Might as Well

A Van Halen fan comes to terms.

by Shaun Brady

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Published: Sep 25, 2007

rock

: Markus Cuff (CLICK IMAGE FOR LARGER VERSION)

Though most of my focus these days is on jazz and experimental music, I grew up on rock. From a childhood spent digging through Dad's crates of vinyl to the long-haired high school jean-jacket days, nostalgia points back not to bebop and swing, but to Headbangers Ball and all-ages Battles of the Bands in suburban Wilmington, Del.

But I've never been one for reunion concerts. As tempted as I may have been, and as highly as some praised the results, I skipped the Pixies, Stooges, New York Dolls, Germs — and I guarantee that I'll be elsewhere the night Led Zeppelin hits town.

That said, nostalgia erodes the best of defenses, and I've laid down the cash to see Van Halen, neither as good or significant a band as any of the aforementioned; their advantage lies in the one place where nostalgia looms largest: personal memories.

August 1986: The phone rings and Mom turns to my 12-year-old self with the news that my aunt and uncle have a spare ticket for Van Halen at the Spectrum that very night, now destined to be my first concert. (Technically, the first band I saw live was openers Bachman-Turner Overdrive, ironically themselves a reunion act on that tour.)

This being two years after 1984, we're talking VH Mark II, aka Van Hagar. That didn't matter: I found their new synth-rock incarnation perfectly acceptable, my 5150 cassette in heavy rotation. Hell, with the six-string aspirations then being birthed in my preteen head, it was enough just to see Eddie Van Halen down there blazing away in that arena, until then wholly associated with Harlem Globetrotters games and Disney on Ice.

I saw VH again on the Monsters of Rock tour at the Vet in 1988; and David Lee Roth twice, at the Spectrum in '91 promoting his dreadful A Little Ain't Enough, and again at Seattle's 2001 Bumbershoot festival, when he'd resigned himself as a greatest-hits act.

But the original line-up remained elusive, seesawing with Chinese Democracy in the pantheon of unrealizable '80s-rock ambitions. The last attempt led to the best-forgotten Gary Cherone era. Even writing two weeks in advance of the Philly shows, there's no telling if by the time you read this they won't have called the whole thing off yet again.

While the replacement of barrel-chested, castrato-voiced Michael Anthony by Eddie's 16-year-old son Wolfgang on bass may be unfortunate, nobody ever listened to VH for the rhythm section. Alex Van Halen provided an endless supply of indistinguishable, pedestrian beats that make slogging through whole albums something of a chore.

All credit for Van Halen's continued popularity goes to its two leaders: David Lee Roth, who raised the bar for wild frontman antics, and Eddie Van Halen, who turned guitar-wanking and neoclassical pretensions into a formula that countless six-string hacks still emulate.

Their legacy isn't necessarily a positive one; the whole of '80s hair-rock shares the foursome's DNA. VH brought a laid-back SoCal vibe to hard rock, co-opting the glam look while ditching its androgyny for swaggering machismo. Kiss got to the empty-headed party-rock thing first, but there was always something cynical and pandering about its face-painted spectacle, where Van Halen genuinely seemed to be having a good time. Diamond Dave relished the role of the endearing asshole, the guy who'd fuck your girlfriend when your back was turned but who you invited anyway, because everyone knew it wasn't a party without him.

What DLR strove for, and which surfaced as he crooned "Just a Gigolo" and donned fedoras and pin-striped vests during his solo career, was a modern-day rat pack. Perhaps the acrimony that destroyed the group stemmed from the fact that Eddie's fret-board fireworks outshone Dave's escapades, leaving the putative frontman to play spandex-clad Dean Martin to the guitarist's baby-faced Sinatra. If that really was only iced tea in their Jack Daniels bottles, that only helps paint Dave into Deano's faux-sot persona.

It's all persona now. Eddie will smile and hammer-finger the fret board, even if that shit-eating grin is somewhat tainted now by the knowledge of several bouts in rehab and the fact that he'd rather spend his time behind the keyboard. Dave will do his split-legged leaps off the drum risers, and kick his legs in a pinwheel arc, and if he can't quite jump as far or kick as high, we'll forgive him. They're not the band they used to be, but we're not the audience we used to be, so like a pro wrestling crowd, we'll meet the illusion halfway.

(s_brady@citypaper.net)

Van Halen plays Mon., Oct. 1 and Wed., Oct. 3, 7:30 p.m., with Ky-Mani Marley, $49.50-$149.50, Wachovia Center, 3601 S. Broad St., 800-298-4200, www.comcast-spectacor.com.

 

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