Journey's final tour hits Calgary with two hours of 1980s hits, backstage tensions intact

Journey brought its purported final tour to the Dome on Saturday night, delivering a two-hour-plus showcase of stadium rock hits that kept the floor seats singing along—even as the band's longest-serving members carried their well-documented feud silently through the evening.

Founding guitarist Neal Schon and keyboardist Jonathan Cain, the two musicians who have been engaged in an often public dispute in recent years, stood back to back during the fourth song in what appeared less like a moment of unity than a contractual obligation. Schon, a former child prodigy guitarist originally from Journey's offshoot of Santana, and Cain, a Trump supporter, have spent recent years lobbing lawsuits and cease-and-desists at each other across considerable political divide. Yet Saturday's set offered nothing close to as edgy as a political opinion.

The band opened with three largely indistinguishable numbers—"Be Good To Yourself," "Stone in Love," and "Ask the Lonely"—marred by the Dome's trademark slushy sound. By the fourth song, a largely forgotten rocker called "Only the Young" from the 1985 film Vision Quest soundtrack, vocalist Arnel Pineda descended into the audience and his banshee howl began piercing through the noise.

Pineda has been Journey's frontman since 2007, stepping into the shadow of Steve Perry, the band's second vocalist who led the act throughout its hitmaking heyday in the 1980s. Pineda will likely never get his due credit, but he brought uncanny vocal resemblance to Perry's monster '80s hits and genuine energy throughout. Pineda was discovered by Schon on YouTube fronting a cover band in the Philippines—a backstory that earned him credibility with longtime fans.

Journey remained firmly tethered to the safety net of the Steve Perry era, with only two exceptions. Pineda led the band through "Never Walk Away" from 2008's Revelation, the first of three studio records Pineda has sung on. Early in the set, Schon introduced "Of a Lifetime" from Journey's 1975 self-titled debut, the opening track of the album and a reminder of the band's earlier, fussier jazz-fusion and prog-rock roots before it became a commercial enterprise.

There was no opening act, no cheesy medleys, no goofy surprise covers. For the devotees packed into Saturday's crowd, it was precisely the surprise-free nostalgia trip they'd come for.