Back in 1978, music lovers received a special treat when Journey went on tour. Although touring numerous times over the decades, the 78 tour was special. And the reason was due to the band sharing the stage with Montrose and even Van Halen. With three great rock bands on a single stage, the rockstars constantly put pressure on each other. The pressure became so great that Michael Anthony recently admitted that Journey tried to get Van Halen kicked off the tour.
Videos by American Songwriter
Discussing the famous tour with Sirius XM’s Eddie Trunk, Anthony recalled some of his most memorable tours with the band. And sure enough, the 1978 tour rose to the top as the musician said, “We were just freaking fired up so much that first tour in ‘78 with Dave [Lee Roth].” While releasing their debut album that same year, Van Halen knew how to command a stage. Their stage presence was so powerful that the band consistently fired up the fans in attendance. And given Van Halen was the opening act – it put a lot of pressure on both Journey and Montrose.
Not remotely letting up when they stepped foot on stage, Anthony added, “They were trying to kick us off the tour every week on that one. But we were selling tickets. The record company kept going, ‘No, you can’t kick them off the tour.’”
Michael Anthony Not The Only One To Remember The 1978 Tour
Anthony wasn’t the only one to remember that famous tour as Journey singer Steve Perry admitted Van Halen’s star power. “Now, you’ve got to remember that Eddie [Van Halen] and the group were on their first tour with Journey and we brought them out to open at the 3,000 seaters we were doing at that time. They cleaned our clock plenty of times and woke us the f**k up pretty quick. They were so focused and so on fire that they were just relentless. That was the most musical relentlessness that I’d ever seen.”
Even Neal Schon, the guitarist for Journey, said in a separate interview, “All I can tell you is that at that time, Eddie was red hot, but I was jamming hard, Ronnie [Montrose] was jamming hard, we were all jamming hard, you know? [We were] holding onto our own, but I was glad I wasn’t coming after Van Halen at that point…”
(Photo by Kayla Oaddams/Getty Images)
