Steve Augeri Magic City Casino

[Final Frontiers]

Short time lurker, long time Journey fan.

I went to the Steve Augeri Band concert at Magic City Casino last week. My first time ever going to a Journey associated show. I wasn't old enough to see Journey in its prime. So now that I'm an adult I was determined to get out to see at least someone who was in Journey at my price range (which just happens to be FREE). I've read about most of the controversy surrounding him during my lurkdom and hadn't paid any attention to Journey during that time until Arnel Pineda's media blitz. So I missed out on any knowledge of him while he was in the band. My real primary reason for going was because I was trying to win free tickets from XM Radio to see Sammy Haggar and Michael Anthony at the Seminole Hard Rock in November. But the way they give out free tickets to anything is to invite you one second, block you out of their website, and then tell you everything's gone the next second. Didn't get to see Half Halen, so I settled for the 12th best thing.

The Hard Rock casino is really nice with a hotel, restaurants, casino, pool, and everything you'd expect from a casino. Magic City Casino is the rinky-dinkiest place in the history of the world. Having never been there before, I checked it out online, I was a little suspicious of the place when I looked at it's website and found no pictures of the place on it. But they do get a LOT of national acts there, the weekend before they had a Classic Rock Festival with Peter Noone, John Cafferty & The Beaver Brown Band, and a bunch of other people and Jefferson Starship is coming in January and Michael Bolton is coming soon. My sister figured out that MCC was our local dog track before we pulled in. We parked, walked through the casino, and out the back door where the track/concert stage was (we never felt the need to go back in there, thats how cheap looking it is). I've been to casinos in Las Vegas and Atlantic City and this was definately, C List. The saving grace while we waited is that there was a food truck festival going on in the parking lot.

But back to the show, it was a beautiful night, the weather was perfect. It was supposed to start at 8:00PM, but began at 8:15PM, we could see Steve Augeri and his band walk in through the back gate. He had a guitarist, keyboard player, drummer, bass player, and 2 female back up singers (why doesn't Journey hire some back up singers?). There were some seats in the front where you could pay to be close to the stage ($75.00!!!!). I didn't see very many people sitting there. The announcer did invite to come and stand in front of the stage (behind the paying customers). We stayed in the bleachers. There was maybe a couple of hundred people there. This was MCC's first free concert.

Set List:

Chain Reaction
Stone In Love
Ask The Lonely
Kiss Me Softly (only Augeri era song performed)
Wheel In The Sky
Lights
(My sister was kind of getting pissed waiting for The Dirty Dozen to be played, she spent most of her time on The Simpsons Tapped Out)
Don't Stop Believin'
Anyway You Want It
Open Arms (acoustic on the guitar SA solo)
Faithfully (had the audience "Whoa, Oh, Oh, Ohing with him)
Hours In A Day (only new Augeri song performed)
Lovin, Touchin', Squeezin' (played with a cool bluesy guitar duet with SA and his guitarist, and bassist morphed into another song I can't name)
Be Good To Yourself

Encore
The Who's Won't Be Fooled Again
Separate Ways

I might be missing a couple of songs and definately have the order confused. But I was surprised that he front loaded the show with so many Greatest Hits 2 songs and not enough Greatest Hits 1. There were a month of newspaper ads for "Steve Augeri: Former Journey Lead Singer performing the hits Separate Ways, Open Arms, Faithfully, Don't Stop Believin'" and he made sure to hit all of them. But there were no "I'll Be Alright Without You, Who's Cryin' Now, Send Her My Love, etc) and when you're dragging someone with you to the show you want them to enjoy themselves. But my sis did say she wouldn't mind going out there again for another free concert on food truck Saturday.

I tried taking a video of Faithfully, but my phone wouldn't let me get the whole song and it was out of focus because I was too far away. There were a bunch of people taking videos out there. But here's medley someone else posted.


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-u2mWD2J-QA

"Lovin', Touchin', Squeezin'" not from this show.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QQEUX-yAZiE

I decided to throw SA a bone and download "Kiss Me Softly" off of Freegal (cause it's in my price range FREE). I'm listening to it now.

[FamilyMan]

Someone educate me on this. Does Augeri need permission/rights to go out and perform these Journey songs live, and charge for it? I realize this concert was free, but generally speaking -- seems like most of Augeri's solo live sets are comprised of Journey songs. Wondering what the internal politics of this might be (if any).

For example ... does Jeremey/Frontiers or other tribute bands need rights to perform live for profit?

[The_Noble_Cause]

Thanks for the recap. Pretty good set list. After being kicked out of the band, Augeri has to forge his own path in the music 'biz. So far, he's taken better advantage of Itunes and releasing music online than even his former band mates. Great to see him out there.

[The_Noble_Cause]

Someone educate me on this. Does Augeri need permission/rights to go out and perform these Journey songs live, and charge for it? I realize this concert was free, but generally speaking -- seems like most of Augeri's solo live sets are comprised of Journey songs. Wondering what the internal politics of this might be (if any).

This has been covered elsewhere. Neal & Jon gave SA their blessing to use the songs. Jeremey has posted a more in-depth answer concerning copyright issues.

[kgdjpubs]

Someone educate me on this. Does Augeri need permission/rights to go out and perform these Journey songs live, and charge for it? I realize this concert was free, but generally speaking -- seems like most of Augeri's solo live sets are comprised of Journey songs. Wondering what the internal politics of this might be (if any).

For example ... does Jeremey/Frontiers or other tribute bands need rights to perform live for profit?

Short answer, no. Any band can perform any song live. You simply have to pay performance royalties. This is how all of your local bar bands survive. Journey (or any other band) can't stop them.

The legalities only come in as far as marketing/promotion goes. In other words, Augeri can play any song that he wants to live, however he would have to have permission from the band for promotional materials to say "former lead singer of Journey". Journey could, if they wanted to, prevent him from using the word "Journey" in any of his promotional materials or advertising, but they can't stop him from playing the songs if he simply wants to bill himself as "Steve Augeri" and have no tie-ins to his past used. There are plenty of issues where this situation has come up in the past. For example, Birtles/Shorrock/Goble (the 3 main voices/songwriters of the Little River Band) can perform any LRB songs they want to live and nobody can stop them, but they cannot use any references to the LRB in promotional/advertising materials.

Now, to take this one step further and into murkier territory, I'm not sure what happens if Augeri (or your local bar band) wanted to, let's say play a Cold Chisel song at the next concert. You are now talking about an Australian band that #1 doesn't have an American record label, and #2, hasn't had one for roughly 30 years as they simply gave up on the US market after one or two attempts and concentrated on locations where they were still popular where, #3 they continued to release new music. Effectively, you are talking about performing a song that was never even available for purchase in the US except as an import. How the performance royalties work on that situation could be a bit more interesting, presumbably.

[Final Frontiers]

Here's another video of the MCC show this one is "Faithfully/Don't Stop Believin'".

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4lVHVNJvDLM

I'm glad that Neal and Jon aren't douchie enough to keep SA from using his status as "Former Lead Singer Of Journey" to earn a decent living doing what he loves. It's the least they can do for him. Does JSS use "Former Lead Singer Of Journey" when he tours solo? He can associate himself with so many things: Queen, Journey, Transiberian Orchestra. Does he tour in the U.S.?

[Onestepper]

I'd be pretty disappointed if I saw that show. No matter how great of a showman SA may be..why the hell would I want to go see him cover a bunch of songs that he had absolutely zero to do with or make famous, with a band that also has nothing to do with Journey? It would be a different story if he'd have done more from Arrival, which I would love to have seen.

And before anyone jumps on me..I'm not slamming on SA at all. Throwing in a couple of legacy Journey tunes is fine, but he should do the stuff he did with Journey and his own material.

[The_Noble_Cause]

I'd be pretty disappointed if I saw that show. No matter how great of a showman SA may be..why the hell would I want to go see him cover a bunch of songs that he had absolutely zero to do with or make famous, with a band that also has nothing to do with Journey?

Because they are good songs? Because it is an excuse to get a drink and have a good time?

[FamilyMan]

Plenty of good songs from Tall Stories too. Maybe the promoters are simply telling him to front load the set with Journey tunes or he wont get booked.

[Onestepper]

Plenty of good songs from Tall Stories too. Maybe the promoters are simply telling him to front load the set with Journey tunes or he wont get booked.

That's probably the case.

[Arkansas]

... Maybe the promoters are simply telling him to front load the set with Journey tunes or he wont get booked.

Maybe part of his 'Journey blessing' is that he play their GH. In the bigger picture, it could be all part of keeping the catalogue alive.


later~

[marco17]

Plenty of good songs from Tall Stories too. Maybe the promoters are simply telling him to front load the set with Journey tunes or he wont get booked.

That's probably the case.

Yes, in most cases, the promoters and/or venue operators want him to sing the Journey catalog because that's what is going to get people through the doors, not Tall Stories or his other work. I am also sure he had no issue getting the okay from J to play their songs live. It just helps to continue to promote the band. Augeri does change his setlist up a little bit, and there are some from the DD that he rarely sings or doesn't sing, probably because post-vocal issues they are more difficult to sing or harder on his voice. He always does the big hits though. While not listed, I would assume that he played Higher Place from Arrival. That's a set staple.