For the band Journey, the Escape tour of 1981 was their zenith. They were riding the wave that selling nine million copies of your latest album allows you to ride.



Stadium rock wasn’t quite dead and new wave had yet to kick bands like them into "Behind the Music" folklore forever. To put it bluntly, Journey was everywhere, from sold-out basketball arenas to Rodney Dangerfield’s custom golf bag in Caddyshack.



Steve Perry is the vocal ringleader of this DVD, and by the time he hits those high notes in "Open Arms" in song five, thousands of young women in the audience were beginning to plan their ways backstage to discover just how tight his pants really were. The band, however, is surprisingly strong, and it rarely wavers from the way its records actually sound. (The exception being when nearly every band member takes a glorified solo, full of pomposity and unjustifiable swagger).



It is hard to look at this DVD/CD collection and not think of a time when songs like "Don’t Stop Believin’" were actually hits, and not just frat boy sing-a-longs pulsating through local college bars at one in the morning. Perry and company are grandiose and dated, but well-received and impossible not to want to watch. In short, this DVD is a perfect party companion, but pales in comparison to the much more enjoyable and hit-laden Greatest Hits DVD which is also available.



Grade: B