MR

Hard to believe this was almost 20 years

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KuZlJ6K ... rt_radio=1

What a great version. Man, the band felt so alive back then - but I suppose it really was a different time. It was the moment when they could have leaned in a new direction. In hindsight, financially for themselves they made the right decision, but creatively I feel like we missed out on a lot.

Absolutely fantastic. At that time they couldn't have found anyone better. The big question is how long JSS would have been able to last vocally.

I found a bootleg from the Reno 2006 show JSS did. My god the energy the band had during the performance was like nothing I’ve heard with any other vocalist other than Perry.

Outside of not sounding like a Perry clone I still don’t know why they let JSS go. I’m happy about it because Jeff has churned out quality music with numerous different acts since then while Journey has churned out more law suits against each other than albums. I also don’t think Jeff’s voice would’ve lasted because you can hear him straining hitting some notes. Still huge missed opportunity to move forward instead of being a nostalgic act.

danielb wrote:Absolutely fantastic. At that time they couldn't have found anyone better.

Band founder, Herbie Herbert, when talking to Andrew in 2008 about JSS said the following:

"If you make a change it's gotta be an upgrade. Kevin Chalfant would have been a much better choice at that point. Kevin Chalfant would be a much better point now. I don't know."

I think JSS lit a fire under their ass. You can see/feel the energy in all the YT footage. Considering that Augeri was shot, JSS WAS an upgrade. That said, JSS had to work to get back into that rarefied tenor zone. In reality, the band never should have been in a position where they had to fly in a replacement vocalist at such short notice. Just a mess.

The_Noble_Cause wrote:

danielb wrote:Absolutely fantastic. At that time they couldn't have found anyone better.

Band founder, Herbie Herbert, when talking to Andrew in 2008 about JSS said the following:

"If you make a change it's gotta be an upgrade. Kevin Chalfant would have been a much better choice at that point. Kevin Chalfant would be a much better point now. I don't know."

I think JSS lit a fire under their ass. You can see/feel the energy in all the YT footage. Considering that Augeri was shot, JSS WAS an upgrade. That said, JSS had to work to get back into that rarefied tenor zone. In reality, the band never should have been in a position where they had to fly in a replacement vocalist at such short notice. Just a mess.

I saw them with Augeri in 06 and it was embarrassing. He sounded awful and they needed Castronovo to cover large portions of the songs because Steve’s voice was that shot. It was the last show I’ve seen with them. After Deano breaking the lip syncing with Augeri I was done supporting them live.

jestor92 wrote:I saw them with Augeri in 06 and it was embarrassing. He sounded awful and they needed Castronovo to cover large portions of the songs because Steve’s voice was that shot. It was the last show I’ve seen with them. After Deano breaking the lip syncing with Augeri I was done supporting them live.

He was underwater well before 2006. The Generations tour needed to be cut short and they needed to get the hell off the road asap. But instead, they went to the UK (there was even a show where one of the tapes malfunctioned and froze). After UK, they started up the Leppard co-tour. SA was forced by management to go live in 2006 so that’s probably what you saw. The whole thing is crazy.

The_Noble_Cause wrote:

jestor92 wrote:I saw them with Augeri in 06 and it was embarrassing. He sounded awful and they needed Castronovo to cover large portions of the songs because Steve’s voice was that shot. It was the last show I’ve seen with them. After Deano breaking the lip syncing with Augeri I was done supporting them live.

He was underwater well before 2006. The Generations tour needed to be cut short and they needed to get the hell off the road asap. But instead, they went to the UK (there was even a show where one of the tapes malfunctioned and froze). After UK, they started up the Leppard co-tour. SA was forced by management to go live in 2006 so that’s probably what you saw. The whole thing is crazy.

I don’t think I’ve heard about the tapes stopping during the UK show. Sounds crazy. Was Augeri basically forced by management or did he willingly start using the tapes prior 2006?

The_Noble_Cause wrote:

jestor92 wrote:I saw them with Augeri in 06 and it was embarrassing. He sounded awful and they needed Castronovo to cover large portions of the songs because Steve’s voice was that shot. It was the last show I’ve seen with them. After Deano breaking the lip syncing with Augeri I was done supporting them live.

He was underwater well before 2006. The Generations tour needed to be cut short and they needed to get the hell off the road asap. But instead, they went to the UK (there was even a show where one of the tapes malfunctioned and froze). After UK, they started up the Leppard co-tour. SA was forced by management to go live in 2006 so that’s probably what you saw. The whole thing is crazy.

The Generations/anniversary tour should have never happened the way it did. They went from ending DeTour in late 2004, to recording Generations a few months later, to touring again in mid-2005. I am sure they knew he was having vocal issues. They should have taken a long break and given Augeri time to recover and started the tour in 2006...pusheed everything back six months.

This band has been so greedy over the years and made decisions based on $'s rather than what makes sense long term. Even right now, today, they are doing the same thing to Arnel...but I doubt there is going to be another Journey tour for him. He seems to want to quit.

jestor92 wrote:

The_Noble_Cause wrote:

jestor92 wrote:I saw them with Augeri in 06 and it was embarrassing. He sounded awful and they needed Castronovo to cover large portions of the songs because Steve’s voice was that shot. It was the last show I’ve seen with them. After Deano breaking the lip syncing with Augeri I was done supporting them live.

He was underwater well before 2006. The Generations tour needed to be cut short and they needed to get the hell off the road asap. But instead, they went to the UK (there was even a show where one of the tapes malfunctioned and froze). After UK, they started up the Leppard co-tour. SA was forced by management to go live in 2006 so that’s probably what you saw. The whole thing is crazy.

I don’t think I’ve heard about the tapes stopping during the UK show. Sounds crazy. Was Augeri basically forced by management or did he willingly start using the tapes prior 2006?

According to Augeri, he said he could not talk about it. I'm sure he signed a NDA when he left the band. But, he said, "All I can say is I sang every song, every night." That implies that somebody in the control made a decision to use prerecorded vocals or his live vocal and it was not his choice.

jestor92 wrote:I don’t think I’ve heard about the tapes stopping during the UK show. Sounds crazy. Was Augeri basically forced by management or did he willingly start using the tapes prior 2006?

I'm sure it was discussed every which way on here during the height of Tapegate mania. From what I recall, the Faithfully track stops suddenly and after a brief pause Deen takes over the lead.

Monker wrote:
According to Augeri, he said he could not talk about it. I'm sure he signed a NDA when he left the band. But, he said, "All I can say is I sang every song, every night." That implies that somebody in the control made a decision to use prerecorded vocals or his live vocal and it was not his choice.

He never implied or said he didn't have a choice. Imo, that simply means he was vocalizing (badly) to fulfill his contract obligations. It's probably the same reason he started playing guitar on stage in 2005. Basically trying to justify his worth.

There was no unilateral mastermind in the control room. This all had to be worked out ahead of time with Elson, as there had to be coordination for when SA would actually ad-lib with the audience mid-song or at the end of songs.

As noted on here, in 2005, SA also switched to a large fuzzy mic head and started concealing his mouth. It is what it is. The sad thing is, there are touring artists out there, still engaging in similar behavior. One prominent lipper, 90s country artist John Michael Montgomery, recently retired.

You can find isolated examples of Augeri lipping even before 2005. Send Her My Love in this 2004 clip is 100% from Vegas 2001 and there's no way this wasn't rehearsed ahead of time. It's probably the only song out of the entire 2004 concert where his pitch isn't all over the place - because it's from the auto-tuned Vegas DVD. Are we to believe that Elson just randomly flipped a switch to punk Steve on that day? It doesn't make any sense. Steve has also said (paraphrasing): 'Elson has heard me at my best and my worst.' These 2 guys had a close working relationship. Of course the whole thing was mapped out to every last detail. The band was in on it too.

https://youtu.be/IcJhXnL6KZw?is=MeMZEFgwosIaHTJV