MR

Which of Journey's tours were the best?

Each one that I saw ...

jrnyfan86 wrote:Which of Journey's tours were the best?

Depends on what generation you are from.

My son would have had no concept of the Houston 1981 concert. He was raised on radio, born Jan 2, 1980. He loved everything from ROR to present.

The Escape tour. Both times I saw them during that tour, the band gave off an intimacy that made us fans feel like one big fraternity. Journey was finally hitting the big time and for those of us who gotten on board a little earlier, it was a great feeling. Sort of like when your home town team goes to the Super Bowl. You could feel how excited the band was and even their onstage banter with the crowd seemed genuine.

Later, on the Frontiers tour, it was still great but something had changed. The band lost a bit of that warmth. They were hugely famous and they knew it. You could feel they were getting a bit full of themselves and by now, all the bandwagoners had jumped on board dulling that special feeling a bit.

The DEPARTURE tour 1980 still ranks on my list as the most incredible Journey show I've ever seen.

Don wrote:The Escape tour. Both times I saw them during that tour, the band gave off an intimacy that made us fans feel like one big fraternity. Journey was finally hitting the big time and for those of us who gotten on board a little earlier, it was a great feeling. Sort of like when your home town team goes to the Super Bowl. You could feel how excited the band was and even their onstage banter with the crowd seemed genuine.

Later, on the Frontiers tour, it was still great but something had changed. The band lost a bit of that warmth. They were hugely famous and they knew it. You could feel they were getting a bit full of themselves and by now, all the bandwagoners had jumped on board dulling that special feeling a bit.

On the Frontiers tour, the songs were sped up so much that it took away from it also.

Departure and Escape. Great energy from the entire band.

Raised On Radio Tour even though it was cut short

Rick wrote:

Don wrote:The Escape tour. Both times I saw them during that tour, the band gave off an intimacy that made us fans feel like one big fraternity. Journey was finally hitting the big time and for those of us who gotten on board a little earlier, it was a great feeling. Sort of like when your home town team goes to the Super Bowl. You could feel how excited the band was and even their onstage banter with the crowd seemed genuine.

Later, on the Frontiers tour, it was still great but something had changed. The band lost a bit of that warmth. They were hugely famous and they knew it. You could feel they were getting a bit full of themselves and by now, all the bandwagoners had jumped on board dulling that special feeling a bit.

On the Frontiers tour, the songs were sped up so much that it took away from it also.

Only on the later half of the tour. At the start, the tempos were as they should be. Somewhere along the line, they went into overdrive and became ridiculous.

Though I never saw them live, my favorite has to be Escape. That '81 Houston show is simply amazing.

Departure is my favorite album, and I loved Rolie being in the band. But the Escape tour had a special kind of magic.

Have only ever seen one Journey concert and that was in May 1982 on the Escape tour. Definitely right up there as one of my top 5 favorite concerts of all time.

I really like the Frontiers tour era voice that Perry had. ROR shows signs of it, but there are also a lot of bad nights, cracking, and 3 sheeted moments to sour that one. Frontiers for me, with Escape second.

Saint John wrote:I really like the Frontiers tour era voice that Perry had. ROR shows signs of it, but there are also a lot of bad nights, cracking, and 3 sheeted moments to sour that one. Frontiers for me, with Escape second.

Perry pipes wise, I agree. Definitely prefer his ROR/Frontiers vocal tone. Sadly, the ROR tour never made it up here before they imploded. Would loooooooove to have seen an ROR concert.

Escape then 30th anniversary tour

Departure. Hands down.

I was early in my concert going career so my memory may be somewhat skewed. It had it all...exchanging lead vocals, blistering Schon, Perry nailing the high notes and even sitting in on drums for a song, fantastic light show and pryos and a buzz in the arena that grew as the concert went along.

It seems about 50/50 on the Departure and Escape Tours so far

jrnyfan86 wrote:It seems about 50/50 on the Departure and Escape Tours so far

To me, that was their BEST years. The two best albums, Perry's voice still stellar, and Rolie still with them during Departure.

Although, I always wanted to hear Good Morning Girl live. That is my favorite song, period, of any group.

jrnyfan86 wrote:It seems about 50/50 on the Departure and Escape Tours so far

I'm going to have to go along w/this as well ...however, I loved Frontiers and ROR ...loved
ROR. Back then the words to BGTY were concise, powerful ...Journey's sound was good and
you could hear everything including the imperfections!! This new sound they have
is worse then auto~tone~tune~robotic crap!!
BAM!!




BBF~171

Escape tour.

Frontiers was good too.

Frankly, in this ERA of Journey it was Manila. Vegas 2008 would be a close second.

The Arrival 2001 tour trumps both of those, but it's not the singer, but the set list that wins this one.

I've seen them live for the Frontiers tour, The Arrival tour, the tour with Styx and REO and the tour with Def Lepard. NONE of these shows in person can hold a candle to the bootleg I have from Chicago August of 1979. That is the most intense performance I have ever heard from Journey. I hope and pray that we may someday see a DVD of this era. The Departure tour shows come close but not quite.

I guess all of Journey's tours were great

jrnyfan86 wrote:Which of Journey's tours were the best?

1980 hands down

30th Anniversary. I love Augeri and the setlist was amazing..but I missed it

the eclipse tour was awesome

Archetype wrote:30th Anniversary. I love Augeri and the setlist was amazing..but I missed it

That was my first Journey concert at the tender age of 14. Great, great show, but I believe it may be possible that Augeri's vocals weren't quite live....

The shows for the Escape tour have long been considered disappointing by a lot of people. The band had just added Jonathan Cain, and focused mostly on the music written and recorded with him. This left set lists missing a lot of classic material that featured Gregg Rolie's unmistakable vocals, and shows topped out at around 90 minutes in length. On the Frontiers tour, Journey had the benefit of another MONSTER album to pull tracks from, and the band was at the pinnacle of its success. They may have still neglected a lot of earlier work, but it was nowhere as easy to notice. Plus, with an opener like Bryan Adams, they had an emerging superstar who was just coming into his own. For Perry-era Journey, I would have to rank the tours 1.) Frontiers 2.) Departure (/Captured) and 3.) Escape. Since reforming, the hands-down winner for me was the 30th anniversary tour in 2005. I saw all the songs that I never dreamed of seeing performed live. I saw the tour twice and would love to see that type of show from the band again.