YoungJRNY wrote:
Very true about Jeff bringing most fans out of the shadows and re-energizing passion from the fans to the band again. With that said, I'm going to have to agree with Dan. He was brought in to be none other than a fill in, at the wrong time. Journey was stuck without a pure lead singer for most of the tour, and felt the pressure of having someone to be named and what better time to do it than while Jeff was still on board. He is not what they wanted, obviously. They knew they made the mistake of officially announcing him as their new lead vocalist, and quickly got rid of him..maybe it wasn't the right way, but either way he was gone from the beginning. To me, I don't think you can HONESTLY say he was JOURNEYS LEAD SINGER. He was basically a blow in the wind with the band. The guy they "settled for" until they "found someone they wanted." The situation sucked, but that's the way I understood this whole thing. But without a doubt, The guy deserves all the credit in the world.
This is all speculation on your part, unless you know something that we don't know. If that is the case, please share, because there are very many of us who were members of MR during this time, that are still scratching our heads over the whole thing. We attended the shows, we interacted with the members of the band, and we saw the excitement that Jeff brought on board, not just on stage, but off stage as well.
I do HONESTLY say he was JOURNEY's LEAD SINGER, because he was IN FACT Journey's lead singer. Anyone that says otherwise is being a Monday morning quarterback. If anything, they thought they wanted one thing, and later changed their minds, for whatever reason. Perhaps they saw the Sopranos thing as a way to get a jump start into mainstream again, and decided to suddenly shift course and go from 'new and energized' to 'same old same old'. And IF they were bullshitting all along, then they are bigger dicks than we've given them credit for, because ONCE AGAIN they knowingly and intentionally deceived their fans, and therefore no longer deserve them.
None of this really matters now, since Jeff is long gone and Arnel is the new lead singer, but I just don't want Jeff's contribution to Journey minimized. It's not fair to him, and it's not fair to his fans.