Steve Perry - Raised On Radio Concert Preview

  TO BEGIN with the facts, Journey's returning to the Civic Arena for a concert next Sunday night. It sold out so quickly a date the next night was added, and not too many tickets remain for it.
  In truth, that's just standard procedure for them here. They've headlined at the arena four other times and drawn 65,983 fans, 17 shy of averaging 16,500 per show.
  Guitarist Neal Schon says box office response has been the same everywhere on Journey's current 48-city tour that began Sept. 10 and 11 in Portland, Ore., and ends Dec. 14 in Phoenix and that in "a lot of halls, we can't get second dates" because of previous bookings for "sports, Ice Capades, you name it."
  From the vantage point of being the sole original member left in the 13-year-old band, to what does he attribute such enduring popularity?
  "I guess it's me - ha-ha-ha-ha-ha."
  Then he adds, more thoughtfully, "I don't know. I guess it's the musis we've played through the years. We play some older songs in the set, and they (the fans) come unglued."
  Journey's track record is impressive, all right. The albums Evolution sold 2½ million copies, Frontiers more than 4 million and Escape 6 million. Album-rock and hits-of-the-day radio stations alike have been glad to play such singles as "Lovin', Touchin', Squeezin', " "Any Way You Want It," "Who's Crying Now," "Don't Stop Believin'" and "Open Arms".
  But an additional fact is that following the Frontiers tour three years ago, Journey almost came unglued to the point of extinction.

"Everybody was at each other's throats,"Schon says. "There were a lot of personal problems we had to work out. We were gonna break up."
  Instead of acting hastily, the bandsmen found other work to do. Keyboardist Jonathan Cain, for instance, wrote and produced songs for such artists as Australian rocker Jimmy Barnes, who opened at ZZ Top's three arena concerts last April.
  Schon recorded an album with an ad hoc quartet that included his old friend Sammy Hagar, now of Van Halen, and "enjoyed going for it and putting it together in that time. I wrote 13 or 14 songs for it."

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  Not only has Journey used its own firm, it's attracted such famous clients as Frank Sinatra, Neil Diamond, The Who and Peter Gabriel's upcoming tour. Recently, Herbert and Schon bought out the other bandsmen because "the other guys wanted to get out. They didn't want anything to do with it anymore." Schon says. "I thought that I did, so I stayed."
  "I'm a musician. I love playing the guitar, but I like to diversify at this point and have other things. I'm 32, I'm not getting any younger. It's time for me to do things I'm interested in. I'm still a rocker, I'm just mature now."
  And if that sounds as if Schon is hedging against the day Journey hangs it up for good, you're right, he says, adding, "I'll always be making records and playing music, maybe more movie sound tracks - not just putting a hit single onto an album but a score for a movie."
  How close is that day? "Right now, we're way into next year" with concert commitments. "We go home before Christmas, take three weeks off, play New Year's Eve and then go to Hawaii, Japan, Canada and back to the States. We're gonna be out there quite a while. We'll talk about it when we get there. Who knows what's gonna happen?"
  (The concerts at the Civic Arena next Sunday and Oct. 20 begin at 7:30p.m. with Glass Tiger, currently enjoying the hit "Don't Forget Me (When I'm Gone)," opening.)