Journey to play UK Download festival 2009!

[Matthew]

Wow Journey isnt even up there on the website with the others like Def Leppard, Whitesnake, MOtley Crue, Slipnot, zztop...ect. Thats kind of a slap in the face, there way down the list with a bunch of bands I have never heard of. It makes sense now why Journey toured mostly in America where they will almost always be considered headliners. Motley Crue, ZZtop, korn, and Slipnot are actually more popular than Journey in the UK?? Really hard to believe.

I saw that and was shocked too -but, a lot of those bands appear on that poster in the order they were confirmed - not even in the UK are those bands bigger than Journey.

Gordon...I think those other bands are actually much bigger than Journey in the UK. As people have said...Journey never caught on here during their prime - partly because Journey didn't promote themselves here - and today I reckon they probably don't have more than 20,000 fans in the entire country. Most people I know haven't even heard of them at all.

Still...there are a few obscure outfits on that bill who still make it above Journey in the running. I mean....who the hell are Dragonforce?

[WykkedSensation]

Why is it that people seem to be under the impression that Journey are hugely popular in the UK when they blatantly are NOT. Journey have NEVER been popular in the UK.
Ask any general music fan in the UK if they have heard of Lippard, Whitesnake, Foreigner, Jovi, Crue,or even the likes of Slipknot or Korn and the answer will be 'Of course'. Then throw Journey's name in there and the answer will pretty much be 'Who?'
Journey can play to a maximum of 3,500 people over in the UK, and thats it. They tried and FAILED, to play to over 5,000 in my hometown in 2007, and it was embarrassing to see nearly half the arena empty. They have never had chart success, and have never been popular. Radio stations have barely never played their stuff from any era.
The chances were always there for Journey in the early to mid 80's to get over here and play to the fans that they had but they never did, thanks to Perry. They maybe could have had success over here way back then, but blew it.
Journey are NOT popular in the UK. Do not be fooled into thinking they are.

Frontiers was a top ten album - thats reasonably good chart success. Classic Rock magazine loves them and gave them a great review when they played Monster of Rock and any party i go to and play DSB always gets an amazing crowd reception from 50 year old to 16 year old guys n girls singing along with every word. I attended a show in Glasgow with a great crowd - esp. considering the tour had very little real publicity. They do pretty well over here.

Yeah 'Frontiers' was a top 10 but it then went straight out again and vanished without a trace within a couple of weeks. Classic Rock may love em, but so did Kerrang back in the day. It does not mean they are popular. A lot of people know DSB, but most of them also aint got a freakin clue as to who the heck it is. Ask them and they believe its freakin Survivor, or Foreigner, or Cutting Crew.
I have attended shows where they have gone down well, but it's with a few thousand people, most of who are diehard fans. Over 3,000 capacity and they can forget it.
They are not popular. Have never been.

[Glenn]

Wow Journey isnt even up there on the website with the others like Def Leppard, Whitesnake, MOtley Crue, Slipnot, zztop...ect. Thats kind of a slap in the face, there way down the list with a bunch of bands I have never heard of. It makes sense now why Journey toured mostly in America where they will almost always be considered headliners. Motley Crue, ZZtop, korn, and Slipnot are actually more popular than Journey in the UK?? Really hard to believe.

I saw that and was shocked too -but, a lot of those bands appear on that poster in the order they were confirmed - not even in the UK are those bands bigger than Journey.

Gordon...I think those other bands are actually much bigger than Journey in the UK. As people have said...Journey never caught on here during their prime - partly because Journey didn't promote themselves here - and today I reckon they probably don't have more than 20,000 fans in the entire country. Most people I know haven't even heard of them at all.

Still...there are a few obscure outfits on that bill who still make it above Journey in the running. I mean....who the hell are Dragonforce?

DragonForce's musical style includes:

* Emphasis on fast, twin-guitars in speed metal styles, with fast and lengthy solos (over 2 minutes);
* Fast keyboard solos, sometimes dueling with the guitars;
* Fast tempos;
* High pitched style vocal melodies;
* Video game-influenced melodies, noises;
* Lyrics covering topics like journeys, wars, battles, etc;

The band have frequently referred to their style not just as power metal, but as extreme power metal. Herman Li commented on descriptions of the band's style in an interview with Guitar World: "'Nintendo metal', 'extreme power metal', 'Bon Jovi on speed', 'Journey meets Slayer', ... people are always coming up with weird labels for us." The band has often been labelled speed metal due to the fast tempos present in their songs, but always as a supplement to other types of metal descriptors.

[WiseOldTabbyCat]

Gordon...I think those other bands are actually much bigger than Journey in the UK. As people have said...Journey never caught on here during their prime - partly because Journey didn't promote themselves here - and today I reckon they probably don't have more than 20,000 fans in the entire country. Most people I know haven't even heard of them at all.

Still...there are a few obscure outfits on that bill who still make it above Journey in the running. I mean....who the hell are Dragonforce?

The majority of kids between the ages of 13-17 will tell you who Dragonforce are. They are quite well-known in the UK. All their songs sound the same and they are reknown for their horrendously fast guitar solos that sound like video-game tournaments.
This is the same crowd of kids who can probably not recognise Journey.

[youkeepmewaiting]

Dragonforce are a pretty cool band. When they learn to slow down and mature as musicans I can see them being the next Dream Theatre. They have the talent but at the moment are too much into playing as fast as possible.

[Don]

None of the other bands probably have as many ballads as Journey. You start looking at Journey on that list and say, where are the heavy rock tunes? Probably the reason they are not in the headlining section for this show.