By Peter Hartlaub | August 30, 2016
http://www.sfchronicle.com/music/articl ... 191781.php
Neal Schon was barely a teenager when he became immersed in the San Francisco music scene.
Imagine an Aragon High School sophomore in San Mateo, practicing his guitar during the day, intercepting his cut slips before his parents came home, and ducking into clubs up and down Broadway in the city at night.
“I met all the club owners, and they used to hide me out in the basement. They’d let me come up onstage to play, and then I’d have to go back down in the basement and out the back door,” Schon remembers. “Everyone was so cool and very supportive to me back then. It’s all a great memory. And if I hadn’t done all that groundwork, maybe I wouldn’t have been found.”
More than 45 years later, the Journey founder’s affinity for San Francisco hasn’t waned, any more than his enthusiasm for performing music. Schon and Journey will get back to the city by the bay on Sunday, Sept. 4, closing their tour with a headlining gig during San Francisco Fest at AT&T Park.
The afternoon concert has a heavy Day on the Green feel, with Bay Area bands Santana, Steve Miller Band, the Doobie Brothers and Tower of Power also playing. Schon says he has nothing but fond memories of the outdoor Oakland Coliseum concerts, hosted by concert promoter Bill Graham. Journey played in five Days on the Green — 1978, 1979, 1980, 1982 and 1983 — before Graham died in 1991, and the concerts ended shortly thereafter.
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Photo: Chronicle File Photo
Mayor Dianne Feinstein and rock musicians at Airplane Mansion in 1984. From left: Paul Grushkin (Bay Area Music Archive), Aynsley Dunbar (Jefferson Starship), Paul Kantner (Starship), Steve Perry (Journey), Jon Cain (Journey), Ross Valory (Journey), Feinstein, Steve Smith (Journey), Neal Schon (Journey), Huey Lewis, Sylvester, Dennis Erokan (BAM Magazine), concert promoter Bill Graham.
“I just think the whole Bay Area really missed that kind of vibe. Because I do,” says Schon, who now lives in Marin County. “I’ve lived here my whole life, practically. So I just thought in a new day and age, even though Bill is not here any longer, that we do something to honor San Francisco and his fans with music from San Francisco.”
The Chronicle’s first mention of Schon, during a 1971 Santana show at Fillmore West, described him as a “teenage-prodigy guitarist,” with Music Critic John Wasserman writing that Schon and the group “spent their 90 minutes seething like an ant hill receiving electric shock treatments.”
During a phone interview, Schon seems filled with the same kind of energy, despite nearing the end of a grueling 57-city tour with no break longer than a week. “Just waking up in Vegas,” he says by way of greeting. (To make that sentence even more rock ’n’ roll, Schon says it at 1:35 p.m.)
Schon’s memory is strong, and full of almost surreal asides. The artist was just 15 years old when he started playing with drummer Michael Shrieve and keyboardist-singer Gregg Rolie.
“I was going to Aragon High School at the time. Gregg would come by and pick me up around noon. I’d bring my guitar to school and I’d bolt,” Schon says. “I’d take off with him, and we’d go to his dad’s apartment at the time in Belmont, where he had a piano and a little amp set up, and we would just jam, and got to know each other.”
After meeting and touring with Carlos Santana in 1971, Schon formed Journey in 1973 with Rolie, Ross Valory and Aynsley Dunbar. That jazzier, more instrumental version of Journey played the Great American Music Hall twice in its first few months, where The Chronicle’s Joel Selvin hailed the band’s “big concert-sized sound” and Schon for leading the way with “piercing, raining solos.”
The Journey lineup with Rolie singing would record three albums that did so-so sales; the band opened for Cheech and Chong at one point in 1974. Faced with losing its record label, the group was convinced in 1978 to recruit vocalist Steve Perry. The band’s subsequent “Infinity” album yielded the hits “Lights” and “Wheel in the Sky.” (Schon says he gave Perry a ride in 1972 from a show at the Kabuki theater in San Francisco; they had a nice conversation, but Schon didn’t learn until years later that Perry was a singer.)
Rolie and Dunbar departed, drummer Steve Smith and keyboardist Jonathan Cain were added, and the group recorded the megahit “E5C4P3,” cementing Journey as arena-rock legends. After Perry left in the 1990s, the band received a second (or third?) life when Schon found Filipino singer Arnel Pineda on YouTube, performing scorching covers of Journey hits.
“Everybody was like, ‘You’re crazy, we don’t even think he speaks English,’” Schon remembers. “I said, ‘Who cares. He’s perfect.’”
Journey currently consists of Schon, Pineda, Valory, Cain and Smith — four-fifths of the band’s commercial-peak lineup. During the upcoming break in touring, Schon says, the band wants to record a new Journey album.
Energetic at age 62, Schon gripes that the sets on this tour have been too short, and he’s hoping to play with just one opening act, so Journey can play for more than two hours onstage, exploring beyond the older hits.
But the guitar player is in a nostalgic place as well. Schon, Rolie and Shrieve performed together on “Santana IV,” Carlos Santana’s 2016 studio album. Schon talks about everything in the past, including his years working with Perry, in positive tones.
And Schon reveals that he’s spoken with Rolie about performing music from the first three Journey albums, songs that a small group of fans have begged for, yet have very rarely been played since Perry joined the band.
“I could play it all for you right now — and better than I did,” Schon says. “I talked to Gregg about getting together, maybe doing a couple of shows at the Fillmore, and playing nothing but our old stuff. … We lost a lot of those hard-core fans when we made the move with Steve. But there are still people who want to hear those songs.”
But before that, Journey will visit AT&T Park during the Labor Day weekend for a much bigger crowd. It will be Schon’s first time playing in the venue with the full band, but he suspects it will still have a familiar feel.
“I’m just grateful, and I’m glad that we’re coming home. I can’t wait to play San Francisco,” Schon says. “I’ve traveled the world for many many years, and I just think San Francisco is the most awesome city in the world. I love the people, I love the culture, I love the city.”
Peter Hartlaub is The San Francisco Chronicle’s pop culture critic. Email: phartlaub@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @PeterHartlaub
Right, because there is nothing Journey about Neal, Ross, Gregg, & Aynsley! 
