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Van Hagar Review
For the reunited 'Van Hagar,' it's not about right now, it's about nostalgia
By Greg Kot
Tribune music critic
They've run through three lead singers and it's been nearly a decade since their last major hit. So what's left? On Monday in the first of two concerts at the United Center, Van Halen unveiled its latest incarnation: Nostalgia act for the black-T-shirt-and-mullet generation.
The formula is a familiar one: Best-selling band mends differences, reunites, assumes a pose of let-bygones-be-bygones fellowship (all in the name of the music, not the cash, of course) and plays hits dating to the eight-track cassette era.
Despite sprinkling three new songs among 15 oldies, Van Halen was all about re-conjuring the spirit of '85, with the world's oldest frat boy, Sammy Hagar, as party meister.
"Makin' up for lost time, I think it's high time we laid it on the line," Hagar sang on one of the new tunes. But who's he trying to kid?
The always dicey band chemistry that has seen Hagar come and go over the years was still in disrepair, with guitarist Eddie Van Halen mastering his domain, Hagar his, and the rhythm section blissfully pounding away.
The foursome's interaction was passable, full of manly schmoozing, hugging and an on-stage toast. But it was weighed down by lengthy solo sections accorded to each musician that ate up one-quarter of the two-hour concert. Did anyone really pay to hear Michael Anthony take a five-minute bass solo? Or to hear Hagar sing ballads about "where Eagles fly" and a "deeper kind of love"?
Hagar, the band's lead singer from 1985-96 before leaving in an ego clash with Van Halen, consented to sing a few of the hits made famous by his less technically polished but vastly more entertaining predecessor, David Lee Roth. But even as Hagar signed autographs, it was the guitarist's showcase.
Though hampered by gear glitches, Van Halen hardly seemed like a 49-year-old man coming off hip surgery and cancer treatment. His harmonic imagination, owing more to avant-garde European classical music than it does hard rock's traditional blues template, remains astonishing, his baroque fills elevating even mediocrities such as "Up for Breakfast."
Van Halen's rhythm section has always been workmanlike, with Anthony pounding the bass nearly as hard as he pounded the whiskey, and Eddie's brother Alex walloping the drums as if hammering metal spikes into the road instead of driving the band over it.
The music didn't swing, it slogged, and the band never quite sounded in sync, the four individual gears never meshing.
Part of the problem is that Eddie Van Halen just played rings around everyone; he's a phenomenal soloist, but an indifferent rhythm guitarist, and the songs lacked drive. Hagar screamed but sounded exhausted trying to climb after the high notes in "Dreams." Mimicking Roth's midair splits, he looked rickety.
Not that it dampened the party. The audience was thrilled to see its heroes approximating past glories, even if they weren't up to transcending them.
By Greg Kot
Tribune music critic
They've run through three lead singers and it's been nearly a decade since their last major hit. So what's left? On Monday in the first of two concerts at the United Center, Van Halen unveiled its latest incarnation: Nostalgia act for the black-T-shirt-and-mullet generation.
The formula is a familiar one: Best-selling band mends differences, reunites, assumes a pose of let-bygones-be-bygones fellowship (all in the name of the music, not the cash, of course) and plays hits dating to the eight-track cassette era.
Despite sprinkling three new songs among 15 oldies, Van Halen was all about re-conjuring the spirit of '85, with the world's oldest frat boy, Sammy Hagar, as party meister.
"Makin' up for lost time, I think it's high time we laid it on the line," Hagar sang on one of the new tunes. But who's he trying to kid?
The always dicey band chemistry that has seen Hagar come and go over the years was still in disrepair, with guitarist Eddie Van Halen mastering his domain, Hagar his, and the rhythm section blissfully pounding away.
The foursome's interaction was passable, full of manly schmoozing, hugging and an on-stage toast. But it was weighed down by lengthy solo sections accorded to each musician that ate up one-quarter of the two-hour concert. Did anyone really pay to hear Michael Anthony take a five-minute bass solo? Or to hear Hagar sing ballads about "where Eagles fly" and a "deeper kind of love"?
Hagar, the band's lead singer from 1985-96 before leaving in an ego clash with Van Halen, consented to sing a few of the hits made famous by his less technically polished but vastly more entertaining predecessor, David Lee Roth. But even as Hagar signed autographs, it was the guitarist's showcase.
Though hampered by gear glitches, Van Halen hardly seemed like a 49-year-old man coming off hip surgery and cancer treatment. His harmonic imagination, owing more to avant-garde European classical music than it does hard rock's traditional blues template, remains astonishing, his baroque fills elevating even mediocrities such as "Up for Breakfast."
Van Halen's rhythm section has always been workmanlike, with Anthony pounding the bass nearly as hard as he pounded the whiskey, and Eddie's brother Alex walloping the drums as if hammering metal spikes into the road instead of driving the band over it.
The music didn't swing, it slogged, and the band never quite sounded in sync, the four individual gears never meshing.
Part of the problem is that Eddie Van Halen just played rings around everyone; he's a phenomenal soloist, but an indifferent rhythm guitarist, and the songs lacked drive. Hagar screamed but sounded exhausted trying to climb after the high notes in "Dreams." Mimicking Roth's midair splits, he looked rickety.
Not that it dampened the party. The audience was thrilled to see its heroes approximating past glories, even if they weren't up to transcending them.
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