Neal Schon Says Avenged Sevenfold Sabotaged Journey’s Rock In Rio Set – ‘It’s a Bulls–t Move’

Neal Schon has spoken up in support of Journey bandmate Arnel Pineda after the singer received negative comments for his recent performance at Rock in Rio — and he claimed that festival headliners Avenged Sevenfold were to blame.In an impassioned social media post, Pineda said he was “devastated” over a sub-par show, and offered to quit the band if a million fans told him to go.Guitarist Schon then made his own comments on Facebook, defending Pineda and declaring that another band had caused Journey sound problems that night.READ MORE: Jonathan Cain Wins Lawsuit Against Journey Bandmate Neal SchonSharing a video from the stage which showed fans at Rio, Schon wrote: “All this absolute garbage fabricated bullshit about [Arnel]. Does this look like nobody had a good time? I’m asking you. All fabricated, owned and bought blogs, bullshit.” He echoed those thoughts while commenting on another Facebook post about the story: “Arnel don’t listen to these blogs. They are all bought. You’ve kicked ass!”He went on to add another clip showing Journey taking a bow at the end of their Rio performance and said the headline act had imposed control on his band’s sound output.Neal Schon Says Journey Were Victims of ‘Bullshit Move’“[W]e found out much later that we got extremely limited by Avenged Sevenfold,” he said. “[T]hat means… hardly any sound can get out of the PA to the audience. It’s a bullshit move.” Despite that, he added: “Check out the audience. They loved it… the rest of it’s fabricated crap.” When a follower asked if Journey’s sound tech couldn’t have resolved the problem, Schon replied: “No,” while another fan explained that “sound equipment [can be] locked up and password protected.” Asked why Avenged Sevenfold had been the headliner rather than Journey, Schon said simply: “Politics.”The following leg of Journey’s current tour takes them to Japan in October, while their next confirmed U.S. date is on Dec. 28 in Lincoln, CA.Most Played Cover Songs By 50 Big Hard Rock + Metal BandsWe combed though setlists of the biggest names in rock and metal to find out their most played cover songs. (OK, so we actually used Setlist.fm. What, did you think we had a pile of setlists sitting around?)Gallery Credit: Rob Carroll