Formed in San Francisco in 1973, under the auspices of former Santana manager Herbie Herbert, originally called the Golden Gate Rhythm Section, the original lineup of Journey included recent Santana alumni Neal Schon on lead guitar and Gregg Rolie on keyboards and lead vocals. Drummer Prairie Prince of The Tubes, bassist Ross Valory and rhythm guitarist George Tickner, both of Frumious Bandersnatch, rounded out the group. In its original incarnation, the band played amazing post psychedelia hard rock/ jazz fusion, which was a long cry from what the band would take, after the addition of Steve Perry on vocals, onto worldwide success and fame.
Although the band did go on to much bigger things commercially, selling to date over a staggering 50 million albums worldwide, it can be argued that artistically they never burned as bright as they did on the first three efforts pre Perry. A prime example of the instrumental muscle of the original lineup is this version of "Kohoutek", recorded live at San Francisco's Winterland, March 30, 1974 :
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