Journey announced a pre-Lollapalooza club show, a new festival slot and the release date of their upcoming single. The band will play July 29 at Chicago’s Aragon Ballroom. Tickets will be available June 18 at 11AM ET at their official site.
The performance, dubbed their “official Lollapalooza aftershow,” is scheduled for two days before their gig at the festival.
On Facebook, the group also revealed its third 2021 concert: a set at Las Vegas’ iHeartRadio Music Festival on Sept. 18. Tickets for that show will be available June 25 at 2PM ET via the Journey site; a Capitol One pre-sale begins June 23 at 1PM ET.
In the same announcement, the band wrote that a new song is out June 24. “Who’s ready for new Journey music?” they wrote. The band’s current lineup features guitarist Neal Schon, keyboardist Jonathan Cain and singer Arnel Pineda alongside a trio of new members: returning bassist Randy Jackson, drummer Narada Michael Walden and keyboardist and singer Jason Derlatka.
Journey’s most recent concert was staged Jan. 31, 2019, in Las Vegas. It turned out to be their final performance with drummer Steve Smith and bassist Ross Valory, who were fired in March 2020 after what Schon and Cain described in court documents as an “ill-conceived corporate coup d’etat” designed to take control of the band’s name.
Schon described his eagerness to play live with the new lineup in a May interview with Eddie Trunk. Responding to the suggestion that Journey were an unlikely choice for Lollapalooza, a festival featuring mostly alternative, hip-hop and electronic acts, the guitarist replied: “I have not seen the bill. All I know is that we’re headlining it. I can guarantee you that with the new blood in the band, when we get together for two weeks of rehearsal before that show, we will be the new alternative. We’re gonna add a lot to the show. We’re gonna bring some new dynamics and open things up a bit and show people what the musicianship is really like in this band.”