Product Description

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Media Type: DVD
Artist: JOURNEY
Title: LIVE IN HOUSTON 1981: ESCAPE TOUR
Street Release Date: 11/15/2005
Domestic
Genre: ROCK/POP

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #26310 in DVD
• Brand: JOURNEY
• Released on: 2005-11-15
• Rating: NR (Not Rated)
• Aspect ratio: 1.33:1
• Formats: DVD, Live, Original recording remastered, NTSC
• Original language: English
• Number of discs: 2
• Dimensions: 1.00 pounds

Amazon.com
Filmed by a four month-old MTV and just days into the band's first number one album Escape, Journey is at their peak. The recent addition of FM-friendly keyboardist/co-songwriter Jonathan Cain (fresh from the Babys) proved to be the final addition that the constantly changing concept band would need to crash both radio and retail charts. The concert DVD shows rows of fans in the same red-sleeved concert jerseys getting their fill of the hits "Don't Stop Believin'," "Stone in Love," "Who's Crying Now," "Open Arms," "Anyway You Want It," "Wheel In The Sky," and "Lights." Stage-wise, there is very little in terms of visual style with the exception of a few rows of gel lights to move with the music and a pair of spotlights that move with unlikely idols Steve Perry and Neal Schon. In this day and age of MTV Video Music Awards and TRL it is difficult to understand how a band of thirty-somethings in hiked-up blue jeans easily delivered the ballads to break young girls' hearts and the glass-pack rock to fuel young boys' Firebirds.

The second DVD consists of upbeat interviews from the same period, a cheap trinket slideshow, and an Escape promo reel from back when those sorts of things were commonplace on networks. The interviews capture an optimistic band in the most favorable light they'd ever been in or ever would be in again. If you're looking for the dirty laundry drama on the fantastic ups and downs in the story of Journey you'll have to look elsewhere. This one is a collector's item of simpler times--a moment when the world of Journey was magic and everything was all right for those who thought music television was an odd concept. --Peter Hilgendorf

Customer Reviews

The Concert I Missed
Journey's Escape Tour came to the Cleveland Coliseum just a few weeks after my 14th birthday. I had no car, no money and parents who suspected that things went on at rock concerts that they had to protect me from. It seemed like the entire neighborhood was going, and at school it was the only thing anyone talked about for the next week. The girls all had magazine pictures of Steve Perry taped inside their lockers.

All I had to sustain me was the "Escape" album in LP vinyl, and my friends and I literally wore it out over the next several years, with all of us coming of age in what seemed like months, all to the soundtrack of Journey and a few other bands. By the time the "Frontiers" tour came to town, I was old enough to go but I had moved on to other bands, and besides we all sensed that "Escape" had been the pinnacle, and that Journey was morphing into a band for girls.

So I am grateful beyond words that MTV happened to capture this night in Houston with such high quality video and sound. The band is simply at their technical and spiritual peak, and they are riding a wave of unbelievable power since, as Steve Perry mentions during the concert, the "Escape" album had gone number one just three weeks earlier.

Disco had ended, Progressive was still coming, MTV had arrived but hadn't figured out quite what it was yet, and Journey was the biggest thing in America in 1981. This DVD captures that moment, and what's truly amazing for us rock connoisseurs is how sparse and basic their stage show is here. The musicians stand on stage with their gear, they blow our minds out with their playing, Steve Perry runs around and some primitive pyros explode at the beginning and the end, and aside from that, pretty much nothing else happens except that everyone in the audience goes nuts and most of the girls probably wet their pants. It's a basic, fundamental, unbelievably well played and well sung rock concert by a band that was on the rocket ride they had worked towards for years.

If you missed this concert too, this DVD will almost make up for it. It certainly stands up to time, and they play and sound better than you would think was humanly possible.

At the Pinnacle
In just 5 more years who would have guessed that Journey would be putting out their last cd before a 10 year hiatus, Valory and Smith would be gone and pop sappy rock would be flowing through Steve Perry. This DVD brings at last their concert at a creative turning point for the band. Gone is Rolie and in comes Cain which brings them their most notable commercial success. There's not alot of flash here and they play 8 songs from Escape, 3 from Departure, a few solo's, 2 from Evolution and a couple from Infinity (which has to be their best from the Rolie period and most creative and most towards the progressive side leaning towards their previous 3 albums before Perry). With that said, the 5.1 sound is great and offers something that you couldn't get from the VHS tape or cd. And, of course, watching it and hearing it is incredible. It's interesting to note that on the inner sleeve the only albums that are mentioned from Journey are the Steve Perry colaborations, which excludes Dream after Dream from 1981. It doesn't mention their very first 3 albums or anything from the current Augeri era. But I guess the fued goes on and it will interesting to see where Perry goes from here. He is on the new David Pack cd singing back-up, but it is hard to find him out there. Oh yeah, the tribute to Journey cd was a nice touch with him singing one of Augeri's songs. That's a twist. If you loved Journey with Perry, then this is a must have.

It's STEVE PERRY . . . it's a must-have!
Were you there for this amazing show? If you were, you definitely want to go back and relive the magic, with this DVD. And for those who weren't there, and are still missing the one and only *VOICE*, Steve Perry, this is sure to be your favorite early Christmas present to yourself!!