steve Perry’s voice to an almost eerie perfection. He was brought to the US where he auditioned and was given the chance of a lifetime, to front the band Journey. Well, needless to say, the crowd was pumped to see Journey and was not disappointed in the least. They managed to get in most of their major hits in the hour and a half set and added a couple more in their 30 minute ovation to boot. These guys were on fire, Neal is tighter than I have ever heard him before and Arnel is a mad man, the Tasmanian Devil for some reason comes to mind while watching him work the stage. If you don’t get the chance to see them live, pick up their latest release, Revelation, at Walmart, it has two CD’s and a DVD of this concert tour. We had real problems finding our way out of the theater because we had our faces rocked off, this was one of the best shows that I have ever seen, hands down, but that’s just my two pennies.