The VH Trade Site Forums Archives

[Vince G.]

*Okay...I searched this entire site and I didn't see this story posted anywhere, so, here ya go:

David Lee Roth and Van Halen Together Again
by Ryan White, San Diego Union Tribune

David Lee Roth and Eddie Van Halen at Cox Arena in San Diego
Growing up, Alex and Gabe were brothers who lived two floors above my
brother and me. Like us, they were four years apart but two years
older. They had Intellivision and cable, while we had Atari and an
antenna. Their apartment was the cooler place to play. I was 9, on my
way to 10 by the end of the summer.

"You gotta see this video," Alex said one day, flipping the
television to MTV. "This guy does all these crazy kicks." And crazy
kicks were cool because we were going to be ninjas when we grew up,
and a ninja has to know how to kick. Being 1984, there weren't dozens
of dating shows and hours of faked drama on MTV, so it wasn't long
until Van Halen's "Jump" played and this guy was, indeed, doing crazy
kicks. Alex said the guy's name was David Lee Roth. We watched, and
then returned to playing with our Transformers.

A friend had a friend whose brother and his friends were also going
to the Van Halen concert. We could ride with them. They were in
college. They'd have beer. This was just before my senior year in
high school and I was pretty sure I didn't even like beer, but beer
seemed vitally important because it was Van Halen, man.

This was the night that the Trans-Am Quotient was invented. A not-so-
complicated calculation measuring the number of people at a show
against the number of Trans-Ams in the parking lot, the math was made
much easier by the fact that the concert was in suburban Detroit.
There were two -- and only two -- correct answers: high and extremely
high.

Roth was long gone. Sammy Hagar was in, and good, and Eddie Van Halen
was this bouncing, grinning, scissor-kicking, guitar-slinging flurry
of hair and brilliance and I was convinced that show was the
greatest, most joyous thing I'd ever witnessed. Soon after, I owned
every Van Halen record - and a guitar. That was in 1991.

* * * *
My editor, via e-mail: "Would you be interested in writing about Van
Halen?"

Absolutely. But the band and I have developed a difficult
relationship over the past 16 years. Then again, what is Van Halen
but more than 30 years of difficult relationships?

* * * *
What is there to say about nostalgia that Lou Reed hasn't already
said? It's a hard thing to like -- unless it's yours. And so it
should be a questionable proposition, this Van Halen tour that
arrives at the Rose Garden arena Saturday night.

Roth is for-real back in the band for the first time in 22 years, and
they aren't playing a single song that isn't at least seven years
older than the new bass player, Wolfgang Van Halen, Eddie's 16-year-
old son. It has been three years since the band released new music of
any kind (three songs with Hagar on a best-of). It's been 11 years
since the last new tunes with Roth (two songs on a best-of). Eddie
was last heard scoring a porn flick shortly before checking into
rehab. Roth has been both a New York City paramedic and Howard
Stern's doomed replacement on the radio.

What then to say about three guys and a kid who get together to play
songs they haven't played in more than two decades and don't add a
lick of new licks? Remember when?

When every teacher was hot? When every prom queen was the next Jenna
Jameson? When you were headed for a whole lot of trouble if you took
your whiskey home? When you could dance the night away, but if all
else failed, well, you might as well jump? Those were the days. There
was a hot tub in every backyard and a cheerleader in every hot tub
and we ain't talkin' 'bout love, man. Life was a huge stack of amps
ripped to 11 and it was fun -- even if it was Van Halen's life, not
ours.

Remember when?From that moment in 1978, on the band's self-titled
debut album, when Eddie tore into his signature solo, "Eruption," and
jolted rock out of the 1970s . . . until 1985, when Roth split to do
cheesy cover tunes, Van Halen created a landscape. Having themselves
emerged from the party scene of the Los Angeles suburbs, in six
albums with Roth, Van Halen gave suburban American kids a Big Rock
Candy Mountain to call their own. Everyone was invited to the party
and everyone was expected to dance.
Then that Van Halen had to die. It did. Roth had to go. If you don't
believe that, look at his solo work, and think about what the ensuing
Van Halen records would have sounded like after that combustible
relationship settled into settling, and how they would have
eventually ended up with Elton John's job substitute teaching for
Celine Dion at Caesar's Palace.

Roth left and Hagar came in and the band moved from not talking about
love (wink-wink) to wondering why this can't be love, singing about
when it's love. The party continued but with just a little more
heart. If David Lee Roth was Van Halen's teenage id, then Sammy Hagar
was the band's, oh, slightly more mature 20s id. Then in 1996, down
went Hagar after an argument with Eddie who, if we're going to keep
casting the group's psyche, has played id, ego and super-ego.

Gary Cherone, formerly of Extreme, joined later in 1996. Far more ego
than id, he was perfectly happy to sing Hagar songs and Roth songs.
He seemed to be, and by all accounts was, happy to be there at all.
They put out one album, did a tour, and that was that. Van Halen
entered that period of wandering familiar to anyone approaching his
30s.

The brothers Van Halen -- Eddie and Alex -- went through health
problems and substance abuse problems and marriage problems. Bassist
Michael Anthony began spending more and more time with Hagar, who was
himself busy branding himself as Tropical Hard Rock Party Guy,
complete with a club in Cabo and a brand of tequila named after it.

In 2004 Hagar rejoined the group long enough to hit the road for a
tour that was, by most accounts, a disaster, a result foreshadowed by
the three terrible songs they did for a two-disc career
retrospective. After the tour Hagar slipped back into Jimmy Buffett
mode and Eddie slipped back out of sight, showing up in public
rarely, and when he did, he looked like hell.

This was sad. Van Halen had mattered. Every few years a Roth rumor
would fire up and I'd get an excited e-mail from a friend with a
subject usually along the lines of "The Mighty Van Halen!" I didn't
care. I'd moved on. I was older. My life was more complicated. The
world was more complicated. I was looking for artists who addressed
that. I got deep into Bob Dylan and Bruce Springsteen and a whole
host of singer-songwriters and confused poetic romantics. Van Halen
became a memory that occupied the back end of my alphabetized CD
collection, because someone had to come before Tom Waits and Warren
Zevon.

Roth is really back. And Van Halen is really on the road with him,
and they are playing really old, kick-butt songs. People are digging
it. Critics are digging it. It seems to be working. They're adding
dates. No one thought they'd add dates.

It's tempting to look at the reaction and think, We're living in
angry times. We're divided in so many ways. No one gets along.
Everyone's yelling. We're at war. The economy is teetering.
Hollywood's writers are striking. Things are tough all over. Now,
more than in a long, long time, we need Van Halen. We need a good
time.

To think that, however, might be to ascribe more meaning that this
tour deserves. Van Halen is not a band deep in meaning -- unless you
count Roth's little stage trick where he manages to make a top hat
levitate in front of his crotch.

Maybe you could argue the tour is about redemption and the resiliency
of the human spirit. That it's about how no matter the differences,
people can come together and work things out. We can get along.
Peace. This is about peace.

But I don't buy that either. This tour is about nostalgia, period.

A few weeks ago, I loaded all the Roth-era discs onto my iPod, which
I then plugged into my home theater system and turned up to ear-
splitting levels. I grinned while my foot tapped. My mind searched
and found the lyrics still lodged in there. I found my inner air
guitarist.

Lou Reed was right. Nostalgia is a hard thing to like unless it's
yours. But Van Halen's been around for nearly 30 years, serving part
of that time as the nation's biggest, loudest, fastest rock 'n' roll
band. Somewhere along the line, Van Halen's nostalgia became our
nostalgia, too. That's why this works.

[voxwah0]

that's a really neat story. And I guess it's true, if Dave can rejoin Van Halen then the world hasn't gone COMPLETELY to hell.

[JCKnife]

Have there been ANY interviews with VH band members since the initial press conference that launched the 2007 tour?

I guess like most fans, I'm looking for reassurance that things are not falling apart behind the scenes--that what we're seeing is genuine. And, is there an outside chance for new music from this incarnation of the band? Or is this a last hurrah?

[fsfang2]

Thanks for sharing - very insightful.

[ron]

JCKnife wrote: Have there been ANY interviews with VH band members since the initial press conference that launched the 2007 tour?
Yes, Modern Drummer has a 21 page feature coming up.

[Iron Mike]

Very nice, positive article that I really feel echoes many of the sentiments of the members here.