Van Halen!

Last night my buddy Eric and I caught Van Halen at Arco Arena. Seeing Van Halen live in 2007 is a bit like seeing Santa Claus, not a mall impersonator, but the REAL Santa Claus. And what I mean by that is this:

I'm young enough (ha!) to not remember when Van Halen were a tiny club band in LA. For folks my age, they have pretty much always been this larger-than-life, mythic entity that came into the forefront of media every couple of years with some huge announcement (a new CD that would inevitably sell zillions of copies, a huge song/video, a new lead singer, being inducted into the RnR Hall of Fame, and so on). Add to that, the number of bands and guitarists that have been influenced by the band probably reaches well into the thousands. (And then of course there are other notable stories -- such as Eddie showing up at Dimebag Darrel's funeral to place the guitar from Van Halen II inside the casket, etc.)

Similarly, there was never a period of time where Santa Claus was trying to make a name for himself. He's always been HUGE. Legendary. Epic. And Van Halen (to me), have kind of always been the same way.

So seeing them live last night felt a bit like a dream. You half-expect The Easter Bunny to come walking by at any moment and wake you up. :)

Aside from my apparently self-induced hallucination, the show was freakin' amazing (I can only guess what substances you all think I was on after reading those above paragraphs -- I swear all I had during the show was a Pepsi)!

They play for over 2 hours, all music from Roth-era albums (save for the "316" instrumental that Eddie does), opening with "You Really Got Me". Every hit, every recognizable song from classic rock radio, every air-guitar player's anthem -- they're all in the set. Personal highlights included "Panama", "Eruption", "Everybody Wants Some", "Hot For Teacher" and the encore of "1984 / Jump". About the only thing left off the show that I would like to have heard was "Top Jimmy", but I figured that was probably a long shot.

Dave looked great -- you'd never know this was his first big tour with the band in 20 years. Eddie looked really healthy, obviously having an absolute blast playing live on stage with his son Wolfgang.

The stage includes this big S-shaped ramp allowing Diamond Dave and Wolfgang to walk almost half-way into the arena while performing (sadly Eddie pretty much stays on the proper part of the stage and doesn't venture out that far).

I had heard mixed reviews of Wolfgang being in the band, but much to my surprise a) he does not "just stand there" like early reports had noted and b) he's a pretty damn good bass player (filling the spot left by Michael Anthony quite nicely -- heck, his backing vocals sound close enough that you'd never know it wasn't Anthony, save for maybe 2 little spots here and there).

More often than not the "reunion, except for somebody important" tours kind of turn me off. I didn't even think about getting tickets to "Queen featuring Paul Rogers" -- that sounded like a complete waste of money to me. Similarly "The New Cars w/ Todd Rungren" felt to me more like Todd just trying to pay rent rather than a great musical idea (tho I will admit the single they released was pretty good).

Okay so Van Halen isn't missing one of it's namesakes, and Diamond Dave is there too, but still "3 quarters of the band, plus the guitar player's son" initially made me a bit suspect.

I could not have been more wrong. We had an absolute blast.

It's even making me re-think the other aforementioned "reunion" shows. I may just have to catch The New Cars when they play again, in whatever capacity that is. :)

'cause everybody wants some...