Bland Halen

(...or the post that Nick will look forward to seeing as soon as he gets to work.)

(...or the post that spends way too much time pretentiously talking about Van Halen.)

(...you should probably skip this post...but don't worry, I wont' talk about this band ever again.)

Tonight featured the mid-summer treat of going to one of those big money concerts. You know, the ones where you spend a lot of money to go to an arena or stadium so you can see mullets, mile-high bangs, and guys stumbling around the parking lot looking for their cars? Well, I got to see the band I listened to quite a bit growing up: Van Halen. Although the night itself was a good time, I couldn't help but make the following observations:

- The good news is that it seems like the entire band is off the wagon, on the sauce, and ready to tear shit up. The bad news is that their best years are way behind them. The energy is not there anymore. After seeing this, I now believe the show I saw at Alpine with Gary Cherone was a lot better everybody wanted to admit....Seriously. I'm glad I saw this band at their peak ('93).

- Van Halen is finally entering the "no new stuff at the shows, please!" stage of their careers. I know that the new songs have yet to be released, but besides those in the front row, most of the 40,000 strong sat motionless during the three new tracks to be released soon. I can already tell that these will be the same reactions after the songs are released to the general public.

- At first I thought that having a week off the road would energize the band. It turns out the exact opposite happened. The first five or six songs were some of the most uninspired versions of the hits I have ever seen. My old cover band probably delivered more passion during our over-the-top renditions of their songs at our rehearsals than they did tonight. Eddie Van Halen just noodled around during the solos, Sammy Hagar just barked the verses, and Alex Van Halen did nothing but smile...You could feel the United Center actually getting cooler.

- Eventually the band shook off the rust and indifference. They busted into a groove during "Unchained." This backs up my argument that you just can't hit the proverbial 'Rock-Out' stage with Sammy Hagar songs. Even Sammy seemed genuinely jacked up to do a Roth-era classic. He finally gets it.

- I'm not a big Sammy fan. I'm sure the shows are a lot of fun, but Sammy Hagar and his fans always seem like they're trying too hard to have a good time. However, I noticed that during the two solo songs, he delivered a lot more soul into the guitar than Eddie did for the entire show. That may have been the highlight of the show.

- One the band got going, Eddie started having classic gear problems; possibly alcohol related. His pedals were blowing out and he kept stepping on his guitar cable over and over again. During the last quarter of the show, he would unplug his guitar over and over again. I could be wrong, but I think he was even turning his guitar volume knob down without even knowing it during verses. I realize that I noticed these things from across the stadium and on the third deck...but they were pretty obvious on the screens. Nick...back me up on this one.

- Things got political during "Right Now" where they would show titles from the original video mixed in with newer, updated statements. For example, during the title "Right Now, there is Nothing More Expensive than Regret," they substituted the condom with the president. Ooooooh.....so political. I don't think anybody noticed that one...for some reason, people dance to that song.

...and yet. We were all left wanting more.

(p.s. - I saw the last song from the the opening band. They sounded like Nickelback, but I bet people out there would have a million reasons to tell me otherwise. Compared to Vince Neil in '93 and Kenny Wayne Shepard in '98, this had to have been a joke.)

(p.s.2. - For the locals : you can park 5 feet away from a $13 dollar parking spot for no charge if you shake off your fears of that neighborhood and park the damn car on Adams street just west of the stadium. Spots are always available there and there's so much traffic after the events from the parking lots, you'll have nothing to worry about besides driving through that.)

. . [~] . 0 (Grumble) Grumbles .