A little sample of Kool and The Gang
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New Poster here...but a lifelong fan of Van Halen!
All I can say is that Van Halen rocked the house! I loved the show, got to hear most of my favorites (wished for D.O.A.) and would see them if all they sang was Happy Birthday and Ring Around the Rosie! They still have it and were worth every penny!
Kool and the Gang was a great opening act also. Got the place going even though the area was half empty when they played.Leave a comment:
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Van Halen, David Lee Roth keep the hits coming at Verizon Center
By Chris Klimek, Thursday, March 29, 6:12 PM
“I’ll be your substitute teacher for the remainder of the concert,” preened 57-year-old David Lee Roth on Wednesday night, midway through Van Halen’s wry, spry gig at a sold-out Verizon Center. He was introducing the Van Halen classic “Hot for Teacher.”
Substitute? Psshaw! Roth’s the real thing!
This wasn’t Van Halen’s first tour with its cocksure original singer since he was kicked out of the band in the mid-1980s. Roth and the trio of Van Halens — guitar god Eddie, drummer Alex and 21-year-old spawn-of-Eddie, Wolfgang, on bass — made up and made a killing on the road in 2007 and into ’08.
This time, Eddie kept his shirt on and instead flogged “A Different Kind of Truth,” Van Halen’s first full album with Roth since 1984. Performed at detail-eradicating volume, a handful of new songs sounded enough like the circa 1978-84 warhorses that dominated the two-hour set to pass muster. But Roth’s attempt to get the mostly middle-aged crowd to sing “Tah! Too! Tah! Too!” during a new jam entitled, uh, “Tattoo” flamed out faster than his post-Halen solo career did.
The passage of three decades since Van Halen’s debut has altered Eddie’s distinct, finger-tapping guitar sound about as much as it’s changed the Grand Canyon. Whether shaped into the service of an actual song (like “Dance the Night Away” or “Panama”) or allowed to roam free (as on the seminal instrumental “Eruption,” which elicited as much crowd frenzy as “Jump” did), the visceral power of Eddie’s playing is undeniable.
While Roth appeared to have preserved the slithery physicality of his MTV years, he doles out his signature scissor-kicks more sparingly nowadays. These moves were not embarrassing, but the fact that every single kick got a dutiful slow-motion replay on the huge video screen kind of was.
Roth’s choreography was as smooth as his patter was unintelligible. He’d pivot his feet in opposite directions then back together, take a knee, twirl his microphone stand like it was a baton or a UCLA Bruins cheerleader. A cornball showman beats a mopey, bearded balladeer any day.
His singing was up to the job, heavily punctuated with “Wooo!” Eddie’s guitar was louder than anything else, which is the natural order of things, but it would’ve been nice to feel what the rhythm section was doing, other than during the Latin-accented drum solo that bridged covers of Roy Orbison’s “(Oh) Pretty Woman” and the Kinks’ “You Really Got Me.”
Ballads? As if! Slow songs were a feature of the post-Roth, Sammy Hagar-fronted Van Halen, which the show ignored. The only rest was an odd interlude with Roth picking on an acoustic guitar while the screen showed footage of him playing on a farm with his sheepdogs. It was like he’d suddenly decided to throw the newsboy cap he wore for half a song into the Republican primary race. The bit ended with him singing the double-entendre-laden “Ice Cream Man.”
But the craziness was calculated. Every time Roth discarded clothing, he tossed it not to the front rows of audience (populated mainly by men), but to a stagehand who carefully brushed off and replaced each sequined jacket on a rack that remained in plain sight throughout the show. Rock-and-roll!Leave a comment:
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Wow! Dem be playin' chinatown!!!! Holy muffakking shit! Holy krap amighty!
Wow!
Wow!!!
Just wow!
Man!
Holy krap!
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Looks as if they got there shit together since chi town show. That clip of ews/sgmd rocked. Hope of a 2nd leg .Leave a comment:
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Blood And Fire sounds much better already
Great vocals by Wolf in the chorus.
Thanks Lou!Leave a comment:
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Review: Van Halen at the Verizon Center March 28
Contributor Lexie Mountain is an epic Van Halen fan, and has an epic review of Wednesday night's show at the Verizon Center.
I have to admit: I was hoping for VAN HALEN-CON 2012. Sort of like Burning Man, but with a greater possibility of being set on fire by an errant can of Aqua Net or hassled in the parking lot by some toughs in Thom McAns. You know, a real circus. I wanted to fear for my life.
But I did not fear for my life.
Whole families, with their kids wearing Styx t-shirts, had come to see Van Halen at the Verizon Center Wednesday night. This, as the new series of t-shirts say, is the “A Different Kind of Truth” tour, not 1984. Van Halen is now a family affair, and they want to party with as many of you as possible, simultaneously.
Did you know that Wolfgang Van Halen, the band's bass player named after his dad and uncle, is TWENTY ONE? Very few people in the crowd are under twenty. I don't know the actual number, so I am going to make one up - one hundred, possibly one hundred and fifty kids, experiencing the awkwardness and joy that only a chaperoned concert experience can provide. Van Halen, it was clear, is a legacy, a family business you can be proud to bring your children to.
This was to be the tone of the evening. It explains their choice of Kool and the Gang as opening act. The Gang provided seamless yet dynamic versions of their 1980s selves, keeping their funky jams - “Ladies Night”,”Get Down On It” - locked down as tight as the drum kit in its acrylic box.
Even “Jungle Boogie,” a song so well-known it is practically a simulacrum of itself, felt as if it had been dusted off and made real again. The very frisky Gang jumped and twirled, somersaulted with saxophones clutched to the chest, scooting all over the staircase stage.
By the time the stage-hands finished powdering David Lee Roth's parquet dance mats, the Verizon Center started to look a little more like the sold-out venue it was. Beer salesmen moved fast. Spirits were high. When Van Halen opened with “Unchained,” I was surprised that the mostly-male audience on the floor did not riot and start throwing folding chairs, presumably because it is difficult to riot when both of your hands are gripping $8 Miller Lites.
(Also, this was Washington D.C. and not Sao Paulo or wherever it is that people lose their minds because they are seeing an actual rock band in the flesh.)
My surprise did not abate when “Unchained” became “Running With The Devil” and the chairs remained in place. The band sounded healthy. Dave's pipes were in good shape. The wear and tear of singing at top volume in what sounds like a “head-voice” became noticeable during moments of required sustain, but those moments did not matter so much because, “RUNNING WITH THE DEVIIIIIIL!!”
Immediately thereafter, VH poured into “She's The Woman,” from their unfortunately-titled new record, which gave me plenty of time to reflect on how high the bar had been set, and how early on.
The set list unfolded like a game of tag between what the audience wants and what Van Halen needs to do. You want to see “Everybody Wants Some?” You're going to have to sit through “Tattoo” first.
“Dance the Night Away?” “Blood And Fire.” Perhaps the proverbial ‘Different Kind of Truth’ is that you have to eat your vegetables first, so to speak. At one point during one of the new songs (“China Town”) the jumbo-tron flashed an image of the album cover with the words “Available at” on it (Ed. HA!). But then, OH MY GOD "JAMIE'S CRYIN" AND IT SOUNDS AMAZING and all is forgiven.
The stage at Verizon Center was minimal. No catwalk. No Kanye West theme park stagecraft. No inflatables. No Peter Pan tricks. Black stairs matched Eddie's black shirt and Wolfgang's black outfit. The arachnid-looking black speaker racks above the stage matched Dave’s black vest and sparkly black leotard pants.
Father and son strummed matching Frankenstrats and some familial back-to-back riffing infused the gigantic hall with a sense of warmth. Most of the time Wolfgang seemed pleased to be metaphorically staffing the counter at Dad's shop, even during the new songs from the new album that all blended together in an amorphous mass of Halen-ness. His backup harmonies blended so seamlessly with Eddie's that it was easy to think suddenly, “Did Michael Anthony get less creepy in the past twenty-five years?”
Diamond Dave grinned, jived, shuffled gamely upon the parquet mats. Tightly-timed high kicks were jumbo-tronned ad nauseam to remind the audience that it happened, little puffs of powder vaporizing off Diamond Dave's little white dance shoes. The vest stayed buttoned all night, even though the shirt underneath was changed for the encore.
Alex Van Halen delivered a drum solo that morphed in and out of perky Afro-Cuban rhythmics. Dave told him he looked like "the Frito tiger.” I think Alex is looking more like Italian cartoon anti-hero RanXerox as he ages, which is to say interesting.
In a way, it was nice that the stagecraft was minimal and DLR's vest stayed on. It was also fine that Eddie sat down for his guitar solo. Why should he have to stand? Does it matter that he can't do scissor-kick jumps either because his hips ain’t what they used to be?
My friend, scissor-kick jumps did not invent a custom guitar that is designed to deliver a signature tone for a signature style. Scissor-kick jumps made it special for a generation that came of age at the same time as Van Halen to dance and fantasize. Throughout the night, nostalgia slammed its head up against a wall of good-times-manship: “Ice Cream Man” turned into “Panama,” and the floor of the auditorium shook, and that is a fact.
By the time the penultimate song, “Ain’t Talking Bout Love,” went down I felt personally responsible for bearing the weight of all head-banging in the entire building. The front row, while they appeared pleased to be where they are, is primarily fortyish white dudes standing implacably. Somewhere in there, a petite lady with white hair is going nuts, but gently.
I headbanged for her. I pointed at Wolfgang. I gave him a thumbs up and mouthed the words, “Great job!” “Jump” closed out the night, cueing confetti fountains and DLR waving a checkered flag so colossal that the scale of the auditorium collapsed and he became tiny again.
Setlist, from Setlist.fm:
Unchained
Runnin' With the Devil
She's the Woman
Romeo Delight
Tattoo
Everybody Wants Some
Somebody Get Me a Doctor
China Town
Jamie's Cryin'
(2012 Live Debut)
Oh, Pretty Woman
Drum Solo
You Really Got Me
Blood and Fire
Dance the Night Away
I'll Wait
Hot for Teacher
Women In Love
Girl Gone Bad
Beautiful Girls
Ice Cream Man
Panama
Guitar Solo
Ain't Talkin' 'Bout Love
JumpLeave a comment:
That's awesome! I honestly think I would be happy to see that too!
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