LIVE IN HOUSTON 1981: ESCAPE TOUR

Mainly based upon an American Journey's Tour (culminating into a couple of concerts in Houston and Cleveland) supporting the hit album "Escape" on 1981, you can find some other sessions within a 4 months effort at MTV, inside the present DVD live (dated 2005). But of course their main show- taken on November 6, 1981 and featuring the most famous line up with Neal Schon, Steve Perry, Jonathan Cain, Ross Valory and Steve Smith, is a remarkable show anyway (note: the most famous line-up, I mean, cause in spite of being not always on the most inspiring side of AOR rock, as I normally like more the early ensemble musically speaking, their approach has been always so much celebrated in the USA in the early 80's, being so good after all!!...). Besides there are always their biggest hit singles...even though- apart from the passion and strong vocal interpretation as well by S. Perry- I'm a little bit disturbed when I listen to a kind of "boogie rock" entitled "Line of fire" and sometimes tired too, owing to their usual ballads, such as "Lights", "Stay Awhile", and "Open Arms"...but those songs are a minor defect after all, in comparison to their strong and powerful approach on stage, in general.

Fortunately- "Mother/Father" is one of the most "convincing" and heavier songs from "Escape", and above all it's not a commercial hit!! Then I like the guitar solo by N. Schon within "Who's Crying Now", this latter being a ballad in the opening section, but growing by means of the emotional feeling expressed in the guitar line of the following section...at the end I wait for "Wheel In The Sky", probably the best example regarding the style of the guitarist; nevertheless the easy melodic soloings by Neal have been often appreciated also in the pop hits. Moreover I like to mention the excellent quality production (if you consider the record dated 1981!!), with the support of MTV, performing a very good job here- as long as you find an additional song, "The Party's Over" , combined with the Escape TV Promo (this latter enriched by means of the interviews) , which all together make this product of "AOR" music quite an important event. In fact They were able to witness the most melodic moments, according to the typical mood of the early eighties, in the Golden Age of such an interesting American simple rock (however equal to Styx and Boston, just to mention a couple of bands with the same style within that period...).

An interesting film for an easy melodic rock-I mean, from a shrewd ever-green band! You know that I prefer the effective prog music genre, in comparison to the world of prog related or AOR music but- talking about Journey- I recognize their importance inside the world of pop music... at the end- for me- it could be enough to think of giving it "four stars" inside the world of pomp rock/AOR and erasing "one star" at least- in the evaluation- instead if you compare the present live to the best real "progressive" issues from other bands.

It' obvious that some music groups like for instance Anglagard, the early Echolyn or After Crying (just to mention a few ones...) are more complex than Journey, but these latter were an important and remarkable band on stage anyway, especially when Steve Perry was the lead singer!!