Van Halen In Atlanta
 

Went last night. Great concert. Probably because I'm such an old fuck. It was cool seeing Eddie Van Halen and David Lee Roth back together. It seems like yesterday that I was a junior in high school and that first Van Halen album came out. Good times.

Love the original line up... my personnal opinion is Fuck Sammy Hagar and don't get me started on Gary Cherone...

I saw them when they were in Seattle. I loved the show they put on as well!

Saw them the first show at Phillips in the NatNet suite. THANS AGAIN NATNET!!!

Good to hear they got back on track.

Both are incredible frontman, let's be honest, it wouldn't have mattered who replaced Diamond Dave, they would/could never live up to what the old Van Halen was.

Once i got passed that simple point, I could enjoy them again.

Plus it allowed Dave to release a couple stellar solo albums, so not all was lost.

http://www.lillyofthevalleyva.com/Bl...OM10055775.jpg

Black Jesus Likes Van Halen :thumbsup

Interesting point of view!:thumbsup

my friend saw em in Boston and said the same... great.

They sold the most records with Sammy.

they still rock!
 

the still rock no matter how old and how stupid they get.

haven't seen them perform...but i am hoping that one day i can...

I'm not so sure about that...maybe over time since he was with them for so long. But I'm pretty sure that "1984" is the biggest selling Van Halen album of all.
I liked Sammy okay. And they had some killer songs with him. But David Lee Roth brings a more "fun" attitude to the band. With Sammy they seemed a bit more "serious". But with Dave they feel more like a good time party band.
For me it was just real cool to hear those old songs brought back to life again. And Eddie Van Halen is the man on guitar. Lots of great shots of his hands on the big screen while he was playing. And he just plays the most intense shit so effortlessly it's amazing.
I was surprised by some of the licks he played...whenever I played some of that stuff in my cover band I had always tapped some of those licks, but he didn't tap all of them. Instead of tapping on some of them he actually displayed an incredible stretch and played them "normally". I have big hands, but I can't do what he did without two handed tapping.
I was real impressed with him. The last time I saw them was in 1981 when they opened for The Stones in Orlando, Fl. They were horrible that day. Or at least David Lee Roth was. He spent the entire time just walking around the stage and pulling his pants down. He never sang one damn thing that day! And of course the soundman gave them a shit sound since they were the opening band that day and everything was real muddy sounding.
But in Atlanta last night it was a whole different ball game.
Dave actually sang everything, and the sound was of course excellent.
Last year I went and saw the reunited Motley Crue. Then I went and saw Aerosmith right before the bassist got sick. And in 2006 I saw the Stones.
I'm feeling pretty good about seeing some of my musical heroes before it's too late. :)

When Sammy joined that type of music was swaying towards mainstream.

We never heard Woman and Children First on the radios, but every song off 5150 got radio play, and the industry was being swarmed by this "new metal".

New metal, by that i mean "fun metal" up until the movement along Sunset and bands like Van Halen, metal was often dark an/or bluesy, The Maidens, Priest, Sabbath etc, there was no such thing as "fun metal"

Thats what Van Halen brought to the world, was music where Metal fans stood back and said , "OMG, The singer is having fun, how fucking cool is that!"

Cars and pussy, loud music and cold beers, spinning the cap of 40 oz'ers and tossing it away, because it wasnt getting put back on, these are the things VH brought to the music industry. They pushed the envelope of enjoying Metal, Metal was fun, fuck the doom and gloom, lets rock and get pissed up.

They basically opened the doors for bands like Quiet Riot, Ratt, Poison, Warrant, and that whole movement out of L.A. They put US on the map for Heavy Metal. Without them, none of the others may have had a job.

VH1 Did a great documentary a few years ago called Heavy Metal: The story of Metal, you get a real good sense of how a few bands really blew the doors open. Quiet Riot is a perfect example, they didnt make it to big, but if not for them getting signed to tour with Loverboy, their record never would have slammed to number 1, and the record dicks would have never ran to Sunset to sign up every "glam" band out their.

Panama!!!

pam pam, pam pam....

Agreed! This is why the fact that sold more with Sammy means nothing because when he joined, they were already at their prime...He did benefit from that situation...

Now be honest, who here thinks "Right Now" or ":Finish what Ya Started" are better songs than "Hot For The Teacher" Ain't Talking About love" or Jamie's Crying" "Panama" or most of the Roth era?

Unless what you like is Top 40 radio...