A fan favorite is returning to Stadium of Fire, Provo’s annual music-and-fireworks extravaganza around the Independence Day holiday.
The veteran rock band Journey will headline the show, set for Saturday, July 1, at LaVell Edwards Stadium on the Brigham Young University campus, organizers of America’s Freedom Festival have announced.
Tickets go on sale Friday, March 24, online at freedomfestival.org. Freedom Festival subscribers can start buying tickets at 10 a.m.; the general public can buy tickets starting at noon.
Journey last played Stadium of Fire in 2015, and “we had never seen guests in the stadium so excited,” Jim Evans, the festival’s executive director, said in a statement. “People young and old danced and sang along to every word, to every song. Journey’s hits are so ingrained in our culture.”
Journey is celebrating its 50th anniversary in 2023, though guitarist Neal Schon is the only original member still performing with the band. The core of the band consists of Schon, keyboardist Jonathan Cain (a member since 1980), drummer Deen Castronovo (a member since 1998) and singer Arnel Pineda, whom Schon discovered on YouTube in 2007. Rounding out the band are keyboardist Jason Derlatka and bassist Todd Jensen.
The band’s biggest hits came out between 1978 and 1983, when Steve Perry was their iconic lead singer. Those include “Wheel in the Sky,” “Lights,” “Any Way You Want It,” “Who’s Crying Now,” “Don’t Stop Believin’,” “Open Arms,” “Separate Ways” and “Faithfully.”
The show kicks off with patriotic celebrations, including a flyover by F-35 jets from Hill Air Force Base. It culminates with what’s billed as “the nation’s largest stadium fireworks spectacle.”
The concert is part of America’s Freedom Festival at Provo, the Independence Day week celebrations in Utah County. Events include downtown Provo’s July Fourth Grand Parade and Freedom Days vendor market, the Balloon Fest, and patriotic events at the SCERA Center for the Arts in Orem.
