UNDERGROUND A&R REPORT

REVIEW: VAN HALEN ATLANTA May 11th

To start with, I'm not one of the original fans of the band who wanted a nostalgic trip by going to see the band reunited with David Lee. True I am an original fan, but I had made up my mind to pass on this tour for more than a few reasons, but least of all was nostalgia. So when I won tickets off the radio for the first time in over 20 years, I said yeah, we'll go check it out.

Concentration on getting the songs right musically seems to be the idea behind the band's performances on this tour. Hard otherwise to explain the completely stripped down stage, basic stage lights (for a big band these days anyway) and low key stage antics. In fact, I was surprised, after seeing the Youtube stuff, just how little David Lee Roth did the in-song banter, which to me was good, sometimes in the old days it got to be rhetoric. His concentration was on vocal delivery and key fist pumps. Gone are his riser leaping kicks and splits. Maybe 5 or 6 kicks the whole night. As Roth approaches 60, his remarks that he's settled down seem to hold water.

The sames goes for Edward Van Halen. He stayed behind his pedal board all night, and as many times I've seen him live (in the dozens) when he does this the songs have all the right bells and whistles. In fact, though I don't know what his real health problems may be, EVH does look like his energy level is low. No splits and air from him either. That's the really only thing sad about watching the band, they simply are not "flying high" as they have been up to this point. Seems like their partying days are long gone, like most of the crowd there at Gwinett Center; I only smelled herb once (and it was very close by indeed!), and used to the place was a smokehouse.

The band played solid as a rock though, and there were three generations of people in the house, some young fans with their original fan parents, maybe even grandparents, so an even, generic show would be worth ticket price it seems. More than once I looked around and could see people enjoying the music, but very few were the loud and proud. So there I had to stand up for the band. When they did old hits like "Little Dreamer" and "Atomic Punk", yeah the place lit up. I won my tickets off the radio, went through hell to get them and to the show, and then my seats were right on top of the stage, I could almost read Ed's pedal board tape. I'd have to say surely my adventure added to the overall feel of the show.

EVH played a well executed solo, his usual showcases of Cathedral, Mean Street, and of course Eruption, never fail to impress. When he hits that one part in Eruption, yeah you know that part about ten seconds in when he unleashes the hammer, the original unleashing BY GOD, the place goes bananas. Ed never played up on the ramparts, which I thought too was strange, his son Wolfgang has learned to work them though a bit now and you can tell he's concentrating on getting Michael Anthony's vocal parts right (as well he can; no small feat). Roth came up a few times waving with that goofy look on his face. You had to smile with him, the jokes still on you.

The band does in deed suffer from Michael Anthony not being there. Wolfgang does a good job and nothing against a 17 year old kid being able to do this with his father, that is a blessing beyond blessings. So there may be the real difference in the band, they don't really act like the same band because they're not, one key member is not there. You could say the same, to an extent, when Sammy Hager was in the band (but they were usually great too), it takes all original members of Van Halen to form THAT band. So whenever it's not all there, we still get great music, but the show is just not complete.

WTW