Questionable, but awesome, uses of the internet

[dwenius]

I know this will come as news to all of you, but stop the presses, some months ago Jeff Scott Soto quit as the lead singer for Journey. I know, I know! I was surprised that there was still a Journey too!

So Neil Schon and the band went looking for a lead singer. and looking. and looking. and failing. Until they found a clip of Arnel Pineda singing in a very bad bar band in the Philippines: (warning, link contains "Faithfully" and chatty stage banter to a crowd of literally dozens) Check out the related videos for Arnel to see him belting out classic rockers by a dozen other bands. Within the acceptable idioms of the genre, the dude can seriously sing.

Journey is working on a new album (really?) in preparation for their next world tour (really?!), so...they hired him. From the lobby of the Quezon City Hyatt to a 50,000 seat ampitheater near you, all through the magic of teh intarweb.

That rocks! \m/

Comments

[gravitrue.livejournal.com]

Arena? Last gig I heard of (2004), they were playing a cruise ship.
http://biznettravel.blogs.com/special_offers/2004/07/rock_n_roll_cru.html

[dwenius.livejournal.com]

Oh, they'll get packaged up with the Styx and Toto reunions and sold up the river to Clear Channel, you just know it. It's the American whey.

[hwrnmnbsol.livejournal.com]

Something similar happened with Ripper Owens replacing Rob Halford as the frontman of Judas Priest. No internet involved to my knowledge, but just as rags-to-richy.

[glaucon.livejournal.com]

and yet another slightly similar story:

Johnny Marr is now the regular, member-of-the-band-type guitarist for Modest Mouse.

apparently, the band lost their guitarist and put the word out in the Industry that they were looking for a new one. "we want someone kind of Johnny Marr-esque", they said. so Johnny Marr called up and asked if he might qualify.

[neuraltube.livejournal.com]

That is so freaking awesome! They found him on YouTube! Wow.

I loved early Journey, even though it was embarrassing when they played the Bill Graham memorial in the park... everyone was groaning, OMG it's Journey, and it felt really cheesy. But in the right setting, I bet seeing them could be fun. OK, well, maybe not. But at one time it could have been. I bet.

Go, Arnel Pineda!

[dwenius.livejournal.com]

When we were sixteen and you couldn't go within 100 yards of a high school or church sponsored dance without hearing a half dozen Journey songs, hell yes it could have been fun. They're super-concentrated pop fun for hormone-addled adolescence, in bucketloads. The band I was in at the time covered "Separate Ways". But they didn't age as well as some other bands we know.