I miss Jeff Scott Journey...Unless you've seen him perform live with the band, you'll never understand. He NAILED Message of Love, Seperate Ways and Ask the Lonely. If you want to hear what Journey's Eclipse album SHOULD have sounded like, listen to the W.E.T. album. It's more Journey than Journey is now.
Jeff didn't sound like Steve but he SINGS like him. The same style adopted from Sam Cooke. Soulful. Steve himself said Jeff was their chance to get out of his shadow. I think Arnel, while a great frontman and vocalist in his own right, was a stroke of luck Neal stumbled upon and was a "safe" choice as he sounded closer to the "legacy" style. I'm less critical than some "fans" are. Arnel has done a fantastic job. Same goes for Augeri. Unfortunately I think they were found at too late a stage in their lives as men in their 40s tend to lose their range naturally. Perry did. And this kind of catalog is torture on singers. Jeff could have went the same route, who knows. In my humble opinion The closest thing they had to another Perry, in fact, was none other than Deen Castronovo. But he had and has no desire to be their frontman and better still as his drumming is amazing. His work in Revolution Saints, so far, has been closer to the Trial By Fire era Perry than anything Journey has done. The pairing of Him and JSS and taking turns on songs was a master stroke as you can see on concert videos from 2006-'07, and they harmonized well. Journey should have continued this... Boston, a whole other beast in the vocalist dept. has had multiple singers at once to lighten the load over the years. Journey sort of shot themselves in the foot with having one guy who could do it all for 10 years straight and they expected each guy after Perry to carry that burden.
JourneyFanForever I totally agree with you. Jeff was their ticket out of Steve's shadow. I would have paid to see THAT!!! Its not the Journey catalogue but the Steve Perry template that re-invented the Journey catalogue that does the singer in. I was waiting for someone with sense to speak truth about Jeff. He is THE ONE!
I really wish Journey would have been able to work something out with JSS! He definately would have added something to band and they would have been pumping out better original work! No offense to Arnel (I respect him and the effert he's put into the group), but I feel JSS was a better choice.
What could have been ...... What could have been!! If only Neal had truly believed in his stated vision of a new and harder rocking JOURNEY after he denied Steve Augeri the time to heal his voice.................. With J.S.S. and Deen they could have still preformed their past classic's and wrote new one's, such as this. Song's like this could have taken them into a totally new realm of 'THE JOURNEY' , which has always been evolving. Plus J.S.S is the real deal, both composing and recording. Not to mention ..... especially live. A true professional. Even Gregg Rolie is wrong. The finding and hiring of Arniel did not save JOURNEY. It was all done for more publicity. Arniel has only permitted them to keep touring and record two tried and truly typical sounding and boring,(to put it nicely) albums...... 'REVELATION' and the horrendous 'ECLISPE'. A REAL SHAME!!!!!
