[Talisker]

I believe Carlos Santana kicked Neal Schon out of Santana because Neal was blowing Carlos off the stage

Yep. I saw Journey live when it first formed, in a packed college gym. Neal Schon finished a song (I forget which) on his knees at the front of the stage after a monster extended solo that basically blew down the walls and left the entire crowd stunned. As the final cord died he said, quite clearly and with a lot of anger, "beat that, Carlos."

I like all of Journey's stuff, but for me there's Journey before Steve Perry (their first three albums), and then everything else they did. It's almost like they became a completely different band. And my preference has always been the early stuff.

[ez]

Wasn’t Steve Perry the drummer on the early stuff and Greg Rolie was the singer?

[Disambiguator]

It's almost like they became a completely different band. And my preference has always been the early stuff.

That's exactly what happened. The early albums were very good musically, but didn't sell well. They got Shriek Perry on board, wrote some bubble-gummy tunes, and the rest is history.