Destroying the Sheraton 1978

[THE SAINT]

DESTROYING THE SHERATON
1978-03-08 The Orpheum Theater Madison, WI
1978-03-09 Riverside Theater Milwaukee, WI

EVH: One of the craziest nights I ever had was when our First album in 78 went gold or platinum, and We were in Madison Wisconsin. We were opening for a band called Journey. And we destroyed the entire seventh floor of the Sheraton Inn.

How much of this was simply keeping up with the Joneses?

EVH: We threw TVs out to the snow from the seventh floor. We did all the stuff, because we figured hey that's what you do!

Was there anyone there who said don't do this?

EVH: Oh yeah, the cops came.

SH (Sammy Hagar): Your accountant? The hotel manager?

EVH: We were going alright! Well, that's what we were doing anyway. Now we can do whatever we want. You know?



The band would eventually thank the Sheraton on their second album.

TU.jpg

(Billy Corgan and EVH)

Here's another good story from that tour: We were in Madison, Wisconsin, and while I was out of my room, Al and David snuck in and grabbed my table and chairs, took out the screen and threw them out the window. When I came back to my room I was like, "Where the hell is my table?" So I looked out my window and there, seven stories down, were my chair and table lying in the snow. The screen had totally disappeared. I figured it must have been Roth, so I went down to the desk and said, "My name is David Lee Roth, can I have the key to my room?" I went into his room, grabbed the table and chair and put them in mine. When the cops came, they looked in my room and said,"Hey, there's no screen here but here's a table and chair." Then they looked in Roth's room and said, "Hey, there's no table and chair here, but the screen is intact." They couldn't figure it out. [laughs]

[VHscraps]

Ha! "We were opening for a band called Journey"

They must have been languishing in obscurity when Ed did this interview

[VHscraps]

"No Journey fans" - entrance to VH's backstage area at the Us Festival

[poppadingo]

What was the problem with Journey(other than the obvious)? Were they rough on them on that first tour?

[chefcraig]

What was the problem with Journey(other than the obvious)? Were they rough on them on that first tour?

That tour was amazing. We all (my friends and me) wanted to see Ronnie Montrose, who was touring on his "Open Fire" instrumental album, until a bud at Sid's West in the Lakes Mall played us a promo copy of the first Van Haln album...sheet on a shingle!

Well.,we get to the show (a 2 hour drive at that time) and VH opens up, plays a blistering 28 minute set. Montrose comes on, and blazes. Then these wimps Journey come on and everyone departed the arena.

This apparent tension deepened days onward, as the tight panties guys in Journey became more and more exasperated. This was further prompted by several pranks the upstarts in VH played upon them. By most accounts, Journey became so frustrated with VH that they begged off the tour.

[THE SAINT]

DAVID LEE ROTH ON JOURNEY
"For a while on the first tour, we were opening up for Journey. Journey would have a few people backstage, but they were all married, it was very domestic. The Van Halen backstage party would be packed, so we’d regularly be threatened to be kicked off the tour. During sound check one day the singer’s got this scarf around his neck, and I said to him, ‘Why do you have scarf around your neck?’ He said ‘It was a rough night last night; strained myself a bit.’ Next day at sound check I showed up on stage with a scarf around my dick!"

GW: How has the record been selling?

EVH: Pretty good, we've sold about 350,000. We are like 29 with the bullet next week and Billboard. So we're kicking some ass. When we started out with Journey and Montrose, we were brand-new: I think our album was only out a week at the start of the tour. And now we're almost passing up Journey on the charts and stuff. So they're freaking out. I think they might be happy to get rid of us. We're very energetic and we get up there and blaze on the people for 30 minutes, that's all we're allowed to play with them. They won't let us use any effects. For my solo, Eruption, I do that every night live and I have this old World War II bomb which is about six or 7 feet tall and I put some echo boxes in it. Usually the thing blows up at the end of my solo with all the smoke bombs, but they won't let me use it. We don't get sound checks: we don't get shit. But we're still blazing on the people, man, were getting a good strong encore every night.

EVH: I guess that's why Dave's in Vegas. He saw playing music as show biz, and it's not show biz to me. I should've known when Roth said, "Let's say we're two years younger than we really are." And I'd say, "Why? I'm only 22. What's the difference?" That still causes problems for me to this day were on a tour supporting Journey. They would never give us soundchecks and treated us like shit in general, so we liked to fuck with them anyway we could. So while they were on stage we would sneak in and destroy their rooms--we'd use fire hoses and extinguishers, whatever we could get our hands on.

What really drove them crazy was that at the beginning of the tour no one knew who we were. The audience would say, "What the fuck is this?" But by 30 dates into the tour, we were the ones selling the tickets. In fact, halfway through the tour we wanted to bail, and despite all the shitty stuff we did to them, they begged us to stay on. Needless to say, we didn't. [laughs]