MR

At first I wasnt a big fan of this song, but after hearing it live from the Time 3 compilation, this song is great. The vocals on this song from Perry are very strong, especially in the chorus parts. I know his voice had changed quite a bit from the Escape era sound, but this song really is great live. I actually prefer listening to this song live, rather than the studio version. Something about that song live that really captivated the energy on stage when they recorded that night.

Anyone else a fan of the live version of that song?

jrny84 wrote:At first I wasnt a big fan of this song, but after hearing it live from the Time 3 compilation, this song is great. The vocals on this song from Perry are very strong, especially in the chorus parts. I know his voice had changed quite a bit from the Escape era sound, but this song really is great live. I actually prefer listening to this song live, rather than the studio version. Something about that song live that really captivated the energy on stage when they recorded that night.

Anyone else a fan of the live version of that song?

Love the song; don't like the live version. Can't get past Mike Baird's baseball cap or Randy's spandex pants.

Also at first was not the biggest fan. Heard it live twice on the ROR tour and warmed to the song, the Time 3 CD even more so.
ROR has some great songs, but when I was 15 when it released wanted more rock, less pop. Still a couple songs I cringe when I hear, like Suzanne.

SA on GCHI


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mVlByZhCTLs

FamilyMan wrote:Love the song; don't like the live version. Can't get past Mike Baird's baseball cap or Randy's spandex pants.

+1 completely! WTF was Randy thinking putting on a pair of women's size 3, Lycra workout pants, looking in the mirror and thinking to himself, "Dayumm Dog! You's da shit!"

scarab wrote: Still a couple songs I cringe when I hear, like Suzanne.

I don't necessarily cringe at Suzanne but I definitely like Deen on vox more that I do SP.

jrny84 wrote:At first I wasnt a big fan of this song, but after hearing it live from the Time 3 compilation, this song is great. The vocals on this song from Perry are very strong, especially in the chorus parts. I know his voice had changed quite a bit from the Escape era sound, but this song really is great live. I actually prefer listening to this song live, rather than the studio version. Something about that song live that really captivated the energy on stage when they recorded that night.

Anyone else a fan of the live version of that song?

Would have to agree there, that live version is killer! Loved Perry's vocals during the ROR era. The closest I have found to Perry/Journey live is DSB, Juan's vocals are excellent on their live performances of that one! Check it out, it's uncanny how much he sounds like Perry when it comes to the tone/timbre of his pipes.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-X2SQLV_HN4

Perry RULED on "Suzanne" and all the other songs on ROR...

I always liked "I'll Be Alright Without You" as well. Great vocals in the chorus and really recognizable song.

I think Suzanne was the hardest song to sing because of the insane outtro..

Here's Perry doing Suzanne live in 1986 during the ROR Tour in Milwaukee.. he does duck some notes in the verse parts.. but he actually hits the money note..

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tQeJ_2_n3zw


Deen and Jeremey's versions are also great.

Deb wrote:

jrny84 wrote:At first I wasnt a big fan of this song, but after hearing it live from the Time 3 compilation, this song is great. The vocals on this song from Perry are very strong, especially in the chorus parts. I know his voice had changed quite a bit from the Escape era sound, but this song really is great live. I actually prefer listening to this song live, rather than the studio version. Something about that song live that really captivated the energy on stage when they recorded that night.

Anyone else a fan of the live version of that song?

Would have to agree there, that live version is killer! Loved Perry's vocals during the ROR era. The closest I have found to Perry/Journey live is DSB, Juan's vocals are excellent on their live performances of that one! Check it out, it's uncanny how much he sounds like Perry when it comes to the tone/timbre of his pipes.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-X2SQLV_HN4

He does sound really good here Deb. The band is faking the funk on all the backing vocals, but I'm okay with that. Journey did it themselves. They did a really great job on this!

Pelata wrote:Perry RULED on "Suzanne" and all the other songs on ROR...

I love all of ROR and Suzanne was always one of my favs!

slucero wrote:I think Suzanne was the hardest song to sing because of the insane outtro..

That outro is brilliant....it is VERY difficult to sing correctly.

Saw Deen C do a brilliant rendition of Suzanne in 2004.

The_Noble_Cause wrote:Saw Deen C do a brilliant rendition of Suzanne in 2004.

Just realized Deen has been the drummer for 15 years. They have more "consecutive" years in their resurgence than they had during their heyday. 1973-1986 (13) 1996, TBF, then gone. 1998 - present. I guess the haters failed for 15 years straight to bring this great band to their knees. LOL!

Of course, before anyone starts this, I'll start it first: The heyday was where all the record sales came from. But- 15 years of touring has had to be quite lucrative as well.

Now, what I posted above looks like a true timeline, but it's really not. When Steve Augeri went down there was a break and JSS came in, then there was a break. So, no we don't have 15 years of continuous Journey, but it's still a pretty great feat.

steveo777 wrote:

The_Noble_Cause wrote:Saw Deen C do a brilliant rendition of Suzanne in 2004.

Just realized Deen has been the drummer for 15 years. They have more "consecutive" years in their resurgence than they had during their heyday. 1973-1986 (13) 1996, TBF, then gone. 1998 - present. I guess the haters failed for 15 years straight to bring this great band to their knees. LOL!

Of course, before anyone starts this, I'll start it first: The heyday was where all the record sales came from. But- 15 years of touring has had to be quite lucrative as well.

Now, what I posted above looks like a true timeline, but it's really not. When Steve Augeri went down there was a break and JSS came in, then there was a break. So, no we don't have 15 years of continuous Journey, but it's still a pretty great feat.

15 straight years of surviving on the previous 13 years of material. Yay.

Not sure why everyone's falling all over themselves with praise for this live track.
If Pineda sang like this, you guys'd crucify him.

The track linked above features Steve Perry cracking, ducking high notes, out of breath and actually screaming other notes. Perry is arguably THE BEST rock singer of my generation- but this track features him having some major issues. If this was anybody but Steve, you guys'd be saying how terrible it was. I think Steve gets a free pass because he is the guy that wrote the song (along with Cain/Schon). That's okay I guess... but it's really not a good representation of him live.

After early 83, Steve's voice just really got beat up. Up until that time, holy f***!, he was untouchable by ANYONE. Listen to the Budokan 83 show. Listen to ANY of the shows including and prior to that one and he's brilliant, inhuman in fact. After that, something within him changed and his voice became really rough. The 86 tour, while super entertaining (and I saw the Seattle show), found him having some real issues- and he changed his approach from being more a crooner to more a screamer in spots. Listen to the Philly show from the same tour, listen to any of the shows recorded on that tour, and you'll hear Perry cracking all over the place. It's no wonder that he needed a break. It would've been great had he taken a break and found his vocal (and emotional) center again, but back then, nobody seemed to care or maybe realize that his voice could be irreparably harmed. The tour stress and the stress of everything that went down during ROR really weighed on him. You can hear that stress in his voice. I'm sure I'll get beat up over it, but if you really listen to his voice, you can hear he's having some major issues that he didn't have prior to late 83. It's a shame and it probably was due to too many shows and so much stress.

Having said that about the "Suzanne" clip, the "Girl Can't Help It" live version is a good version of the tune. Not sure why people dislike that one. Great harmonies in it.

The other thing about ROR, it brought us the horror of Michael Baired with Journey. REALLY?!?!?!?

Frontiers's/Jeremey's arrangement of Suzanne with the slow piano first verse and chorus is far and away the best live version I've heard of this song. Great stuff.

I like ROR a lot actually.

I agree with most of what Bry said …I do think he was mistaken in flipping the 2 songs (SP live) to what people are saying in this thread. The topic was GCHI, and everybody (I think) loves SP’s rendition of this song. Slucy posted a clip of Suzanne …about all said was it is a hard song to sing live. I don’t think anyone is falling over themselves in praising this particular performance. So, I think we all here pretty much have complementary views.

ROR my favorite Journey album and WCTNGOF my all-time favorite song. Yes, there have been negative comments from the hardcores that it is too pop-ish, Neal didn’t have enough input, it was more a Steve solo album. There may be some truth to all that, but like anything else, we like what we like. Ironically, Suzanne (which seems to be the most rocking song of the lot) is my least liked in this record. Go figure!

For me, the beauty of Journey’s whole catalog collection is each album brings on a different mood to the listener. The first 3 (pre-SP) were all about the playing …too much music, not enough vocals. I do love the snippets and a few songs in each album where Gregg’s singing was featured. Infinity & Evolution came on like the new Journey Parts I & II. Departure takes on the blues. JC came onboard to give the band a more dynamic pop-rock sound. Escape is all easy-listening rock n roll (their best album, imo). Frontiers is edgy. ROR --synth pop rock (which follows the trend of the mid-80’s, I feel). TBF is their mature, adult contemporary phase. Arrival marks their 1st album without SP (sold zilch). Red13 -- back to prog rock. Generations – musical chair lead singers (SA & DC sang good, Neal & Jon passable, Ross was awful…sorry). Revelations -- back to the Infinity era. Eclipse – “Neal’s album”(haha).

Did I miss anything?

I wonder if Journey's next album will be recorded in Jon's new studio?

I'm quite surprised at the lack of respect Arrival gets on this board. I remember hearing the early boots of Higher Place on Napster and thinking, "they did it. They got back to Escape." Granted, Augeri's voice has none of the prowess that Perry's does, and they did him no favors in the engineering department. His voice sounds thin and hollow. But purely from the standpoint of the quality of the songs, I think there are way better tracks on that record than Rev, Eclipse or Generations.

That said, GCHI is a great song ... recorded by studio musicians, not Journey ... and performed live by studio musicians, not Journey.

FamilyMan wrote:I'm quite surprised at the lack of respect Arrival gets on this board. I remember hearing the early boots of Higher Place on Napster and thinking, "they did it. They got back to Escape."

Prior to heading into the studio, Neal promised fans "Escape 2000." When "Arrival" finally came out in Japan, it was pretty much TBF prt 2 only with lesser songs - total ballad fest. "Higher Place" is a great rock track, one of few.

Escape is J.'s greatest mainstream rock achievement (album), written and recorded in their prime... it's success impossible to duplicate...and I don't mean in just in sales. One can sit and listen entranced TK #1-10 ... not one filler. Same can't be said about any one of their other albums.

I agree Higher Place should be included up there among their top-tier songs of all-time... Jack Blades (Night Ranger?) contributed prominently in writing that song, I believe. And I agree with TNC the problem with Arrival is too many ballads -- a criticism that's been levied about TBF, too. But, while TBF is diversified in the ballads..., Arrival is mostly sappy, wedding-song stuff -- seemingly, every other song has the word LOVE in the title ... geesh. The talk awhile back was Neal were not happy with all the ballads on Arrival, either...that it was the Label, through John Kalodner, who chosed what songs to put on the record.

FM ... what do you mean by GCHI being not performed by Journey?!? Other live musicians in the studio??? Please elaborate....

annie89509 wrote:Escape is J.'s greatest mainstream rock achievement (album), written and recorded in their prime... it's success impossible to duplicate...and I don't mean in just in sales. One can sit and listen entranced TK #1-10 ... not one filler. Same can't be said about any one of their other albums.

I agree Higher Place should be included up there among their top-tier songs of all-time... Jack Blades (Night Ranger?) contributed prominently in writing that song, I believe. And I agree with TNC the problem with Arrival is too many ballads -- a criticism that's been levied about TBF, too. But, while TBF is diversified in the ballads..., Arrival is mostly sappy, wedding-song stuff -- seemingly, every other song has the word LOVE in the title ... geesh. The talk awhile back was Neal were not happy with all the ballads on Arrival, either...that it was the Label, through John Kalodner, who chosed what songs to put on the record.

FM ... what do you mean by GCHI being not performed by Journey?!? Other live musicians in the studio??? Please elaborate....

While, not answering for FM, if you have seen the VH-1 BTM documentary, I think you would know that Ross and Smitty were fired, at the requirement of SP. He later admits it was one of those "hindsight" kind of things that "seemed like a good idea at the time". He later says if he had it to do over again, he wouldn't have done it. So, ROR was produced in the studio, using studio musicians - Bob Glaub on bass and Larrie Londin on drums. Steve Perry, Neal Schon and Jonathan Cain, all were present on ROR.

steveo777 wrote:

annie89509 wrote:Escape is J.'s greatest mainstream rock achievement (album), written and recorded in their prime... it's success impossible to duplicate...and I don't mean in just in sales. One can sit and listen entranced TK #1-10 ... not one filler. Same can't be said about any one of their other albums.

I agree Higher Place should be included up there among their top-tier songs of all-time... Jack Blades (Night Ranger?) contributed prominently in writing that song, I believe. And I agree with TNC the problem with Arrival is too many ballads -- a criticism that's been levied about TBF, too. But, while TBF is diversified in the ballads..., Arrival is mostly sappy, wedding-song stuff -- seemingly, every other song has the word LOVE in the title ... geesh. The talk awhile back was Neal were not happy with all the ballads on Arrival, either...that it was the Label, through John Kalodner, who chosed what songs to put on the record.

FM ... what do you mean by GCHI being not performed by Journey?!? Other live musicians in the studio??? Please elaborate....

While, not answering for FM, if you have seen the VH-1 BTM documentary, I think you would know that Ross and Smitty were fired, at the requirement of SP. He later admits it was one of those "hindsight" kind of things that "seemed like a good idea at the time". He later says if he had it to do over again, he wouldn't have done it. So, ROR was produced in the studio, using studio musicians - Bob Glaub on bass and Larrie Londin on drums. Steve Perry, Neal Schon and Jonathan Cain, all were present on ROR.

Smith was also partially involved in ROR.

FamilyMan wrote:I'm quite surprised at the lack of respect Arrival gets on this board.

Arrival was great, but there were too many ballads on it.
Trial By Fire also would've been helped by having the one rocker track added that they threw on the Japan release "I Can See It In your Eyes". That album was also really ballad heavy.
Arrival's a decent record though. They shoulda dropped on "Remember Me" too... though it would've made for a pretty long album.

steveo777 wrote:

annie89509 wrote:Escape is J.'s greatest mainstream rock achievement (album), written and recorded in their prime... it's success impossible to duplicate...and I don't mean in just in sales. One can sit and listen entranced TK #1-10 ... not one filler. Same can't be said about any one of their other albums.

I agree Higher Place should be included up there among their top-tier songs of all-time... Jack Blades (Night Ranger?) contributed prominently in writing that song, I believe. And I agree with TNC the problem with Arrival is too many ballads -- a criticism that's been levied about TBF, too. But, while TBF is diversified in the ballads..., Arrival is mostly sappy, wedding-song stuff -- seemingly, every other song has the word LOVE in the title ... geesh. The talk awhile back was Neal were not happy with all the ballads on Arrival, either...that it was the Label, through John Kalodner, who chosed what songs to put on the record.

FM ... what do you mean by GCHI being not performed by Journey?!? Other live musicians in the studio??? Please elaborate....

While, not answering for FM, if you have seen the VH-1 BTM documentary, I think you would know that Ross and Smitty were fired, at the requirement of SP. He later admits it was one of those "hindsight" kind of things that "seemed like a good idea at the time". He later says if he had it to do over again, he wouldn't have done it. So, ROR was produced in the studio, using studio musicians - Bob Glaub on bass and Larrie Londin on drums. Steve Perry, Neal Schon and Jonathan Cain, all were present on ROR.

Stvo...yes, I have the BTM docu (both 1-hr version & the 1-1/2 hr Director's Cut)...any Journey fan worth their salt knows the story. What does it matter that studio musicians were used to record ROR???.... it is still a "Journey" record, isn't it? And, is it all that uncommon for bands to hire extra musicians to help with the sound? I don't think so.

annie89509 wrote:

steveo777 wrote:

annie89509 wrote:Escape is J.'s greatest mainstream rock achievement (album), written and recorded in their prime... it's success impossible to duplicate...and I don't mean in just in sales. One can sit and listen entranced TK #1-10 ... not one filler. Same can't be said about any one of their other albums.

I agree Higher Place should be included up there among their top-tier songs of all-time... Jack Blades (Night Ranger?) contributed prominently in writing that song, I believe. And I agree with TNC the problem with Arrival is too many ballads -- a criticism that's been levied about TBF, too. But, while TBF is diversified in the ballads..., Arrival is mostly sappy, wedding-song stuff -- seemingly, every other song has the word LOVE in the title ... geesh. The talk awhile back was Neal were not happy with all the ballads on Arrival, either...that it was the Label, through John Kalodner, who chosed what songs to put on the record.

FM ... what do you mean by GCHI being not performed by Journey?!? Other live musicians in the studio??? Please elaborate....

While, not answering for FM, if you have seen the VH-1 BTM documentary, I think you would know that Ross and Smitty were fired, at the requirement of SP. He later admits it was one of those "hindsight" kind of things that "seemed like a good idea at the time". He later says if he had it to do over again, he wouldn't have done it. So, ROR was produced in the studio, using studio musicians - Bob Glaub on bass and Larrie Londin on drums. Steve Perry, Neal Schon and Jonathan Cain, all were present on ROR.

Stvo...yes, I have the BTM docu (both 1-hr version & the 1-1/2 hr Director's Cut)...any Journey fan worth their salt knows the story. What does it matter that studio musicians were used to record ROR???.... it is still a "Journey" record, isn't it? And, is it all that uncommon for bands to hire extra musicians to help with the sound? I don't think so.

Plus, the amount of 'classic line-up' members on ROR is no less than the amount of 'classic line-up' members on their current albums AND tours. And they still call themselves Journey.

I've always loved "Girl Can't Help It" (studio and live), especially the harmonies and Neal's soloing at the end of the song.

conversationpc wrote:I've always loved "Girl Can't Help It" (studio and live), especially the harmonies and Neal's soloing at the end of the song.

I love it also! I saw the tour in 86 in Seattle, and I am in the documentary, and video of why Can't This Night Go On Forever.

The point is, the band - as formed at the time - was fractured by Perry's insistence that the record sound a certain way. Essentially, he wanted -- no, mandated -- having the same artistic freedom he enjoyed on his solo record. So he fired the rhythm section that had already backed the band on 4 previous platinum selling albums in favor of some of the same hired studio hands that played on "Street Talk." These guys weren't hired to "help," they were hired to "replace." And the comparison to the current line-up isn't fair at all.