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Roth of ages rocks on
Keeps promise of metal youth
By Fish Griwkowsky
"There will come a day when youth will pass away ... what will they say about me?"
Well, as if that isn't the most obvious question for Diamond David Lee Roth, which is a dumb shame.
It's a poor reflection on our society that so little respect is currently thrown the superior Van Halen front man who more than, as he put it, "reasonably entertained" us at the Edmonton Events Centre in West Edmonton Mall on Tuesday night.
Believe me, I know how this works - these days we're especially attuned to sarcastically mock the things we loved so much in our youth.
It makes us seem clever and impenetrable to roll our eyes at spandex leaping and an enormous cloud of crimped hair, somehow rationalizing monotonous and invisible outfits worn into suburban nothingness.
Soul
But once again, it's a reality TV-influenced instance of concentrating on the blazingly superficial over the actual soul of a thing.
Because if you liked Van Halen's cocky but more importantly wicked, party-generation vibrations, then you were a fool to miss it the other night. The promises of Roth's metal youth were kept.
Riding an absolutely priceless list of globally familiar hits, the 51-year-old singer emerged with less pow than his last visit in a flamboyant yet dignified three-piece suit that referenced several rainbows: stripes, polka-dots and vinyl pants all saying, "HEYYY!"
Instantly, it was clear he could access any of the former notes, his left thumb still hitchhiking whenever he stretched his voice to the edge.
In front of a comparatively generic but good-natured band, the crowd was DLR's with the opening drum roll of Hot for Teacher as we all adjusted to the passage of time on his face, which was ever that of a strange-looking old man.
The average age of the semi-packed venue was both 19 and 35 with little in the middle. Oh, plus lots of strippers.
Besides the affirmation of ongoing high kicks above his head, what I most loved about Roth's show was his Shatner-ish ease with his own story, along with a Steve Martin smile.
Sure, he said the dreaded "funky" a few times, a date-stamping word which should be obliterated from all human use except to describe funk, but his stories were great.
He cited being a shock jock radio DJ, called a happy woman in the front row a "slut" to her pleasure, explained that Panama was written in tribute to a recently sexed girl who'd put her pants on backwards as she fled police attention.
Then he took it all the way back to the beginning.
"Back in 1971 I was a night janitor," he explained with a grin that never left his face all night, "and the DJ put on the Rolling Stones' Brown Sugar 10 times in a row. And I thought, someday they're gonna play my f---ing songs like that." And indeed they did.
Just Like Paradise, Runnin' with the Devil, You Really Got Me, California Girls, Jamie's Crying, Just a Gigolo, Yankee Rose and the monolithic Jump as an encore, we collectively rocked hardest to Unchained throbbing and the viciously unromantic lyrics of Ain't Talking 'Bout Love.
Serious rock 'n' roll
But in my new favourite venue, I'll call it, Ed's - which laughs at the Romper Room decor, totally paranoid security, bad-service, ripoff ghost of Red's - Roth channelled some serious rock 'n' roll with the Louis Prima slash Frank Sinatra dignity he was raised on.
After, of course, making convincing motorcycle noises into the mike, his eyes mad with dreams of speed and the charcoal-mellowed JD magnum he gerbil-slurped all night.
Sure, life went on without his ilk - but it's never been quite as fun since, man.
By Fish Griwkowsky
"There will come a day when youth will pass away ... what will they say about me?"
Well, as if that isn't the most obvious question for Diamond David Lee Roth, which is a dumb shame.
It's a poor reflection on our society that so little respect is currently thrown the superior Van Halen front man who more than, as he put it, "reasonably entertained" us at the Edmonton Events Centre in West Edmonton Mall on Tuesday night.
Believe me, I know how this works - these days we're especially attuned to sarcastically mock the things we loved so much in our youth.
It makes us seem clever and impenetrable to roll our eyes at spandex leaping and an enormous cloud of crimped hair, somehow rationalizing monotonous and invisible outfits worn into suburban nothingness.
Soul
But once again, it's a reality TV-influenced instance of concentrating on the blazingly superficial over the actual soul of a thing.
Because if you liked Van Halen's cocky but more importantly wicked, party-generation vibrations, then you were a fool to miss it the other night. The promises of Roth's metal youth were kept.
Riding an absolutely priceless list of globally familiar hits, the 51-year-old singer emerged with less pow than his last visit in a flamboyant yet dignified three-piece suit that referenced several rainbows: stripes, polka-dots and vinyl pants all saying, "HEYYY!"
Instantly, it was clear he could access any of the former notes, his left thumb still hitchhiking whenever he stretched his voice to the edge.
In front of a comparatively generic but good-natured band, the crowd was DLR's with the opening drum roll of Hot for Teacher as we all adjusted to the passage of time on his face, which was ever that of a strange-looking old man.
The average age of the semi-packed venue was both 19 and 35 with little in the middle. Oh, plus lots of strippers.
Besides the affirmation of ongoing high kicks above his head, what I most loved about Roth's show was his Shatner-ish ease with his own story, along with a Steve Martin smile.
Sure, he said the dreaded "funky" a few times, a date-stamping word which should be obliterated from all human use except to describe funk, but his stories were great.
He cited being a shock jock radio DJ, called a happy woman in the front row a "slut" to her pleasure, explained that Panama was written in tribute to a recently sexed girl who'd put her pants on backwards as she fled police attention.
Then he took it all the way back to the beginning.
"Back in 1971 I was a night janitor," he explained with a grin that never left his face all night, "and the DJ put on the Rolling Stones' Brown Sugar 10 times in a row. And I thought, someday they're gonna play my f---ing songs like that." And indeed they did.
Just Like Paradise, Runnin' with the Devil, You Really Got Me, California Girls, Jamie's Crying, Just a Gigolo, Yankee Rose and the monolithic Jump as an encore, we collectively rocked hardest to Unchained throbbing and the viciously unromantic lyrics of Ain't Talking 'Bout Love.
Serious rock 'n' roll
But in my new favourite venue, I'll call it, Ed's - which laughs at the Romper Room decor, totally paranoid security, bad-service, ripoff ghost of Red's - Roth channelled some serious rock 'n' roll with the Louis Prima slash Frank Sinatra dignity he was raised on.
After, of course, making convincing motorcycle noises into the mike, his eyes mad with dreams of speed and the charcoal-mellowed JD magnum he gerbil-slurped all night.
Sure, life went on without his ilk - but it's never been quite as fun since, man.
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