Earlier this month, Journey‘s vocalist Arnel Pineda had a pretty rough go of it. Technical issues involving his in-ear monitors caused him to have a hard time hitting the high notes and fans were not pleased. The backlash was so bad that Pineda offered to quit the band if enough people said he should. Well, in a firey Facebook post over the weekend, his bandmate Neal Schon stood up for the embattled singer, pointing the blame solely on the show’s headliners Avenged Sevenfold.
Well, Journey guitarist Neal Schon ain’t taking that shit. In the aforementioned Facebook post, Schon shared a video of the band taking a bow after their set in Rio. In an accompanied comment, he said the problems that persisted throughout the band’s performance were because Avenged Sevenfold allegedly had the sound equipment set to their preferences. With all of the equipment locked down and protected, no one in Journey’s camp could allegedly fix the issues.
“[W]e found out much later that we got extremely limited by Avenged Sevenfold. [T]hat means… hardly any sound can get out of the PA to the audience. It’s a bullshit move.”
Responding to reports that fans were dissatisfied with the performance, Schon shared another video of the fans at Rio seemingly having a great time. He also called any news posts or comments that suggested the show was subpar was “fabricated crap.”
This all mostly stems from a post by Facebook profile Behind the Songs in which they shared video of the performance in question. In addition to posting the video, the page ripped into Pineda’s performance, saying it was bad because of his “bad voice” and “severe vocal failure.”
In response, Pineda said he was “devastated about this” and offered to leave the band if one million people comment on his response post with the world “GO”. Conversely if he gets enough “Stay” votes, he stays.
Journey’s got some tour dates still on its docket, with shows scheduled in Japan next month. The next time they’ll be playing in the United States will be their show on December 28 in Lincoln, California.
