Fans have only seen Augeri on a LIVE
front, so how can they welcome him into the band without hearing new material first apart from the Armageddon song??


Well, I will say that covering the Perry songs is no easy task, at best. Out of the 3 shows I have seen (one on the Fall '98 tour and 2 on the Summer '99 tour), the audience just came unglued when Journey hit the stage and remained that way for the entire show. At the last show I saw, practically EVERYBODY stood for the ENTIRE show--even the people on the lawn.
Read your local Journey message board and 99.999% of the people have accepted him. Of course, the real challenge comes on the new cd, but so far, all I have read are very high reviews for the songs--so that doesn't appear to be a problem either. It's just possible that the Napster fiasco might work in the band's favor and make more people want to buy the cd, especially since everything I have read concerning the new songs ahs been positive.

Kevin