Journey live - a peak performance at JFK Stadium! Chain Reaction, Wheel in the Sky and Send her my Love - June 4, 1983

0:05 SPEAKER_00: Hey everybody, welcome back to the concert room. I'm your host, Bob Hill. The concert room is a podcast session dedicated to concert performances, performers, bands, and artists who played on the stage at the legendary Philadelphia Spectrum Arena, and all of the surrounding venues in the Philadelphia area back in the heyday years of concerts and shows. And thanks for joining me today. Got a great performance lined up for us today on our podcast session, and I did dedicate a podcast show with my friend and local music journalist Chuck Darrow in season one, and we discussed a session dedicated to live aid at JFK Stadium.

0:50 SPEAKER_00: So today I'm going to feature a band that performed at JFK, and that band is Journey. Now, why did I pick Journey to kind of christen JFK as a featured venue on my podcast? Well I have been planning on getting Journey on my show here for quite a while, and I've been leaning on the tower shows kind of lately here on my podcast, and I thought I'd kind of veer off and go towards JFK Stadium. Tons of bands and performers have played JFK throughout the heyday years of concerts, no doubt. However, doing research I found that a lot of the audio out there on the interwebs is kind of mostly bootleg and audience recording, not really great quality.

1:42 SPEAKER_00: And if you're familiar with my show, if I'm gonna feature a band or a performer, I'd like to have the best quality audio of that performance that that I really can. So JFK Stadium and Journey. We're gonna kinda kill two birds with uh one shot here, and again I'm gonna feature Journey at JFK Stadium. Now we all know about Journey and the history and the commercial and worldwide success of this band and uh their legendary career, so I I don't really need to do a deep dive background on Journey, okay, but I would like to give a few details on JFK Stadium since this is kind of our first performance here.

2:28 SPEAKER_00: So in South Philly back in the day, the stadium complex was situated on Broad Street, and we had Veteran Stadium in which the Phillies baseball team played. And by the way, concerts were held there too, like Springsteen and and Pink Floyd. Next to the vet in line was the Spectrum, of course, home of the Flyers and Sixers, thousands of events, including obviously concerts that earned the nickname America Show Place, and then next in line was JFK Stadium. It was built in 1926. It was a horseshoe kind of design, and it went through a few name changes until 1964 when it officially was renamed John F. Kennedy Stadium.

3:18 SPEAKER_00: The Eagles football team played there for a bit, and it was designated as the official official neutral site for the annual Army Navy games each year. And JFK also held events such as boxing matches. I think they even had a NASCAR race there once or twice, professional soccer, and of course when the business of concerts became a big part of the music scene, JFK hosted numerous kind of festival shows, big and small. I'll give you a quick rundown of some of these festival shows starting in the nineteen seventies in June of 1976.

4:01 SPEAKER_00: Guests Peter Frampton, Gary Wright, and others played the 1976 Bicentennial concert at the stadium. Led Jeplin was scheduled to conclude their 1977 North American tour at the stadium. That show was scheduled for August 13, 1977. Unfortunately, tragedy struck.

5:00 SPEAKER_00: 1978 US tour following the album release of Some Girls. And June 30th, 1978, all day concert held at the stadium. Stanford Townsend Band, Bob Welch, Steve Miller, Fleetwood Mac. So that's just the 70s kind of highlighting really big festival shows. Now, these are not the kind of shows that you could hold inside the spectrum. Spectrum was usually one, two, or maybe three performances, performers, excuse me, at the max. Now these were just absolutely really, really big shows and a lot of fun. And all the way through the through the eighties, eighty one, there was an all-day concert called the Roundup.

5:48 SPEAKER_00: The Roundup is still talked about today in the Philly area. If you were at the Roundup, that was really, really a memorable day because it was all Southern rock bands, and I think I remember a friend just calling it the world's largest keg party at that time. It was absolutely amazing. I'm really sorry I missed this. And I'll have to go out and see if there's any recordings on this. But listen to this lineup Southern Rock Bands. 38 Special, the Marshall Tucker Band, Molly Hatchett, The Outlaws, and the Allman Brothers.

6:25 SPEAKER_00: That is absolutely just a great day of tunes in June 1981. September 25th and 26th, this is 1981. Stones opened their 81 US tour in support of their new album, Tattoo You. Two shows at JFK Stadium. And opening acts included Journey who we're gonna feature today. And George Cathurgood and the Destroyers. Very interesting. I did go to the September 25th show, and that was a Friday. I skipped school along with a lot of my other friends. I actually parked my car at the high school, I think it was in 11th grade.

7:11 SPEAKER_00: So in the morning, parked my car in the high school parking lot, jumped in a car with three other friends, we went down, and it was just a great day. It was it was hot and it was a Friday. Didn't get back to the parking lot till really late. It was just a long day, but it was so much fun. In between bands, I would kind of walk around and I I would meet I I met up with some friends that also skipped from school. It was just really a a great day. The thing about the the thing I remember a lot about JFK Stadium also, and I I have a particular memory of this show, September 25th, of 81, with the Stones, is because well it's bench seats, it's a stadium.

7:58 SPEAKER_00: So it's you know, think of uh bench seats, and I was sitting on the end and JFK Stadium was just built of all concrete and brick. And those steps coming up and down, you know, they were kind of treacherous if you were f feeling if you were in your cups, let's say, uh you know. But so I I would just sit there. I remember sitting on the bench and just watching people stumbling up on that hard concrete, and not so much coming down, but just coming up, just tripping and scraping themselves on the concrete.

8:37 SPEAKER_00: I just for some reason I just when I think of JFK Stadium, I always think of those concrete steps. It's quite hilarious. Great day, as I said, 1982 all-day festival called the JFK Jam that featured Huey Lewis, Joan Jack, Loverboy, the Kinks, and Farner. Great day of tunes there, Grateful Dead, and also I think a few other now interesting enough well, I'll get to this in a minute, the closing, but I did want to also call out September 25th, 82, The Who performed. It was then labeled their farewell tour.

9:18 SPEAKER_00: Even back in 82, they were saying goodbye.

9:24 SPEAKER_00: And opening acts were Santana, the Clash, and The Hooters, local legendary Philly band here. The police also played in 1983, of course, 1985, Live Aid, JFK Stadium in Philadelphia, and Wembley Stadium in London. That was the dual concert for the world. And if you're interested in Live Aid and what happened at Live Aid, I did a podcast session with I mentioned my friend and local music longtime music journalist here in the Philadelphia area, Chuck Darrow. We actually dedicated a show to Live Aid.

10:08 SPEAKER_00: He was down there covering it. So you want to go back and listen to that show if you're interested in leading up to Live Aid, you know, the performances, and of course, backstage with Chuck. It's really a great show that we did in season one. As I mentioned, the dead played there a couple times. They would kind of yo-yo back and forth between playing the Spectrum, which was really kind of their h East Coast home base, if you will. They played the Spectrum more than any other band ever in the Spectrum's history, and I believe it's fifty-three performances.

10:46 SPEAKER_00: So they would actually come back to uh Philly and play these when they played with uh I remember that and I was with WMMR's I don't think it was simulcast, but they were definitely down there broadcasting from JFK for the Pink Floyd show. And I do remember sitting there with a couple of my friends wondering why we are not down there that night. Big regret, and that happened more than a few times back in the day. There's only so many shows you can go to. I mean, think about it. We had the Spectrum, we had the Tower Theater, and we have JFK Stadium.

11:27 SPEAKER_00: And it was just a conveyor belt of shows all year round. So you really had to, you know, pick and choose and and try and get tickets to the shows that you actually wanted. So I did have a lot of friends actually down there at the Pink Floyd show in eighty-seven. Phenomenal. They said it was just absolutely great. You two played there in '87 on their Joshua Tree tour. And brings me up to June 11th, 1988. The Monsters of Rock Tour came to Philadelphia. I was actually down there that night, that day, and that was fun.

12:05 SPEAKER_00: That featured uh Doc and Metallica, a band called Kingdom Come, and also the Scorpions, and of course Van Halen.

12:17 SPEAKER_00: They they were headlining, they headlined that show. For me, because of where our seats were, Scorpions came on at dusk, the lights were just starting to come on the stage, the sun was down in our section, we were close to the stage, up to the side, and I think the Scorpions really just stole that that day, that night. They were absolutely phenomenal. And Van Helen, of course, was great. Van Helen, Dawkins, loved Dachen, Metallica. So just a great day. All day. That that Monsters of Rock show was just wonderful.

12:53 SPEAKER_00: Saw a few other shows at JFK, but yeah, mainly I stuck to like the tower shows and the spectrum, of course. Because like I said, there's only so many shows that you can go to. So the stadium's last concert was with The Grateful Dead with Bruce Hornsby and the Range as the opening act. That's a great night of great day of tunes. After that performance on July 7th, 1989, about six days after that show with The Grateful Dead, the mayor at the time in Philly actually condemned JFK, and the city closed it due to numerous city spectral code and structural damage reports.

13:37 SPEAKER_00: JFK was officially demolished in 1992, and again it was old, and I can attest to that. But we just had some absolutely great times at JFK. Those shows are absolutely legendary. I only mentioned a few of them just now, but wonderful. A lot of those shows from JFK are again still talked about now today, and rightly so. So when we talk about the spectrum on the show, which is the focus, we also have the Tower Theater. And now you're aware that we also had JFK as a venue to see really the big and important shows and festivals and because again there was never a shortage of concerts all year round between the three of 'em.

14:26 SPEAKER_00: I'll I'll just reiterate and say the big issue, at least for me, was coming up with money and picking and choosing what concerts I can actually attend. And when you have a group of friends that have different varying musical tastes, you know, they might want to go see the Roundup Southern Rock. They they might want to go to Pink Floyd. Maybe I wasn't into Pink Floyd late 80s. I'd rather go to Monsters of Rock. So I kind of just, you know, shifted my thoughts and money around that, and of course all those spectrum shows and the uh the uh tower show that maybe I really wanted to go.

15:04 SPEAKER_00: So that's a really a great problem to have that we we went through back in the heyday days of concerts, and really blessed to have again these three legendary venues. This is June 4th, 1983. Journey headlined a concert here at JFK. It also featured Brian Adams, the tubes, uh, Sammy Hagar, and John Cougar. This show actually provided the majority of the concert footage shot by NFL Films and their documentary Journey, Frontiers and Beyond. Now I'm not gonna play obviously the the whole set or you know from the set list, but I'm going to I like to open with the the opener of the night chain reaction.

15:51 SPEAKER_00: That's a really good song. And they do go right into Wheel in the Sky, so I think I'm gonna play that back to back, the back-to-back, the set opener chain reaction, and wheel in the sky. I'm going to play one more. I'm gonna do three songs from this set list. And that's a song that's played uh about the fourth song into the set, and it's called Sender My Love. I think this is really a great song, it's very underrated, and I think it really showcases Steve Purry's wonderful voice. It's just really, really a nice song.

16:26 SPEAKER_00: And great band. They're just on fire, they sound great. I was lucky to see Journey though. As I mentioned, the Rolling Stones, you know, two years before in 1981, they had Journey, so I was able to catch Journey live at least at JFK. Short set. Feel very lucky about that. Happy to do this today. Legendary band. Let's get to this performance. The date is June 4th, 1983. Location is JFK Stadium in Philly. We're gonna start out with the set opener chain reaction. They go right into Wheel in the Sky, and then a couple songs later we'll uh will feature Sender My Love, which is really a great song.

17:15 SPEAKER_00: It's one of my personal favorites from Journey. Hope you enjoy it. Crank it up, and here's Journey at JFK Stadium.

22:36 SPEAKER_01: We don't have the stuff to do.

23:21 SPEAKER_01: You say she's a fine.

23:34 SPEAKER_01: How it hurts so bad to see that in all the same.

24:25 SPEAKER_01: She did so much more. And I couldn't.

26:29 SPEAKER_00: Sounded great. Love it. Uh I'm going to put a link to the entire show out there so you can uh click on it and go over there and listen to the entire thing. And I really hope you enjoyed this.

27:42 SPEAKER_00: So in the meantime, again, thanks for tuning in. I'm