VAN HALEN
NEW YORK CITY
MADISON SQUARE GARDEN
It was 1984 all over again at 33rd Street and 7th Avenue when the rejuvenated Van Halen came to play their one and only New York City appearance. They did play Nassau and Jersey but that doesn’t count. Maybe one of the most anticipated reunions of all time was this Van Halen regrouping that people paid as much as $5,000.00 for a seat at the sold out Madison Square Garden. It was almost surreal to think that you would even see David Lee Roth and Eddie Van Halen share the stage once again as this tour seemed doomed from the start not to mention the two week reunion back in 1996 at the MTV Music awards that ended abruptly after getting everyone’s hope up way back then. The original plans were for a summer tour in 2007 but Eddie checked into rehab and the concert dates were canned. There was rumored bad vibes to begin with and that the rehab for Eddie was just a sham to get out of the tour. Well it finally kicked off in September and they actually played together for a week without incident and that’s when we all knew that it was for real.
If you haven’t heard they play the same set list throughout the tour but it is one hell of a set list. They open with “You Really Got Me” then go into “I’m The One” followed by “Running with the Devil”. The sound seemed a little off at first and the stage wasn’t as elaborate as you would think. It was scaled back and Eddie didn’t really move around that much which is different from what we all remember but Dave was Dave of course and Wolfgang was surprisingly amazing on the bass as, I hate to say it , you really didn’t miss Michael Anthony that much. Alex was his steady self on the drum kit and together they played like a well oiled machine. The unbelievable tunes just came at you one after another like a hot shot fired out of a canon. “Hot for Teacher”, “Panama” and “Little Guitars”were some of the highlights of the night and some of the surprises were “Somebody get Me a Doctor”, "I’ll Wait" and "Little Dreamer” which Dave excelled on. They all did solos except for Wolfgang. Eddie showed off his mastery of the guitar as he always does and Alex does a great job despite most people using the drum solo as a queue to hit the restroom. Dave of course ran through a ten minute intro to “Ice Cream Man” reminiscing about the days when the band still played backyard parties and he used his friend’s ice cream truck to keep his beer cold. A lot of skeptics didn’t think that Dave and Eddie could stand one another long enough for a tour but it was all hugs and smiles the entire night between the two. The tour comes to a halt in December and the band does have plans through 2008 but nobody knows what they are so stay tuned. This is a must see for any Van Halen fan regardless of what has happened in the past so put your Sammy era records away and enjoy the ride when it comes your way.
For more info go to www.van-halen.com
