Arnel Fans

So, Deanna Amore of the Saratogian.com nitpicks on Arnel’s accent. Hmm, he is Filipino after all. The reviewer expected Arnel to pick up an American accent six months after stepping on the United States. Get real. Here’s the snippets of what I thought was a very bland and meatless review. Write a worthy review next time.

They hit on a good bunch of classic Journey tunes, including “Wheel in the Sky,” “Only the Young,” “Ask the Lonely,” “Open Arms,” “Lights” and “Be Good to Yourself.” Pineda’s accent (he is from the Philippines), could be heard on a couple of songs, including “Faithfully” and “Separate Ways,” and perhaps the most obvious, “Stone in Love.” It wasn’t a detriment, but it was a bit distracting. His high energy and crowd interaction made up for any oddities in the vocals.

Here’s the rest of her lame review.

I stumbled on a new Journey album in my local store and noticed a new singer. Curiosity hit and google’d him and was BLOWN away. He is not only identical to Steve Perry but probably better believe that or not! Steve Perry was always my favorite singer my whole life but now Arnel has moved up. Tell me what you think?

David Ciccone thinks Arnel Pineda is amazing.

Boston.com reviews Journey’s concert. Here are excerpts ….

The most recent Internet sensation is Arnel Pineda, who was discovered via YouTube clips of him fronting a Journey tribute act. He made his area debut Tuesday night at the Comcast Center as the latest singer for the indefatigable and commercially revitalized Journey. The diminutive Filipino is another vocal clone of Steve Perry, who fronted the group during its most successful era.

In terms of energy, Pineda is a strong addition. He leapt, twirled, and bounded around the stage with the kind of glee befitting someone who has won the rock-star lottery. The elder members of the quintet - including hard-hitting drummer Deen Castronovo and ever-elegant keyboardist Jonathan Cain - seemed to feed off that energy. While reeling off his technically precise, sometimes indulgent guitar solos, Neal Schon often gazed over at his new frontman with grateful bemusement.

Read the rest.

The rather unlikely hookup with singer Arnel Pineda has breathed a whole new life into rock band Journey.

With oodles of enthusiasm and a voice that’s a dead ringer for the most famous of Journey singers - the revered Steve Perry - Pineda and original Journey men Neal Schon on guitar and Ross Valory on bass thoroughly thrilled the state fair’s packed Mohegan Sun Grandstand.

Add practically original keyboardist Jonathan Cain, who joined in 1981, and drummer Deen Castronovo, who came on in 1998, and Journey had the goods to deliver the hook-filled rock songs that have kept their songs on radio and in pop culture since they burst out of San Francisco in 1979.

Syracuse.com reviews Journey’s concert in the Mohegan Sun Grandstand.

A metaphor for Journey’s Journey: When they formed in 1973, they used tie-dyed de rigueur psychedelic amp covers, and last year they found their new singer Arnel Pineda on YouTube. Along that journey, many different Journeys have played SPAC: the pre-Steve Perry fusion instrumental powerhouse, the Perry-led hit machine and reunion band/brands with Steve Augeri and Jeff Scott Soto Xeroxing Perry’s pop howl, more or less. Recruited from a Filipino Journey cover band, Pineda is the best Perry clone yet, a charming and grateful striver and a real feel-good story among rock reunions. Their new “Revelation” album debuted at No. 5 in Billboard.

Daily Gazette previews Journey’s concert in Saratoga Springs, New York.

Lani blogs about Journey’s recent concert in Boston.

When the Journey start people was making a loud noise clapping and dancing thats unbelievable. When Arnel Pineda came out and sing wow his has amazing voice that god has given him. While Arnel is singing we dance and we sing. All the people while watching is also dancing and singing in their chair and standing up. I’m so proud of Arnel Pineda and us because his a Filipino. People are cheering and shaking hand with him. I’m so proud of him. Watch his one video I upload in My Online Diary and more photos.

Read the rest of her blog.

Syracuse.com previews Journey’s concert Saturday night.

Power pop comes to the state fair grandstand with a vengeance Saturday with a triple bill featuring Journey, Heart and Cheap Trick.

Journey, with founding guitarist Neal Schon and lead vocalist Arnel Pineda, is touring in support of its latest CD, “Revelation.”

Ann and Nancy Wilson have gone through many styles since Heart came out of the Northwest in the 1980s. But now they’ve returned to the hard rock sounds that made them famous.

Christoher John Treacy of the Boston Herald thinks Arnel Pineda is the perfect fit for Journey.

At the Comcast Center last night, along with founding members Neil Schon and Ross Valory, longtime keyboardist Jonathan Cain and latter-day drummer Deen Castronovo, Pineda did his best to win over longtime fans, performing a mix of FM classics and a sampling of tunes from the recently released Wal-Mart-exclusive CD, “Revelation.” For the most part, he succeeded: Journey sounded great. But Pineda and Co. were trying so hard throughout the high-energy set, it felt as if we were being sold an iffy bill of goods. Odd, since, as a highly anticipated summer shed staple, Journey’s got nothing to prove. In fact, the San Francisco rockers seemed more at ease two summers ago with Jeff Scott Sotto on vocals.

Read the rest of the review.

Ricardo F. Lo of Philippine Star, ABS-CBN writes about Arnel Pineda’s journey

Even if he has been touring with Journey as new vocalist and has just finished recording Revelation, his first album with the group, Arnel Pineda feels that his own “journey” to international stardom has just begun.

“I still have a long way to go with them,” said Arnel in a 15-minute interview by telephone last Saturday (Aug. 16) morning with Funfare while he was about to sleep at a hotel in Pennsylvania, looking forward to the Journey’s concert the next day. “I’m just starting with them,” he added, his voice sounded somewhat weak as if he was ready to slip into slumberland.

Read the rest of the article.

Barry Dean reviews Journey’s Revelation CD.

Some folks may think this album sounds like they are trying to hard to sound like the old Journey. To some extent they would be correct. I have to admit that I wanted to find a mullet wig and play my air guitar after hearing the album for the first time. But after listening to the album a second time you start to notice some subtle changes that make this new Journey distinct. I give the new Journey album “Revelation” four stars out of five.

Read the rest of his review.

Brad Patton of TimesLeader.com reviews Journey’s concert at Montague Mountain

Journey, the headliners of the three-band tour, took the stage to uproarious applause about 25 minutes after Heart finished up. The group, which now features Arnel Pineda on lead vocals, opened with “Never Walk Away,” from their most recent album, “Revelation.”

Pineda, who was discovered on You Tube, has breathed new life into the old material. At times his voice is remarkably similar to that of Steve Perry, the group’s lead vocalist during their 1970s and 1980s heyday.

Read more.

Oh, Lover blogs about Journey concert. Here’s a random excerpt of was written.

Journey was also pretty ace!  I have wanted to see Journey for years, and I finally got to see them.  I know that no one can come close to Steve Perry, but their new lead singer, Arnel Pineda, is pretty damn close.  They played every classic Journey song that you can imagine, plus some new ones from the new album.  Mom squealed like a little girl when they played ‘Separate Ways’.  It was really amusing.  Then again, I reacted the same way when they played ‘Ask The Lonely’.  Sue us.  We’re Journey fans!

Errol’s Weekly Music Update reviews Journey concert at Jones Beach, NY

The word for the performance of Journey was ENERGY!!! This kid was phenomenal and I swear if you closed your eyes (not your mind) and listened you would have thought that Steve Perry was singing last night. His energy on stage reminded me of a combination of Steven Tyler and David Lee Roth.This kid really blew me away and you could tell his energy made the rest of the band perform that much better. The highlight of the show for me was “Stone in Love”- man I totally forgot about this song and hadn’t heard it in such a long time- but just like riding a bike- the words flowed effortlessly as I remembered every one.

Read the rest of the review.

Manonton Dalan writes a poem about Journey’s concert in Virginia.

thanks goddess of rain
for keeping clouds from pouring
cause we are rocking

when arnel screams
hello virginia pinoys
crowd roars like thunder

after listening
faithfully and open arms
i feel good again

Oh.. the rest of the poem is available here.

We’ve all read it. Sure, why not a few more articles about Arnel discovery.

June 28, 2007, Neal Schon of Journey messaged Noel Gomez, a longtime fan and friend of Pineda who uploaded many of these videos, to ask for Pineda’s contact information. Schon sent an email to Pineda inviting him to audition for Journey. Arnel, along with his manager Bert de Leon, flew to Marin County, for a two-day audition. The star-struck Pineda was welcomed warmly but he described the audition as “nerve-wracking, tense”. October 5, 2007, he was announced as the new lead singer of Journey.

Read the rest of the story.

MyRecordJournal reviews Journey’s Revelation

Journey has been together for 35 years and they are still making some of the best music of their career. I highly suggest owning this album. Not only do you get a disc worth of brand-new songs, but you also get a second CD of rerecord greatest hits featuring Arnel Pineda on vocals. Plus, as a bonus, you also get a DVD of one of the first shows performed by Journey with new lead singer Arnel Pineda. He gives the Journey classics a new life. The album can only be purchased at Wal-Mart stores or at journeymusic.com.

Mixed Media recently interviewed Jonathan Cain. An excerpt…

BT: It’s my understanding that you found your new lead singer Arnel Pineda, then living in the Philippines, through the help of technology.

JC: We sure did. Neal and I were both looking on the Internet and we knew we needed to make a change. We knew the brand was going to suffer if we didn’t. As much as [former vocalist] Jeff Scott Soto helped us out, he wasn’t the future for us. We needed to find someone who was going to take us into the next 10 years. We didn’t want a Steve Perry clone or a tribute band singer - we wanted somebody fresh. Neal found Arnel one night and called me up. I turned it on and said, “Damn, he’s good. How do we get him over here?” The logistics of getting his visa took weeks. He sang “Wheel In The Sky” for some guy in the embassy in the Philippines. They guy said, “You’re going to be in Journey? Sing ‘Wheel In The Sky.” Arnel did, and the guy said, “Get out of here and get to America.”

Read the rest.

Lisa Sokolowski of Electric City previews Journey’s show in Scranton, PA.

The final scene of The Sopranos left many viewers outraged. For six seasons and 86 episodes, fans watched Tony Soprano, cared about Carmela, and fell in love with Meadow and A.J.

Instead of David Chase writing an ending, he left it up to the audience, sort of like a choose your own adventure novel, except with missing pages. Was everyone out to get Tony or was he paranoid? Did Meadow enter the restaurant? Did anyone get a chance to finish those onion rings?

As these questions lingered, so did something else: Journey’s “Don’t Stop Believing.”

Jeff Maisey of Virginian-Pilot reviews Journey, Cheap Trick and Heart’s concert last night at the Ampitheatre. He even mentioned Arnel was the best replacement for Steve Perry.

If you closed your eyes, crossed your fingers and hoped Arnel Pineda lived up to the hype as Journey’s new singer, you probably weren’t alone Tuesday evening at the Verizon Wireless Virginia Beach Amphitheater.

Well, hearing is certainly believing, and without a doubt Pineda was the best replacement Journey has ever had for its most famed vocalist, Steve Perry.

Read the rest of Jeff’s review here.

This is almost comical. Jeremy Burgess of Birmingham News reviews Journey and Cheap Trick. He gives the concert 2 stars out of 5. Well, there’s not much substance to his review. Fans of Journey and Cheap Trick let him hear it. Here’s what fans have commented on his site:

Thanks Jeremy, your review SUCKS. Are you sure you watched the concert???

So Cheap Trick is older and Rick Nielsen can’t jump as high as he once could, did that make them as less entertaining? Not at all Cheap Trick was a great opening act, too bad Heart could not have made this stop as well, and were playing for the fans and entertaining the crowd.

I will give your “review” a minus 5 (-5) out of 5.

This has got to be the Most Blatantly PREJUDICED, Perversely BIASED, Obnoxiously misreported concert review I have ever read about Journey released purportedly by a statewide news organization.

hey, mr. jeremy burgess,
were you really at the concert? paid for a ticket and has one seat reserved for you?
or were you at the margarita grill along hwy 119, sitting in one of those wrought iron chairs, sipping tequila….?

Oh man, this is too much. Read the article here.