Journey's Escape Tour 1981-1982 Tour Book Program part 6; The Band

The 4 pages included this week are some great shots of Neal Schon and Jonathan Cain.

Neal Joseph Schon first rose to fame as a guitar player for the band, Santana. In 1973 he helped form the band, Journey, with Gregg Rolie and Walter J. (Herbie) Herbert, Ross Valory, George Tickner, and Prairie Prince who was replaced by Aynsley Dunbar.

Neal is one of the best live guitar players of all time. He has played with many bands, and has a successful solo career along side of Journey. The Escape Tour gave Neal to expand his range and play for bigger and bigger audiences.

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NEAL SCHON
Guitars and vocals. A man of obsession! His focus has been the guitar since early childhood. He continues to pay respect to his contemporaries by pursuing that obsession.

Jonathan Leonard Friga, better known as Jonathan Cain first became known as the keyboard player for the band, "The Baby's". Jonathan Cain was noticed by Journey while they were touring together in 1980 on the "Departure Tour" and became a member of the band soon afterwards.

Jonathan also has a full line of solo projects to his name including producing his ex-wife's (Tain Cain) band. Jonathan was also in the band "Bad English" with Neal Schon. 

The Escape Tour was Jonathan's first tour with Journey and always performed a piano solo. He can also be seen playing guitar along side of Neal while playing live. Jonathan co-wrote every song on the Escape album and has been a welcome member ever since!

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JONATHAN CAIN
Keyboards, guitars and vocals. His brilliance and drive has been the perfect addition to Journey. He's also one of the most prolific purveyors of songwriting ability in the business today.

Continued next week...

Journey Force 8X10 Publicity Photos for Live In Houston 1981: The Escape Tour

Journey's most famous and bootlegged Journey concert ever is "Live at the Houston Summit 11-06-81". Finally in November 2005, it was released properly on CD and DVD by Columbia Records.

The concert was recorded November 6, 1981 at the Houston Summit in Houston, Texas. Simulcast on March 20, 1982 on MTV and radio stations across America by way of King Biscuit Flower Hour. (Televisions did not have stereo in 1982 and so this was the only way to achieve a TV broadcast in stereo.)

Were we have 2 of the publicity photos from the release of the album courtesy The Journey Force.

Journey's Escape Tour 1981-1982 Tour Book Program part 5; The Band

A great shot of Steve Perry made into a Poster. Steve Perry joined the band in 1978 when they were trying to extend the vocal range of the band. The balance between Steve Perry and Gregg Rolie's voices is what Journey so special and something was definitely lost when Gregg left the band in 1980. What was gained was one of the greatest song writing teams ever assembled, Steve Perry and Jonathan Cain. You put that with Neal Schon's Guitar playing and you simply have magic.

Steve was main reason reason the band started gaining more success. His flawless voice combined with his excellent song writing abilities made him the star of the band. Being told how great you are can play tricks with your head and so this tour was last time we would hear that impeccably perfect voice the way we've come to love it again. It was this tour, especially with Bill Graham's 1982 big arena leg of the tour that strained his voice beyond repair. Starting with the "Frontiers" album you'll notice a slightly raspier voice coming through, still unmistakably Steve Perry, but yet not quite the same. Still to this day, the greatest singing voice the World has ever seen!

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Lead Vocals. A range that would astound an opera fan and an unsurpassed rapport with every person in the audience. He's a man in love with his craft. The consummate composer, singer and entertainer.

Journey Force Merchandise, The ARRIVAL Sticker from 2001

This Journey "Arrival" Sticker from 2001 came to me through the Journey Fan Club, The Journey Force. These were also available during Arrival Tour.

The Sticker measures 4" X 5" and has a glossy surface. The Scarab logo used is the same one on the US release of the album, except the album has a black background.

The illustration is by Chris Moore under the art direction of David Coleman and Neal Schon.

Journey to Headline at the REDF 2015 Benefit

Journey has always used their Precious Time to help People And Places. Journey has helped out in many benefit concerts over the years. This year they are Headlining REDF's 2015 Benefit on October 22 at the Warfield Theatre in San Francisco, California.

Please click the link below if you can can help Journey help REDF. You can purchase tickets or become a sponsor. It's a great cause that you can read about lower in this post.

Click Here for the REDF website

Since 1997, REDF, a California-based nonprofit, has led the pioneering effort to create jobs and employment opportunities for people facing the greatest barriers to work—like young people who’ve dropped out of school, people who’ve been in prison or homeless, and those who live with mental health disabilities.  We believe the opportunity to work should be available to everyone, everywhere. We know the power jobs can have in transforming lives and communities. For more information click the link above.

Journey's Escape Tour 1981-1982 Tour Book Program part 4; Posters

This week in the Escape Tour Book we have 2 great posters. Combining 2 pages creates the posters. These posters are a huge 14 X 24 inches, big enough to be framed. The first poster is a very well known picture of the band used by almost every magazine at the time.

The 2nd Poster is a great shot of the band playing live! I love the Departure Freebird escaping a volcano. I've never seen this artwork in print. I don't know if it exists that way. I find this one equivalent to the Poster inside the 1979 and 1980 Tour Books. This Poster shows Jonathan Cain on Keyboards but not yet the big red piano known as "The Whale" which comes later.

Six dates were played in California as the "Pre-Escape Tour", but "The Escape Tour" officially started in Japan on July 27, 1981 and ran until December 22 where the tour ended in Honolulu, Hawaii. The Tour started as all Journey tours do, but when the album hit #1 in America the shows started getting bigger and bigger. Six dates were played at the Pine Knob in Clarkson, MI as well as 4 dates at the Fabulous Forum in Los Angeles, CA. Little did anyone know this wasn't the end of the tour...

To be continued next week...

Journey Force Newsletter from January 1, 1985 part 3 of 3

The excitement of this edition of the fan club's newsletter keeps on going. It's like Christmas in August!

The ever so popular "Mailing with Department Codes" page is sure to delight with all it's great information about how to mail the Journey Force!

The end of the year inventory sale merchandise page, because we needed 3 merchandise pages this time. I have the Sunglasses, The Duffel Bag, and the 1983-1984 World Tour Program, or Tour Book as I like to call it.

Individual Christmas photos of all members of the band is the featured highlight this week. These photos are very rare and I've only ever seen them as the page in the newsletter and I'd really like to see better quality photos of the Journey 1984 Christmas photo shoot.

This ends this edition of the Journey Force Newsletter, look for the next edition soon...

Journey's Escape Tour 1981-1982 Tour Book Program part 3

The History of Journey comes to a conclusion and we're now in 1981!

The Captured album was sort of a Greatest Hits from Infinity through Departure. It's really the 1980 Departure on 2 vinyl albums which went double platinum!

The Escape was about to begin. The album was released on July 31st 1981 and by November hit #1 in America. Escape was the  biggest selling Studio album Journey ever had. The album spawned 5 chart topping singles including one of the songs, "Don't Stop Believin'" which was rereleased in 2009 due to it's people;parity as the #1 downloaded song. This was one of those albums that you bought on vinyl and then you had to buy again on CD due to the timing of the release. The Audio Cassette was also still a big seller for your car, so you might have had 3 versions of this album at the time. The album and singles were in the charts through 1981 and 1982.

You also get a great picture of Neal Schon playing guitar!

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Continued next week...

Journey Force Newsletter from January 1, 1985 part 2 of 3

To keep the excitement going, this weeks fan club newsletter starts off with picture from a "Night Ranger" party and Steve Smith's Vital Information. Gregg Rolie's next project is also talked about.

The Rockdogs softball team is mentioned in a great article about the winner of "Steve Smith's Vital Information Giveaway".

The usual merchandise pages follow. There is some very interesting items available that I wish I had gotten at the time, like the Satin Jacket. I do have the hat.

The "Questions Answered" section is where we leave off. Some good questions about the "Captured" album, Neal Schon and Steve Smith!

More next week...

Journey Drummer Deen Castronovo rapes Wife and is replaced on current concert tour

I've avoided this long enough, but it all seems to be true. Journey's drummer, Deen Castronovo, has been charged with raping his wife. These are serious charges and we don't yet know if Journey will make an official replacement or give him another chance at beating more women.

For now Journey is using Omar Hakim on their current 2015 Tour and could possibly be their next official drummer. This news story can be found all over the internet, here is the story from HuffingtonPost.com...

Deen Castronovo, the drummer for the band Journey, has been charged with raping his wife in addition to several other charges.

The 49-year-old was arrested earlier this month on domestic violence charges in Salem, Oregon and was released on bail.

According to a local news site it's not clear if the new charges are related to the incident that led to his earlier arrest, however, the drummer has now been charged with "unlawful use of a weapon, two counts of menacing, one count of rape in the first degree, one count of sexual abuse in the second degree, four counts of assault in the fourth degree and one count of assault in the second degree, one count of coercion and one count of criminal mischief in the second degree."

Following the drummer's arrest, Journey announced that Omar Hakim would fill in for Castronovo on the band's upcoming U.S. tour dates.

"We have made the decision to have Omar Hakim play drums for the band's upcoming U.S. concerts (Hollywood Bowl on Saturday, June 20 and the Stadium of Fire in Provo, Utah on Saturday, July 4), as well as the band's Canadian tour (July 6 – August 3), due to Deen Castronovo's pending issues," the band said in a statement on June 18. "We are very grateful to Omar filling in with his musical excellence."

Castronovo, who joined Journey in 1998, was also arrested in 2012 for allegedly assaulting his girlfriend. 

Journey's Escape Tour 1981-1982 Tour Book Program part 2

This week we begin with a repeat the last page from last week because it's a great lead into the History of Journey and our farewell to Gregg Rolie, Journey Keyboardist and Key Vocalist from 1973 to 1980.

Gregg Alan Rolie was born on June 17, 1947 in Seattle Washington. Gregg first gained success as the keyboardist for the band "Santana". In 1973 Gregg and Neal Schon started a new group that would end up becoming "Journey".

Gregg has been playing on the road for many years in both bands and by the end of Journey's 1980 Departure Tour he left the band. He picked his own replacement, Jonathan Cain and then went on to continue writing and playing the kind of music he wanted to play.

Journey went on to bigger and bigger success and this was just the beginning...

More next week...