Arnel's Single Best Live Performance
Posted: Fri Jul 22, 2011 5:18 pmI was working on a project out in the man cave this evening and found myself in one of those rare situations when nobody was home except me. After running around with a pair of scissors for a little while and standing in front of the fridge with the door wide open - while drinking milk right out of the carton, I decided to really lash out and vibrate the accumulated dust off the Infinity's and Cerwin Vegas. Since it had been a while since I watched/listened to the Manila DVD, and since they're playing here in a few days, I decided some CPR (Concert Psyching Rock) would be apropos. I popped in Disk 1 and gave the volume knob a good spin.
There's a lot to be said for big, boxy, furniture-sized speakers. You guys with your little cubes and your discrete, unnoticeable speakers just don't get it. There's also a lot to be said for audio systems that are able to deliver audio the way the artist and the producer meant for it to be. And when the contents of the media is all spatialized and digitally encoded the way the Manila DVD is you need a decent system to really be able to appreciate not only just how well produced that DVD is, but how incredibly good the band was that night as well.
The individual performances from this show are nothing short of outstanding song after song, hour after hour. The fact that it sounds as good as it does is a testament to not only the band but to the techs and the sound engineers who dealt with numerous problems and technical issues behind-the-scenes all night - not the least of which was the weather causing its own havoc on the equipment as well as the performers. By the third song, they were all drenched with sweat and you could easily see they were hot already - especially Deen though it never affected his abilities to play or sing. True professionals!
As I said, their individual performances were tight and polished which culminated to deliver one of the best overall live performances by the band I have seen in a very long time. Of all the songs performed that night, the one that stands out as their shining moment, to me anyway, was WDILYL. It was the first song from Revelation I immediately latched onto and is by far the most complex and dynamic song from that album. The song just kicks some serious ass and they pulled out all the stops when they let loose with it in Manila.
And while I thought Arnel delivered a fantastic show from start to finish, the one song he sang flawlessly was What I Needed - Not my least favorite from Revelation but....
Deen's perfect harmonies obviously helped Arnel sound even that much better but Arnel's performance on that one was perfect and in my opinion is the best single live performance since joining the band.
Now, I can only speak to the performances I've seen via the submitted amateur videos, the pro-shot videos, and the shows I've attended so it's entirely possible he may have done as good or better at a show I haven't seen and if that's the case, that's what I'm wanting to know:
What was Arnel's single best live performance since joining Journey?
There's a lot to be said for big, boxy, furniture-sized speakers. You guys with your little cubes and your discrete, unnoticeable speakers just don't get it. There's also a lot to be said for audio systems that are able to deliver audio the way the artist and the producer meant for it to be. And when the contents of the media is all spatialized and digitally encoded the way the Manila DVD is you need a decent system to really be able to appreciate not only just how well produced that DVD is, but how incredibly good the band was that night as well.
The individual performances from this show are nothing short of outstanding song after song, hour after hour. The fact that it sounds as good as it does is a testament to not only the band but to the techs and the sound engineers who dealt with numerous problems and technical issues behind-the-scenes all night - not the least of which was the weather causing its own havoc on the equipment as well as the performers. By the third song, they were all drenched with sweat and you could easily see they were hot already - especially Deen though it never affected his abilities to play or sing. True professionals!
As I said, their individual performances were tight and polished which culminated to deliver one of the best overall live performances by the band I have seen in a very long time. Of all the songs performed that night, the one that stands out as their shining moment, to me anyway, was WDILYL. It was the first song from Revelation I immediately latched onto and is by far the most complex and dynamic song from that album. The song just kicks some serious ass and they pulled out all the stops when they let loose with it in Manila.
And while I thought Arnel delivered a fantastic show from start to finish, the one song he sang flawlessly was What I Needed - Not my least favorite from Revelation but....
Deen's perfect harmonies obviously helped Arnel sound even that much better but Arnel's performance on that one was perfect and in my opinion is the best single live performance since joining the band.
Now, I can only speak to the performances I've seen via the submitted amateur videos, the pro-shot videos, and the shows I've attended so it's entirely possible he may have done as good or better at a show I haven't seen and if that's the case, that's what I'm wanting to know:
What was Arnel's single best live performance since joining Journey?
I'm going to be seeing him prior to the show here this Sunday and I'm going to ask him how he's really doing and how his voice is holding up to the regiment. In his defense, the same thing happened at the start of the Revelation tour. They played Tucson (in the pouring fucking rain, I might add...) and his performance left many people wondering if he was going to be able to endure the 3/4 of the tour still remaining based on a few issues he experienced that night. Nearly 4 months later they played Phoenix and he was damn near flawless, his projection was stronger and his comfortable vocal range was noticeably increased. The unfortunate thing is all we can do is wait and watch...
And I agree with Don on When You Love A Woman. The emotional delivery of that song by Arnel towards the end of his first tour really came across even on a youtube clip. I can imagine in person it was moving.