Night Ranger, Journey bringing nostalgia to Richmond

Jack Blades wants fans to bring their "singing voices" to the Richmond Coliseum on Tuesday.

The bassist/singer for Night Ranger said his band's current joint tour with Journey is so packed with hits, it will be impossible for concertgoers to resist singing along.

Considering both acts were ubiquitous radio presences in the 1980s -- nearly 20 hits for Journey and 10 for Night Ranger -- Blades isn't exaggerating.

"I go to the show because I'm playing, but I'm a fan. I stand on the side of the stage and sing every song along with Journey," Blades said Wednesday from a tour stop in Baltimore.

The bands, which hail from the Bay Area in California, also share another link: a song forever attached to their existence.

For Journey, it's "Don't Stop Believin," their fist-pumping anthem of optimism from 1981 that was resurrected for "The Sopranos" infamous series finale and became a pop culture phenomenon.

From this year's "American Idol" tour to Fox's new high school dramedy "Glee," the song, still in the iTunes top 100, seems to find a new audience.

Night Ranger's lucrative cross to bear is "Sister Christian," the band's 1984 power ballad sung and written by drummer Kelly Keagy for his sister.

The tune has made appearances in everything from the 1997 Mark Wahlberg movie "Boogie Nights" to an episode last year in Christina Applegate's now-canceled sitcom, "Samantha Who?"

"It just became one of those iconic tunes, the big rock ballad," said Blades, 55. "A lot of people took that song as their credo when they were graduating high school, and over the years, it became part of the collective consciousness."

Another Journey/Night Ranger tie-in: Both songs feature prominently in "Rock of Ages," the Tony-nominated Broadway musical that celebrates '80s glam bands.

The show's resident guitarist, Joel Hoekstra, is currently pulling double duty as a Broadway musician and the guitarist in Night Ranger. He replaces Jeff Watson, an early Night Ranger member who was dismissed from the band in 2007.

The affable Blades didn't have much to say regarding Watson except, "It's just one of those things. It's like a family, like a divorce. Things happen, and you just continue on."

Joining Hoekstra, Blades, Keagy and Brad Gillis, the other axe-slinger who co-founded the band in 1979, is keyboardist Christian Cullen, who has played with the group since 2007.

The two new players on board have provided the core trio with a jolt of adrenaline, Blades said.

"We're just having a ball. We let them do whatever they want onstage -- our credo is, just go for it. We're enjoying touring, we're enjoying everything. It's so much fun to look down and see thousands of people singing along with us. We're very blessed and fortunate that we can still be out there playing arenas. . . . Everybody [in the band] is rocking and rolling, and people pick up on that. Lord knows, everybody needs a lift right now."

Contact Melissa Ruggieri at (804) 649-6120 or .