Friday Afternoon Video: Arnel Pineda

As soon as Journey hit it big in the early 1980s, one could see that it was only a matter of time before Steve Perry's mulleted head ballooned to enormous proportions and took off for a career of its own.

As expected, Perry left the band in 1987 (with the bassist and drummer also fired at the same time) after recording their disappointing 1986 album, Raised On Radio. Journey's biggest hits had come from their two prior albums, Escape in 1981 and Frontiers in 1983, which left the band with plenty of material for concerts but no core members to perform them.

Journey reformed briefly in 1995 but this reunion was short-lived, as Perry suffered a hip injury and could no longer perform without a hip replacement (just one of many signs that you're too old to be a rock star anyway) and drummer Steve Smith once again left the band. By 1997, Journey was at another dead end.

A duo of replacement lead singers came and went, starting with Steve Augeri from 1998 until 2006 and ending with the unpopular Jeff Scott Soto in 2007. After letting Soto go, the two original members of Journey, Neal Schon and Ross Valery, once again began to search for a lead singer to carry on their mission of rocking venues full of nostalgic, middle-aged fans with power ballads. Their search ended in a most unusual place.

The lead singer of a Phillipines-based Journey cover band called The Zoo came to the attention of lead guitarist Neal Schon while browsing YouTube one day. The singer, a young Filipino man named Arnel Pineda, had the look and -- more importantly -- the voice that Journey had been searching for. When the band announced in December 2007 that Pineda was the new lead singer, it was to great controversy. Fans (and non-fans alike) were more than suspicious that a young kid from Manila could ever take the place of the uniquely-talented Steve Perry.

And Arnel Pineda has been proving them wrong ever since.

Journey (along with the now hugely popular Arnel Pineda) is playing at the Cynthia Woods Mitchell Pavillion this Saturday, July 26th, starting at 7:00 p.m. along with the original grrl band Heart and 70s rockers Cheap Trick. Tickets can still be purchased through Ticketmaster starting at $29.50 for a lawn ticket or $99 for a lawn four-pack.