by kgdjpubs » Tue Aug 12, 2008 4:17 am
yep, pretty good assessment. Cheap Trick did well with what they had to work with, and Ross coming out unannounced midway through the set and screaming into the mic "these guys rock!!!" was quite amusing. Heart played just about the perfect setlist for this crowd. They seem to have found a happy mixture of the 70s stuff that they want to play, and the 80s stuff that people want them to play. And yes, The Who cover came across REALLY well.
Now, just a bit of primer here for those not familiar with North Carolina shows. Charlotte is known as a party city. Everything seems to go off there. In contrast, Raleigh is known as a weird crowd. Yes, you can get them very involved in the show, but it takes a bit of work. Slack off the intensity just a bit, and you will see the crowd react. "Wine and Cheese crowd" wouldn't be inappropriate a lot of the time. I've seen them go ballistic before, but more often, they act like they are at the opera or the symphony, instead of a rock concert. There is VERY little middle ground there---you either have them eating out of your hands, or they are sitting back quietly watching. You have to be on your A-game here, no questions about it.
2nd point....Journey shows in Charlotte always go off like clockwork. Maybe it's the crowd, but they always turn out really good. Elsewhere in NC is a bit hit-or-miss, and the possibility of weird stuff happening. Greensboro '86 was the infamous show where Perry had a bracelet launched at him, and last night's show was the first show in Raleigh since Augeri's last concert--and the same venue, with probably a lot of the same people who witnessed that very interesting (both VERY good and VERY bad) concert. Putting the show on a Sunday night before the start of the workweek probably didn't help. That will ratchet down the party atmosphere by itself.
Journey DOES need to work on the setlist a bit. It's not as much WHAT they played, but WHEN they played it. It didn't get bogged down in ballads and stuff, but the flow of the setlist was missing. For example, look at this middle part of the setlist....Ask the Lonely, After All These Years, Separate Ways, Rubicon, Change for the Better, Wildest Dream. Rocking? Sure, but talk about leaving people with the deer-in-the-headlights look going from Separate Ways into Rubicon, and then 2 new songs back to back. You just don't get any momentum going with that. Remember what I said about the Raleigh crowd?!? There were moments of brilliance in there, but they were spread out enough that you never got the crowd by the jugular--which you REALLY needed after Heart's performance. Judging from the back of the lawn (where I moved for the encore, since the place was darn near sold out, and Walnut Creek is known for being a traffic nightmare), there WAS a mass exodus at the start of the encore. 3-4 minutes of blues jam, AND the sing-along before starting LTS just didn't sit well with the crowd. Get the right crowd and you can pull off just about anything, but with the herky-jerky setlist, you lose people quickly--and the lawn thinned out a bit here from the previous hard-to-find-an-unoccupied-blade-of-grass.
As far as Arnel went, he was a little off for the opening song or two. It was almost like he was trying too hard. He was hitting the notes, but SOMETHING was off. Maybe it was the intensity level of the band was off, and was just manifesting itself in Arnel since he was under the microscope. This contributed to part of the audience reaction to the show. After Cheap Trick and Heart, the place was primed to explode--it didn't happen. Journey was a bit off at the start, and they didn't deliver the knock-out punch at the opening after Heart blew the roof off. Thus, they didn't capture the audience from the get go, and had to start from ground zero again. Within a few songs though, Arnel was pretty much flawless, and the band got on the same page. He stopped trying to sing the songs and started singing the songs--if you know what I mean. When Arnel hit the first chorus on Open Arms, it was about like a sonic boom went off. That was about as intense as I have ever seen that song performed, and his voice was just massive. The guy can sing, and the crowd responded. Don't Stop Believin' took it to a whole new level with the crowd VERY into it and rocking, then Faithfully hit and the intensity dropped, just because of the tempo. Then the extended jam with Jon and Neal before Wheel in the Sky, and the crowd went dead. Then, one more song after that, and they leave the stage, only to come back with Escape and the very extended LTS. All of the hit staples that would grab the crowd had already been played. See what I mean about the disjointed setlist?!? The songs performed are fine, but the order needs a bit of work.
So that was Raleigh. Get the kinks ironed out to a streamlined rock and roll show, and Journey is dangerous. The good moments had the crowd eating our of their hand. They need to be on their A-game though trying to follow Heart who is in steamroller mode. Arnel is having to prove himself night after night, which makes it hard enough. Most people are willing to cut him a little break. He'll win over the crowd by mid-concert--that isn't a problem. No need making things harder on yourself than they need to be though, by having a setlist that has no order nor flow to it. The moments were definitely there, but not the knockout people were expecting.
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But fear not...I'll find an 
