[live shows] Journey and the Doobie Brothers at the BB&T Pavilion, Camden Waterfront, Fri. 7/15/16
When I saw Journey come up on Groupon, I was so freakin' excited. My initial plan was that I'd get tickets for my parents and I for my mom's birthday (as an excuse for getting the tickets that I actually wanted for myself and thus kill two birds with one stone), but when I checked with them, they had overseas travel plans that day. So I asked my high school friend Lauren (differentiated from the other Lauren we know because she will definitely not take you to the nude beach, but the other Lauren will). And she was the perfect concert buddy and it was so cool.
We met up near my office and decided to get sushi for dinner. As we were looking at the map on my phone, Laur discovered that her favorite sushi place near her office had a location three blocks from my office! So we went there, and it was great. I never go for sushi on my own because I just don't know enough and don't know what to get, but now I do and it was delicious.
Because of the sushi, we were late-ish getting to the concert and totally missed Dave Mason, who was the first opening act. Oh well. We were in plenty of time to see the Doobie Brothers, and I liked them more than I was expecting. Here's their setlist. They opened with "Jesus is Just Alright" and they sounded great. I remember there was a lull in the middle where I didn't know many of the songs; they were fine, just not anything I got excited about. Then they came back with some great tunes. I don't know what song it is, but the one that goes "I like to hear some funky dixieland, pretty mama, come and take me by the hand" was a lot of fun, and "China Grove" and "Listen to the Music" were both great.
Concert drama: we arrived late enough that we didn't have much choice in where we set up our blanket on the lawn. We plunked down with some 50ish couples in front of us and some hippies behind us in their 20s or early 30s. When the Doobies started, the hippie guy came up and asked the 50ish ladies, who were standing around talking, if they could please sit down so he could see. He was polite about it from what I could tell, and they were apologetic and sat down. Then later, hippie guy and his friends got up and were dancing to some Doobie tunes, and one of the 50ish ladies just could. Not. Let. It. Go. She was in utter disbelief that someone who had asked her to sit down could now be up dancing. She actually approached the guy and confronted him about it. There was a chorus of "sorrys" and some hugging (he was such a hippie), but it was obvious she was still discussing it with her friends several minutes later. The hippies then left after the Doobie Brothers and declined to stay for Journey, which seemed nuts to me.
One reason I was excited to see Journey (besides just the obvious: their music is awesome) was to check out their new(ish) lead singer, Arnel Pineda. I had heard that Journey needed to find a new frontman to replace Steve Perry and had ended up with this Filipino guy who apparently rocked, and y'all, it is true. Arnel had such energy and charisma, and the voice! Rock solid, sounded amazing, and he really captured that Steve Perry wail. Here's Journey's setlist. Every single song sounded great, and we were up dancing the whole time. "Be Good to Yourself", "Only the Young", "Any Way You Want It", "Open Arms", "Faithfully", and especially one of my all-time favorites, "Don't Stop Believin'". It was fantastic. A really great night.
We met up near my office and decided to get sushi for dinner. As we were looking at the map on my phone, Laur discovered that her favorite sushi place near her office had a location three blocks from my office! So we went there, and it was great. I never go for sushi on my own because I just don't know enough and don't know what to get, but now I do and it was delicious.
Because of the sushi, we were late-ish getting to the concert and totally missed Dave Mason, who was the first opening act. Oh well. We were in plenty of time to see the Doobie Brothers, and I liked them more than I was expecting. Here's their setlist. They opened with "Jesus is Just Alright" and they sounded great. I remember there was a lull in the middle where I didn't know many of the songs; they were fine, just not anything I got excited about. Then they came back with some great tunes. I don't know what song it is, but the one that goes "I like to hear some funky dixieland, pretty mama, come and take me by the hand" was a lot of fun, and "China Grove" and "Listen to the Music" were both great.
Concert drama: we arrived late enough that we didn't have much choice in where we set up our blanket on the lawn. We plunked down with some 50ish couples in front of us and some hippies behind us in their 20s or early 30s. When the Doobies started, the hippie guy came up and asked the 50ish ladies, who were standing around talking, if they could please sit down so he could see. He was polite about it from what I could tell, and they were apologetic and sat down. Then later, hippie guy and his friends got up and were dancing to some Doobie tunes, and one of the 50ish ladies just could. Not. Let. It. Go. She was in utter disbelief that someone who had asked her to sit down could now be up dancing. She actually approached the guy and confronted him about it. There was a chorus of "sorrys" and some hugging (he was such a hippie), but it was obvious she was still discussing it with her friends several minutes later. The hippies then left after the Doobie Brothers and declined to stay for Journey, which seemed nuts to me.
One reason I was excited to see Journey (besides just the obvious: their music is awesome) was to check out their new(ish) lead singer, Arnel Pineda. I had heard that Journey needed to find a new frontman to replace Steve Perry and had ended up with this Filipino guy who apparently rocked, and y'all, it is true. Arnel had such energy and charisma, and the voice! Rock solid, sounded amazing, and he really captured that Steve Perry wail. Here's Journey's setlist. Every single song sounded great, and we were up dancing the whole time. "Be Good to Yourself", "Only the Young", "Any Way You Want It", "Open Arms", "Faithfully", and especially one of my all-time favorites, "Don't Stop Believin'". It was fantastic. A really great night.