Steve Perry - Departure Concert Review

Reviewing an event like Saturday's multi-act "Summer Blowout" at the Coliseum is a bit like reviewing the beach. The party-in-the-sun aspect of the day took preference over strictly musical matters. In fact, many in the crowd of 75,000 lay on their blankets at the Coliseum turf as if working on their tans at Santa Monica in front of a very loud radio.
  The rock music was loud enough, but the impersonal sound at these stadium concerts tends to ooze thickly from the speakers, whereupon the higher registers drift off like smoke. It's a great equalizer, reducing all bands to nearly the same pounding, grinding level.
  That sound, compounded by the vast distance between the performers and all but those packed near the front of the stage, voids any subtleties in the music and any charisma in the personalities. It gives the advantage to the groups with the strongest beats and the most exaggerated gestures - the favorite one being the raised fist.
  Black Sabbath, which followed Russia, heavy-metal popsters the Babys and Southern rockers Molly Hatchet on the stage at the Coliseum's peristyle end, used to be perfectly suited to such circumstances. The prototypical heavy-metal quartet's leaden music doesn't lose much of its character to the sound system.
  But Sabbath has changed singers; I never thought I'd say these words, but I miss Ozzy Osbourne. Ronnie Dio is much more proficient as a vocalist, but his rather calm, cordial stage

manner made him much less entertaining than his predecessor, who used to bound around the stage, waving the "V" sign like a drugged, long-haired Nixon caricature. But Black Sabbath's fans seemed to accept Dio with no misgivings.
  Journey, which followed Sabbath, used to be a spacy-cum-progressive heavy-metal band, but with the arrival of new singer Steve Perry, the San Francisco outfit has become a "people's band," exchanging its sophistication for banal boogie.
  Perry is a masterful showman, projecting his fluid, bluesy vocals with effortless power and even managing to establish some intimacy with his between-song patter. In reducing music to its lowest common denominator, Journey has gained a new popularity and it received the strongest audience response of the day.
  By the time the headliner, Cheap Trick, took the stage at 6:45 p.m., attrition had set in, and portions of the crowd began filing out. Cheap Trick's musical values were far superior to those of the event's other bands and the group can always be counted on for some welcome humor and versatility.
  Cheap Trick spans the spectrum from heavy-metal (unlike Journey and Sabbath, it delivers it with a laugh) to melodious power-pop, and even scored strongly with an acoustic ballad, the McCartney-esque "Voices." Rick Nielsen, a wacky cartoon of a performer, stalked the stage for a while with two guitars strapped to his string-bean frame, while pretty-boy singer Robin Zander delivered his words with strength and clarity.