Journey returned to London for the first time since the appointment of new vocalist Arnel Pineda, who replaced Jeff Scott Soto in the band, on June 17th.

London was the first stop on the bands UK tour which concluded with a June 28th concert in Newcastle.

Live photos from the bands set can be viewed below.

New lead vocalist, Arnel Pineda, replaces Jeff Scott Soto, who parted ways with the band earlier this year after stepping in for Steve Augeri, who had to leave the band in 2006 for medical reasons.

Arnel hails from Quezon City in the Philippines and has been singing Journey songs, in addition to original material, with his band ‘The Zoo’ for the past couple of years in clubs all over his homeland. Joining the legendary band is a dream come true for him. “It’s so exciting to sing with one of the best bands in the world. It’ll be a lot of hard work on my part and I’m actually looking forward to the scrutiny I’ll get from the hardcore Journey fans. I know they’ll expect me to sound exactly like ‘the voice’ (Steve Perry), but that will never happen. I know there’s only one Steve Perry in this world.”

Journey turned to the internet to find their new lead singer. Guitarist, Neil Schon, wanted someone new to the music business and so he started trawling YouTube. After seeing Arnel singing ‘Faithfully’ he knew he had found the perfect frontman.

“I was frustrated about not having a singer,” explains guitarist Neal Schon, “so I went on YouTube for a couple of days and just sat on it for hours. I was starting to think I was never going to find anybody. But then I found The Zoo and I watched a bunch of different video clips that they had posted.”

“After watching the videos over and over again, I had to walk away from the computer and let what I heard sink in because it sounded too good to be true. I thought, ‘he can’t be that good.’ But he is that good, he’s the real deal and so tremendously talented. Arnel doesn’t sound synthetic and he’s not emulating anyone. I tried to get a hold of him through YouTube and I finally heard from him that night, but it took some convincing to get him to believe that it really was me and not an imposter.”

 All photos copyright Moonshayde for Komodo Rock

TrackBack URI for this entry

Comments (0)

Subscribe to this comment's feed

Name

Email

Website

Title

Comment

smaller | bigger

Subscribe via email (Registered users only)

I have read and agree to the Terms of Usage.

Add Comment