Big news in the rock and roll world as Journey Announces 2022 Tour Split With Billy Idol And Toto. While the bands Journey, Billy Idol and Toto may not have a lot in common musically, they have a tremendous amount of history in common as all three bands had some of their most successful releases issued in the 1980s. Those commonalities along with several other factors have brought all three musicals legends together for a massive 2022 tour starting in February. Unlike many other concert tours that are starting to be announced with tours taking off in late spring and early summer at amphitheaters, the Journey, Toto, Billy Idol tour begins in the dead of winter at indoor arenas. The Journey 2022 Tour is probably the biggest tour announcement so far. These are three of the biggest musical acts of the lates 1970s and decade of the 80s musical period. All three acts have continued on through the years releasing new music and touring on and off. These are no oldies acts. These bands are still vibrant active groups that have continued the best they could despite personal changes due to either members quitting, retiring, firings or some musicians sadly passing away.
It would have been amazing if all three of the groups would be playing together each night, but as the headlines states, this is a split tour with Journey anchoring it the entire way. The first half of the tour will feature Billy Idol opening the shows. This will not be a tour in which headliners will switch who opens and closes, this is most defiantly Journey’s tour as the headliner. From a soundscape soundpoint, Journey has such a huge sound, they pretty much invented the term stadium rock with their monster shows in the late 1970s and Steve Perry’s piercing voice and Neal Schon’s raging guitar sound. It would not make sense to put anyone on after Journey because from from the sonic sound differences between bands alone it wouldn’t work.
Journey is also a far more popular act than Billy Idol or Toto with so many more hits that have only seemed to become even more popular over the years and have continued to find new audiences. The group can be considered to be one of the most successful rock and roll bands of all time. Of course all their huge hits came with Steve Perry as their lead singer who has not sung with Journey for years now. The band’s current lead singer Arnel Pineda who Neal Schon discovered in a Journey cover band named Zoo has been the group’s lead singer since 2008. While many old school Journey fans would prefer to see Steve Perry with the band (including this writer) one has to repsets the amazing job Arnel Pineda has done replacing such an iconic voice.
Journey will be performing as series of concerts on their own in December in Las Vegas . They will be performing a residency at the Virgin Hotel during the first two weeks of December from the first to the eleventh. As the band works out all the kinks in the smaller theater at the Virgin Hotel they will do a final Las Vegas Hotel show as the famed Caesars Colosseum where some of the greatest heavyweight fights have taken places over the years including the famous Muhammad Ali and Larry Holmes bout. The performance at the Caesars Colosseum is also being billed as a special symphony performance which probably means they will be recording and filming it for a possible later day release.
The official opening night of the so called Freedom Tour 2022 with Billy Idol as the opening act will begin in the land of steel in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania on February 22 at the PPG Paints Arena. The two bands will then cross the state to the city of brotherly love and perform in Philadelphia the next night on February 23. After the two shows in Pennsylvania, Journey and Billy Idol will arrive in New York to play at the brand new USB Areana on the grounds of Belmont Race Track. The New York arena is the brand new home of the New York Islanders which opens its doors for the first time this month of November 2021. The Journey and Billy Idol leg of the tour will continue up the East Coast and then across the U.S. hitting many major cities throughout February and March. It will conclude on April 5th in Los Angeles at the Staples Center.
While we love Billy Idol, we are much bigger fans of the sensational band Toto. Even with all the groups big hits they are still considered a band much favored among musicians because of their incredible virtuosity on their instruments. Their segment of the tour with Journey will begin at the Pechanga Arena in San Diego on April 7th two days after Journey’s final show with Billy Idol. These guys are working hard on this tour talking almost no time off between shows. Journey and Toto will eventually make their way back across the the United States playing close to 20 shows together and eventually closing it all out in Hartford Connecticut on May 11, 2022. This is one show we will not want to miss.
Journey Announces 2022 Tour With Billy Idol And Toto Opening article published on Classic RockHistory.com© 2021
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Mr. Kachejian,
I just wanted to drop a quick thank you for this article. I had a few questions about the tour and your article was the only one I could find that had the answers. So thank you 😉
Kind regards,
Wendy
Thank you Wendy, that’s very nice of you