March 7, 2021

​

It's been awhile, but live music finally returned to northeastern Ohio.

​

Journey tribute band, E5C4P3 played to a COVID restricted "sold out" show at the Lorain Palace Theater on Saturday night.

​

The band kicked off the show with two songs that were featured on movie soundtracks, "Ask The Lonely" from Two of a Kind and "Only The Young" from Vision Quest.

​

Lead singer Jason Kelty, then told the audience that they were going to play songs from Journey's last album with Steve Perry, Trial By Fire and go backwards until they got to the first album that Steve Perry was on, which was 1978's Infinity.

​

It was a very interesting concept and it worked!

​

Kelty played the part of Steve Perry by wearing similar outfits that Perry wore during different phases of the band.  He wore a red tailed jacket for the first few numbers then changed to white tales for the Raised On Radio part of the show.  

 

The rest of the band, featuring Steve Raz on guitar, Paul Soos on bass, Erney Chaney on keys and Michael Scott Nelson on drums, did a fantastic job of pretty much playing the music note for note and giving the fans exactly what they wanted to hear.

​

The only misstep by Kelty was when he tried to recreate the "Oh Sherry" video by using a broom as a guitar during the solo of the song.  It was just a bit cheesy.  Other than that, he was spot on vocally and visually the entire night.

​

The Frontiers portion of the evening featured Kelty in a pink checkered black muscle shirt made famous by Perry in the "Separate Ways" video.  Besides playing the hits from that record, they also broke into my favorite song from that album "Chain Reaction."

​

The Escape album, Journey's most successful studio album, featured the most songs in the set.  Of course, "Open Arms," "Still They Ride" "Who's Crying Now and "Don't Stop Believin'" were played.  So were album cuts "Escape," "Stone In Love" and what Kelty called his favorite Journey song "Mother Father."  During this seven song set, Kelty really looked the way Steve Perry did in 1981 by wearing a leopard print t-shirt, jeans and white leather Nike shoes with the red swoosh. 

​

After a brief intermission, the band returned to play the earlier Journey tunes.  Hits like "Anyway You Want It," "Feeling That Way," "Anytime" and "The Party's Over (Hopelessly In Love)" went over very well.  But it was also great to hear "Line of Fire" and "People and Places," a rare deep cut that even Journey probably hasn't played since 1980.

​

During the encore the band even paid tribute to Cleveland legend, Michael Stanley who had just past away from lung cancer, by playing "He Can't Love You."  

​

Very classy move.

​

If you are in the mood to hear some classic Journey in a live setting, I highly recommend checking out E5C4P3 the next time they play in your area.   These guys put on a hell of a show! 

​

​

​

Photos and review by Greg Drugan

​

​

​