Rock Vault
This Week: The Return of Van Halen
While sitting around the table at Thanksgiving in 1984, I leaned over to my aunt, who I really wanted to impress, and informed her I had been studying the Kama Sutra. At age 14 I had no idea what the Kama Sutra was. All I knew was that my role model had name-checked the Kama Sutra in an interview with Circus Magazine the prior month, and its mere mention would score me points.
The look she shot me let me know I had seriously misfired. David Lee Roth would never have made that mistake.
I idolized Roth; he was everything a dumb teenager wanted to be, complete with long hair, smooth moves with the ladies and a great rock yelp. I wanted to be him so badly that I learned how to do splits, toe touches and sweeping high kicks. For Halloween that year I connived my high school running buddies into forming a Van Halen lip sync band, and we performed at my church. (Yes, I know it sounds convoluted and stupid. Don’t judge me!)
Late in December persistent rumblings out of California kept pointing to a reunion tour of Van Halen with Roth as the front man. Those rumors were borne out with an industry-and-press-only gig at New York's Café Wha? early in January, when the somewhat-reunited Van Halen, substituting Eddie Van Halen's son, Wolfgang, on bass for Michael Anthony, stormed through an hour-long set.
This isn't the first time the boys have tried to put their tumultuous past behind them: in 2009, a tour was scheduled, canceled, re-scheduled and put down. Rumor around the campfire: Eddie's world-renowned booze habit had gotten so bad that he refused to play on successive nights, and was ushered back into rehab. This time, however, we're supposed to believe the gents are in fighting shape, and are friendly enough with each other that they can make it through an American tour, which will stop in San Antonio on June 22, with tickets priced, at face value, from $122 to over $3,000.
The fervor for Van Halen likely doesn't reach past the Gen-X demographic, who were young enough to have paid rapt attention to MTV on New Year's Day, 1984, for the premiere of the music video "Jump." The soft spot in my heart for Halen isn't wide enough to mask the simple fact that the band's heyday is 25 years in the past. At the Café Wha? gig, as well as a “trailer” that the band posted to VanHalen.com in the days leading up to the album and tour announcement, Roth had traded in the spandex and sequins that made up his stage outfits in the ’8os, (and, truth be told, the last reunion tour), for a painter's cap and coveralls.
On top of their time away from performing, still another obstacle for Van Halen is their divided fan base. Most fans still shake their heads at the whole sordid past of the band. At the height of their drawing power Roth was fired as lead singer. Sammy Hagar was recruited, and while the new outfit may have been more of a cohesive “band,” they never had the swagger or “oomph” that was present with Roth. They were the perfect embodiment of ’80s rock excess, with a front man who always seemed to be half sex god, half carnival barker, working alongside, (arguably), the best electric guitarist the world has ever seen.
However, there's still some weird sort of allure to a reconstituted Van Halen. At a time when rock music seems hell-bent on making either angry, sullen youth anthems, or something that sounds like a car crash between Gary Numan and Yngwie Malmsteen... OK, I'll say it. I think we need Van Halen in our musical lives again.
Along with the runs through "You Really Got Me" and "Panama", the band ran though one of their new songs, from the upcoming album A Different Kind Of Truth, called, "She's the Woman." Jon Pareles from the New York Times, (it was that kind of a crowd), said the new material "fit right into the repertory, with a turbo-boogie riff, lusty lyrics and a cheerfully tangential guitar interlude."
If it sounds like I'm talking myself into a world where Van Halen is actually relevant, you may be right.
Devin Pike remembers the Web when it was nothing but annoying animated GIFs as far as the eye could see. A film critic and entertainment reporter for over 30 years, Devin is the former Editor for Red Carpet Crash. Mostly, Devin hates talking about himself in the third person, because it makes him feel schizophrenic.
