It all works well, with Perry’s singable melody working nicely on top. The song’s verse has a simple chord pattern – D A Bmin F#min G (I V vi iii IV) – and the chorus continues in D, employing the non-diatonic flat-7 chord, C major. One such song is “Too Late,” one of my favorites off of Evolution, and while I replayed the song in my mind several times during my trip, I noticed a nifty melodic trick that the band employs. Journey may have experienced a resurgence over the past decade in a half, perhaps even garnering some respect that had been denied the band early on, but along the way some of their old radio standards have gone by the wayside. For the next hour of my drive, my mental jukebox went through the entire album track by track, and then replayed a song that I’ve always loved but is largely absent from radio these days, not to mention Journey’s setlists. It’s this live album that came to mind recently as I drove from Chicago to Cincinnati, where during the commute I spied the exit sign for “Dixie Highway,” which also happens to be the title of a song off of Captured. Subsequent years would bring the band greater success, but I love the period when Steve Perry shared vocal duties with keyboardist Gregg Rolie, culminating in 1981’s live Captured, which I received as a present for my thirteenth birthday that year. And during the transitional period from their fusion prog-rock roots to radio-friendly AOR during 1978-1980, they achieved – in my mind – rock gold with the studio albums Infinity, Evolution and Departure. With their at-times schmaltzy lyrics, histrionic videos and sappy ballads, the band were easy targets and critics were quick to dismiss them, but I’ve always felt that Journey were a cut above their arena rock peers their musicianship alone took them beyond bands like Head East, Def Leppard, Loverboy, Foreigner and April Wine. For a couple of decades, it was in vogue to trash the band Journey.
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