Tuesday, December 22, 2015

Journey 5: Captured

Having made their bones as a popular arena concert attraction, the double live album was a natural step for Journey. Plus, they took the opportunity to further the cleverness in their album titles; they made a Departure and were promptly Captured.

With “Majestic” from Evolution piped through the PA as a fanfare, the boys plow into “Where Were You” and they’re off. Gregg Rolie’s affectations on “Just The Same Way” are ill-advised, but this was Steve Perry’s show by now anyway. They take it down for “Lights”, which segues nicely into “Stay Awhile”.

Since the band didn’t really have any hits yet, familiar songs are mixed with what we now call deep cuts. Steve makes a point of praising Gregg and Neal Schon as premier blues musicians, but “Walks Like A Lady” is a hardly a vehicle to demonstrate their alleged prowess. However, it does end in a flurry of guitar notes that eventually leads to “La Do Da”, which gives way to both a bass solo and a drum solo.

It’s always a treat when live albums provide something new for the fan, and technically “Dixie Highway” is such a rarity, seeing as it doesn’t appear on any other album. But the real enticement is “Hopelessly In Love (The Party’s Over)”, a studio cut tacked onto the end of side four. This catchy pop song is based around a circular piano riff, played either by Geoff Workman or Tim Gorman, depending on which liner notes you read. The player is certainly not Gregg Rolie, as he left the band before the album was released.

At several intervals, Steve nicely informs or reminds the audience that they are being recorded for the album, though he neglects to mention how much time they’ll spend in the studio sweetening the tracks. At little over an hour, Captured doesn’t deliver their entire set, but the album does serve the purpose of providing a transition to their next phase. (Fans could also drool over the photos in the gatefold, inner sleeves and massive poster. Those were the days.)

Journey Captured (1981)—3

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