Journey makes some believers at DCU Center

Perhaps it’s best if we start in the middle: It was toward the end of the first third of Journey’s set Monday night at the DCU Center in Worcester, and the band was locked into a full-sounding, technically flawless rock ‘n’ roll jam of the highest order. It was a moment where any doubt to the band’s musicianship was brushed away. Then, the band launched into its seminal classic, “Anyway You Want It,” and there was a distinct charge in the air. Lead singer Arnel Pineda, who had receded from the stage while the musicians played, was back front and center, leaning down toward the screaming audience. Pineda’s performance was electric, and the crowd exploded.

Journey and its opening act, Asia, are both bands that carry a lot of classic rock’s psychic debris. There is absolutely no denying that scattered between those two bands are some of rock ’n’ roll’s preeminent musicians. Indeed, the two highest points of the evening were Carl Palmer’s drum solo with Asia, which was only topped by Journey drummer Steve Smith’s percussive spectacle. That two drum solos stole the evening is a testament to these men’s talent. But there was something a little dusty in Asia’s short set, something that made it feel like a museum piece: Too reverent to the past, trying too hard to capture past glory. Rock ’n’ roll’s foundation has always been adolescent lust and rebellion, and that’s increasingly caused a disconnect as the genre’s most skilled musicians enter their 60s and 70s and bands start measuring their lives in decades. The playing’s still excellent, by any standard, but the musicians’ relationship to the music has changed. And that’s fine and natural, but there’s a point where we have to ask ourselves when these legends of rock become cover bands of themselves. This is hardly the first time that question’s been raised, but Journey, and Pineda particularly, added a new wrinkle to the discussion of rock’s aging: When does the band become something else entirely?

From the moment Pineda hit the stage in the band’s opener, “Separate Ways (Worlds Apart),” the room was filled with a vibrancy and youthfulness that had been previously missing, and as he leapt and bounced across the stage with madcap abandon, singing in a voice that resembled his famous predecessor, Steve Perry, but not slavishly so, and perhaps that’s what made Journey’s set so remarkable: Pineda — who is 49 and has been with the band a decade now — isn’t up there doing a tribute act. When he is singing, there is absolutely no doubting that he’s fronting Journey. You can feel that he’s not just a replacement.

In a lot of ways, both Asia and Journey’s sets were haunted by absence. Even now, there were audience members surprised to discover Perry wasn’t singing, and tragically, Asia frontman John Wetton left the tour in January, dying of cancer soon after. He was ably replaced by Yes singer Billy Sherwood. Pineda overcomes that sense of absence by very visibly loving the music he’s singing. There’s a joy in his performance that’s contagious. He’s not trying to be an imitation, and that lent the entire set a freshness that made it utterly enjoyable.

Journey’s set included a cavalcade of hits, including “Lights,” “Open Arms,” “Who’s Crying Now,” “Faithfully” and a blockbuster performance of “Wheel in the Sky” that was breathtaking to behold. There were also plenty of moments for the individual band members to shine, including solid bass work from Ross Valory, a keyboard solo by Jonathan Cain and three stellar old-school guitar solos from Neal Schon, whose playing reverberated with a sort of rock gravitas that well-balanced against Pineda’s explosive energy. That sense of balance — the weight of the band’s history and the brightness of its present — was evident throughout the set, but particularly on the band’s best-known hit, “Don’t Stop Believin’,” which kicked an already enthusiastic crowd into overdrive. That was an audience that believed, and that belief carried over into an encore that included “Escape” and “Lovin', Touchin', Squeezin'.” That belief in this music was visceral, and it was clear from the raucous applause that wherever Journey is in its path, this show was definitely no history lesson. No, it was something completely new, and that’s exciting.

 Email Victor D. Infante at [email protected] and follow him on Twitter @ocvictor.

This article originally appeared on Telegram & Gazette: Journey makes some believers at DCU Center