Portrait of a Journey Fan

At the time of this writing (a little after 11pm on Thursday, October 2nd) I’m anticipating attending my next Journey concert. It’s been just about two years since I last saw Journey in concert. As a die-hard fan of their music, I’ve made every effort to see the band perform whenever they tour and have dates here in Arizona. My first Journey concert was October 8th, 1986 at Joe Louis Arena in Detroit, Michigan.  Yes, that’s right.  I said 1986.  And yes – Steve Perry was singing then.  Between then and now, I’ve probably been to a dozen Journey concerts. Tomorrow, Friday October 3rd, Journey is performing at Cricket Pavilion here in Phoenix, Arizona with their new singer, Arnel Pineda. Just a few days shy of twenty-two years since my first Journey concert.

Before you challenge my true loyalty to the “real” Journey, let me just say that, to me, Steve Perry is THE real voice of Journey. But the music and the performances by the rest of the band members were the vehicle that allowed Steve Perry to soar. That being said, Journey’s music has been a part of my life almost as long as I can remember. I got my first Journey album, “Infinity”, for my birthday in April, 1978 – over thirty years ago!  I was nine years old and just beginning to find my own way in music. Although I almost wore the album out from repeated playings, I still have it and several others today. AND – I still have a turntable to play it on. I could probably even tell you where every scratch, hiss and pop are on that record.

Here I am today:

Still a Journey fan.

As you can probably see, I’ve collected a few things along the way. Well, maybe more than just a few things:

Too much? Compared to others, my collection is pretty tame. Ok, so maybe it looks like a bunch of clutter. But to me it represents a huge part of my life, all captured (also the name of a Journey album) in images and sound. Everything here has a story associated with it. Maybe one of these days I’ll write some of those down.

Well, I have to work in the morning and I know I should be getting to sleep but I sort of feel like a kid on Christmas eve. I don’t know about you but sleep doesn’t come easily for me on nights like this.  Anyway, I’ll wrap this up. Look for my post-concert review sometime this weekend.

And, as always, Don’t Stop Believin’!