There’s an open air venue near my house and last year I didn’t check the schedule until late in the summer.  I discovered that two of my favorite bands from the 80′s, Journey and Foreigner were playing.  Unfortunately, I had missed the Journey concert, but I did attend the Foreigner performance.

It was a great concert, though I was amused at the sight of suburban housewives oogling the band members.  I was hoping that I could catch Journey locally this year, and was disappointed to find they aren’t playing this small town.  So, I did some searching around to see what they were up to.

Turns out Journey has a new lead singer, and according to one band member, they can now return to their “heritage sound”.  Where do you suppose they found this fantastic musician that has changed their outlook so completely?  It was on YouTube.

The new member of the band is named Arnel Pineda, and he’s from the Philippines.  Evidently, Neal Schon, the guitarist for the band was trying to find someone who was new to the music industry, and who had a voice and style similar to the original “voice of Journey”.  So, he sat up one night and scoured YouTube to find what he was looking for.

He found a band called Zoo out of the Philippines, and was amazed to hear the lead singer’s voice when they performed a number of Journey songs.  He messaged the band through YouTube.  As you might imagine, the Zoo band thought someone was playing a joke on them.  But, Arnel’s friend encouraged him to respond…  just in case.

And, the rest is history.  Guess you just never know when something you post on the ‘Net is going to change your life!