by: Michael Strong, Jedi Rockstar...
Cleveland, OH - What can I say? We drive 6 hours for the opening night of the VAN FUCKING HALEN world tour and I'm supposed to be objective? Whatever!!!
I'd like to say that the whole set was one hit after another staring with "You Really Got Me" all the way to the encore of "Jump"with some deep cuts thrown in such as "Romeo Delight","Mean Streets", "Outta Love Again" and "Women in Love". The only lull seemed to be the crowd's ambivalence towards "Tattoo", which I thought sounded fantastic as did the other new tracks, "ChinaTown", "The Trouble With Never" and "She's the Woman" which meshed perfectly with all the classics. I can go on forever with the highlights, but I'll just say I lost my shit when Eddie hit the opening notes of "Unchained". Yes Van Halen played "Panama", "Hot For Teacher", "Dance the Night Away", "Pretty Woman", and every song you hear on the radio from the Diamond Dave era, but of course we wanted more. David was charismatic and his voice was strong. DLR even charmed when he forgot the lyrics to a verse of "I'll Wait" by having the crowd "follow me to the chorus". Wolfie seems to be right at home on stage with the big boys. Displaying alot of chemistry with his father and David Lee Roth. Although, he is no Michael Anthony, The Kid can play and sing. Eddie's playing is concise and frenetic all at once, he is right back at the top of his game. And the maestro, Alex could not have kicked any more ass if he had a third leg.
One or two negitives, which could be because it was first night. During Alex's drum solo the track was so loud you could barely hear his masterwork. And I think they should have done a longer encore, maybe another classic, a new song, then "Jump" instead of just "Jump".
It was so amazing, I didn't even mind DLR's headset!
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