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Arena Rock, Well Preserved and Condensed
By JON PARELES
Published: January 6, 2012
As press briefings go, it rocked. On Thursday night, Van Halen took to the stage of the venerable Cafe Wha? on MacDougal Street in Greenwich Village, capacity 250. “Last time I stood on a stage this low, we had to have the car back by midnight,” said the singer David Lee Roth. The objective was to prove Van Halen is alive and amicable for an arena tour that starts Feb. 18 in Louisville, Ky.,after the Feb. 7 release of a new album, “A Different Kind of Truth.” It’s to be Van Halen’s first full album with Mr. Roth as lead singer since the band fired him in 1985, although they have done previous reunion tours.
There was no formal announcement at Cafe Wha?, just a blast of Eddie Van Halen’s guitar, a rumble from Alex Van Halen’s drums, and a motormouthed Mr. Roth declaring, “It’s like climbing into a rocket in here, and it’s a rocket that comes from way, way back in our past all the way into what the future’s going to look like according to — Welcome to Occupy Van Halen.” .That introduced an hourlong set from a grinning band, reclaiming its oldies and introducing a new song announced by Mr. Roth as “She’s the Woman.”
Nearly all the audience was “the world’s press, the world’s media,” Mr. Roth said, along with record-company staff. Jimmy Fallon and Kirk Douglas, the Roots’ lead guitarist, were also spotted in the narrow, packed basement club.
From the Rolling Stones to Kanye West, a big act in a small room has proved a surefire attention-getter. Leaking the location so that fans cluster outside is part of the plan.
But there was another reason for choosing Cafe Wha? instead of a club or theater that could have accommodated more fans. In the club’s 1960s heyday, when Bob Dylan and Jimi Hendrix performed there, Cafe Wha? was owned by Manny Roth, David Lee’s uncle, who sold it in 1988. Now 92, Manny Roth beamed in the audience while David Lee Roth reminisced about his first visit to the club, in 1961. “It took us 50 years to get this gig,” the singer said. “It was easier getting into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.”
Van Halen didn’t play like an arena band concerned with lighting cues and special effects; for the night, it was a club act treating songs like jams. “We used to play gigs like this five nights a week, and we used to do five 45-minute sets a night,” Mr. Roth said during “Dance the Night Away.”
Van Halen is still one of the most limber bands in hard rock, with a higher center of gravity than most. Alex Van Halen places the beat as much on cymbal and tom-toms as on bass drum; the band rides its bass riffs, now played by Wolfgang Van Halen, Eddie’s son. Meanwhile, Eddie Van Halen’s guitar is in constant, multiple-personality dialogue with itself; riffing power chords and then replying with leads that wriggle from the whammy bar, scamper in notes tapped on the fingerboard or screech from a scrape up a string.
The 11-song set started with the Kinks song “You Really Got Me,” stretched so that Mr. Roth and Eddie Van Halen could trade improvised vocal yowls and guitar squiggles. They were at it again in “Everybody Wants Some!!,” with intergalactic siren noises from the guitar and jungle cackles from Mr. Roth, who also updated the lyrics to talk about texting and e-mailing a racy photo. In “Panama,” Mr. Roth suddenly decided to do his impression of Jim Morrison singing “Stairway to Heaven,” then called for a drink. “I’ve gotta have a double, I got a long drive home,” he joked.
For its mini-set, Van Halen stuck to staples like “Runnin’ with the Devil,” “Ain’t Talkin’ ‘Bout Love,” “Panama” and a final “Jump.” The new song fit right into the repertory, with a turbo-boogie riff, lusty lyrics and a cheerfully tangential guitar interlude.
Mr. Roth, 57, showed some wear in his high notes, and he wasn’t taking his shirt off for this gig; in fact, he was wearing overalls. But as the band socked its riffs and Eddie Van Halen filigreed them with virtuoso guitar, the songs were still testimonials to hyperactive teenage hormones and musicians who remember them. “I told you we was comin’ back,” Mr. Roth boasted during “Hot for Teacher,” adding, “Say you missed us.”
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