vh at msg
14 November 2007
I moved to NYC in July of 2001 and lived for a year in Bay Ridge, Brooklyn. I typically consider this my "lost year" – I was way out in Brooklyn and didn’t know my way around Manhattan, was dating a girl who lived in Colorado and Australia (long story), and regularly worked 60-70 hours a week. I still had some fun times, but this wasn’t my best year in NYC. Not by a long shot.
After our lease was up, my roommates and I parted ways and I decided to live with my buddy Brian, who was looking to move into Manhattan like I was. I found an apartment in the Lower East Side on Ludlow Street and Brian and I moved in, soon joined by a random roommate we picked up on Craigslist, a British girl named Clair (in a year, she’d be gone and replaced by my buddy Ben). I had no idea that the LES was a "cool" area; I only knew the apartment was $1800 for three bedrooms in Manhattan. Score.
Moving changed my life dramatically – I learned a lot about the city; the girl and I soon parted ways and I was free to be lusty as I wanna be; and even though I still worked a lot, I could now walk home from work, as opposed to taking a rarely-running R train 45 minutes back to Bay Ridge. Again, score.
Once Brian and I started living together in this LES apartment, we established a routine that has lasted to this day. Every weekend, Brian and I spend at least five hours drinking together in (then) our or (now) my living room, pregaming and watching the most wonderful channel on cable television, VH1 Classic. VH1 Classic is the perfect pregaming diversion: music that rocks and get you pumped up in videos that range from "hilarious" to "jaw-dropping" to "how did this ever seem cool?"
Though the beverages of choice (bud bombers, vodka crans, whiskey, PBRs, etc), the cast of characters joining us (Ben, Brendan, Jeremy, Nevin, Will, Rob, Chris, etc), and the locations (LES, UES, Chilita) have changed over the years, it’s always been Brian and I, and always VH1 Classic. So it was only fitting that last night, as Brian’s time in NYC may soon be coming to a close, he and I, as well as our friends Brendan and Corinne, went to Madison Square Garden to see the closest thing to VH1 Classic live: a Van Halen concert.
And, wow.
************
We had been pumped for this concert for months. The chance to see Van Halen with David Lee Roth, really the main characters on VH1 Classic, was enough to bonerize us for weeks (for yours truly, it was about seven weeks). Though the show sold out very quickly, my wonderful, wonderful friend Jackie out in LA was able to procure four very good seats. All that was left to do was make the necessary arrangements to make sure we had everything we needed to get nice and fucked up, and soon the concert was upon us.
Speaking of, before I go any further and describe the concert, a confession: I was very, very high. Now at age 28, I’ve pretty much retired from all drugs except for pot and (my legally prescribed) xanax, and it seems like forever since I last got messed up on pot (aside from my high school reunion last month, of course). My friends had made pot brownies and one of them had so much pot on him that night that we joked that if he were to get grabbed by the cops, he’d be hit with an intent to distribute charge. All you need to know about my state at the concert is that by the end of the night, my friend no longer had any pot left on him – and all the brownies were gone. I personally ate so many brownies that there was/is a lump of fudge in my colon no smaller than three pounds and I still had the urge to go to Rosario’s for pizza after the show, so bad were my munchies. So, um, yeah.
We found our seats at MSG and as you might expect, I had left and was walking back to them with a hot dog in one hand and a beer in the other when I heard Eddie start ripping into "You Really Got Me." I started running back to my seat and actually dropped the hot dog - easily one of the five or ten saddest things to ever happen to me – but made it back before I missed much of the song.
I won’t get into a song by song analysis of the show, but I will say that I expected not so much from Van Halen. We’re talking about three 50 year old men – one of whom relies on his voice, acrobatic movies, and sex appeal to win crowds over – and a chubby sixteen year old on bass and backing vocals. I figured it’d be a fun and entertaining concert, but more in the "Look at that 40 year old mom showing her tits" kinda way, as opposed to "I’m rocking so hard my brain is coming out of my nose" way.
Further, something that must be addressed is that of all the posts I’ve written on this site, there are very few I’ve taken more flack for than the one in which I said I preferred Sammy Hagar to David Lee Roth. This post, like many, was sarcastic and stemmed from a discussion the previous weekend about how Sammy’s my guy because we both are in love with love. I don’t mean to backtrack here; I think Sammy has the distinct advantage in terms of songs, but nothing tops the anthems of David Lee Roth-era Van Halen.
And it took me about two minutes into the first song to realize that the music of DLR Van Halen (henceforth, Van Halen) is music made to be heard live. This seems like an obvious conclusion to reach, but it must be stated. After years of listening to Eddie’s screeching guitars on my headphones or on VH1 Classic, hearing him live was truly a revelation. Not only is this band extremely loud (extremely, extremely loud), but what they perform is not so much music as it is force or energy or any of those physics-related terms. I have never been to a concert in which the disparity between the band’s recordings and the band’s live music is so great; you can listen to every VH bootleg in the world (and my old roommate Brian nearly has), but there is no substitute for standing in an arena, being made nearly deaf by the volume of the music, being rocked so hard that you’re worried one of your testes is going to fall off and roll down your leg.
And rock they did. I can’t believe I’m going to write this, but David Lee Roth was really impressive. He’s rocking a new short hair look (which is much, much better than his combover days) and his moves are more than a little toned down, but I thought he sounded and moved great. He was working both the crowd and the band, messing with Eddie and Wolfgang, telling the younger VH that if he keeps playing so well he’s definitely going to get some "New York City poontang." To his credit, Wolfie played bass very well and some of the most entertaining (or at least, endearing) moments of the show came when Wolfie and his dad were playing facing each other; not only was it obvious that Eddie was thrilled to have his son in the band, but at one time during one of Eddie’s solos he reached over and smacked the strings on Wolfie’s bass and Wolfie reciprocated – lots of smiles and hugs between these two. Alex was a rock and played an impressive drum solo that nearly had me hypnotized (thank you, pot brownies).
Admittedly, Eddie Van Halen was not up there on my list of favorite guitarists – I’ve always preferred those in the Hendrix and Yardbirds/Bluebreakers schools, bluesy types who combine virtuosity with booze-fueled emotion. EVH always struck me as at best, emotionless, and at worst, a guitar tech nerd (a genius guitar tech nerd, but a guitar tech nerd nonetheless). But again, seeing him live…I’m at a loss for words. I have never seen or heard anything like it. Again, it could have been the drugs, but Eddie’s guitar playing was so beyond great, so beyond amazing, I can only describe it as incredible in the most literal sense of the word, as in "not believable." I play guitar, and though I’m not great, I at least know about guitars, since I’ve spent a good portion of the past fifteen years learning about them. And what Eddie was playing, and the sounds he was making, I mean, I’m not sure he was even playing guitar; it was more like a guitar crossed with a super computer crossed with the magic wand of Merlin. One of the songs I wanted to hear was a guitar solo called "Cathedral" from the album "Diver Down," a minute and a half of sounds so foreign that they seem not of this earth. Eddie did an extended guitar solo near the end of the concert and as part of it played "Cathedral" and the experience was so moving, so mystical, that I swear to God I started seeing ghosts; during "Cathedral" I turned to my left and there was Martin Luther King, Jr. sitting next to me, and he said, "There you go, brother. There you go."
Another song I really wanted to hear was "Little Guitars," which, despite its lack of sweeping/crashing Van Halen chorus, is one of my favorites. They played this and played it well, much to my delight. Two other highlights were not as well known songs "Somebody Get Me A Doctor" and "So This Is Love"; the former I don’t think I’ve ever heard before but really got into and Wolfie’s bass playing on the latter was especially terrific.
And then there were the hits: "Running With The Devil", "Beautiful Girls", "Dance The Night Away", "Everybody Wants Some", "Pretty Woman", "Unchained", "And The Cradle Will Rock…", "Hot For Teacher", "Jamie’s Crying", etc. During these songs, the crowd, which was not quite the best, would rise to the occasion and the stadium would shake, middle-aged former Strip hangers, college-aged kids guzzling beers, and my friends and I, rocking in unison to the thunder riffs of Eddie Van Halen, following David Lee Roth as he paraded around the stage, shirt open, a showman in full glory, inciting the crowd to rock harder.
During "Panama," the song I prefer to have playing while I make love, I looked at my friends and I was afraid - I actually thought their heads were going to explode, right then and there, right in the middle of Madison Square Garden, shooting brains everywhere. Corinne was doing some form of the twist and Brendan had his devil horns in the air. Brian had a look on his face of such contentment that it took me a moment before I realized when I had seen it before - March 3, 2004. On that day, Brian won a bet with me and as a condition of the bet I had to buy him a pack of cigarettes. He later told me it was the greatest day of his life.
Score.
************
But the time the band ended with "Jump", we all were exhausted, feeling like we’d been beaten up or had just finished having sex. Also, we were deaf; we went to a bar after the show for some beers and though music was playing at a very low level in the bar, we were basically shouting at each other while conversing. After a short stop at Rosario’s with the gang I was home, soon in bed, hoping the room would stop spinning and the drugs would wear off, since I was pretty sure there’s no such thing as goblins.
The night and the concert was a great success: a group of friends rocking out, doing something they love. Above all, it was memorable, a rare and unforgettable chance to see, live and in person, the characters that we’ve watched dance across the screen on VH1 Classic for so many years (we even ran into Eddie Trunk at the concert!). Someday soon, Brian may leave NYC, and I may no longer feel the urge to watch VH1 Classic. If these things happen they would be nearly catastrophic, but at least I’d be able to say we went out on a high note.
(Double pun entirely intended, possibly even supremely witty.)
After our lease was up, my roommates and I parted ways and I decided to live with my buddy Brian, who was looking to move into Manhattan like I was. I found an apartment in the Lower East Side on Ludlow Street and Brian and I moved in, soon joined by a random roommate we picked up on Craigslist, a British girl named Clair (in a year, she’d be gone and replaced by my buddy Ben). I had no idea that the LES was a "cool" area; I only knew the apartment was $1800 for three bedrooms in Manhattan. Score.
Moving changed my life dramatically – I learned a lot about the city; the girl and I soon parted ways and I was free to be lusty as I wanna be; and even though I still worked a lot, I could now walk home from work, as opposed to taking a rarely-running R train 45 minutes back to Bay Ridge. Again, score.
Once Brian and I started living together in this LES apartment, we established a routine that has lasted to this day. Every weekend, Brian and I spend at least five hours drinking together in (then) our or (now) my living room, pregaming and watching the most wonderful channel on cable television, VH1 Classic. VH1 Classic is the perfect pregaming diversion: music that rocks and get you pumped up in videos that range from "hilarious" to "jaw-dropping" to "how did this ever seem cool?"
Though the beverages of choice (bud bombers, vodka crans, whiskey, PBRs, etc), the cast of characters joining us (Ben, Brendan, Jeremy, Nevin, Will, Rob, Chris, etc), and the locations (LES, UES, Chilita) have changed over the years, it’s always been Brian and I, and always VH1 Classic. So it was only fitting that last night, as Brian’s time in NYC may soon be coming to a close, he and I, as well as our friends Brendan and Corinne, went to Madison Square Garden to see the closest thing to VH1 Classic live: a Van Halen concert.
And, wow.
************
We had been pumped for this concert for months. The chance to see Van Halen with David Lee Roth, really the main characters on VH1 Classic, was enough to bonerize us for weeks (for yours truly, it was about seven weeks). Though the show sold out very quickly, my wonderful, wonderful friend Jackie out in LA was able to procure four very good seats. All that was left to do was make the necessary arrangements to make sure we had everything we needed to get nice and fucked up, and soon the concert was upon us.
Speaking of, before I go any further and describe the concert, a confession: I was very, very high. Now at age 28, I’ve pretty much retired from all drugs except for pot and (my legally prescribed) xanax, and it seems like forever since I last got messed up on pot (aside from my high school reunion last month, of course). My friends had made pot brownies and one of them had so much pot on him that night that we joked that if he were to get grabbed by the cops, he’d be hit with an intent to distribute charge. All you need to know about my state at the concert is that by the end of the night, my friend no longer had any pot left on him – and all the brownies were gone. I personally ate so many brownies that there was/is a lump of fudge in my colon no smaller than three pounds and I still had the urge to go to Rosario’s for pizza after the show, so bad were my munchies. So, um, yeah.
We found our seats at MSG and as you might expect, I had left and was walking back to them with a hot dog in one hand and a beer in the other when I heard Eddie start ripping into "You Really Got Me." I started running back to my seat and actually dropped the hot dog - easily one of the five or ten saddest things to ever happen to me – but made it back before I missed much of the song.
I won’t get into a song by song analysis of the show, but I will say that I expected not so much from Van Halen. We’re talking about three 50 year old men – one of whom relies on his voice, acrobatic movies, and sex appeal to win crowds over – and a chubby sixteen year old on bass and backing vocals. I figured it’d be a fun and entertaining concert, but more in the "Look at that 40 year old mom showing her tits" kinda way, as opposed to "I’m rocking so hard my brain is coming out of my nose" way.
Further, something that must be addressed is that of all the posts I’ve written on this site, there are very few I’ve taken more flack for than the one in which I said I preferred Sammy Hagar to David Lee Roth. This post, like many, was sarcastic and stemmed from a discussion the previous weekend about how Sammy’s my guy because we both are in love with love. I don’t mean to backtrack here; I think Sammy has the distinct advantage in terms of songs, but nothing tops the anthems of David Lee Roth-era Van Halen.
And it took me about two minutes into the first song to realize that the music of DLR Van Halen (henceforth, Van Halen) is music made to be heard live. This seems like an obvious conclusion to reach, but it must be stated. After years of listening to Eddie’s screeching guitars on my headphones or on VH1 Classic, hearing him live was truly a revelation. Not only is this band extremely loud (extremely, extremely loud), but what they perform is not so much music as it is force or energy or any of those physics-related terms. I have never been to a concert in which the disparity between the band’s recordings and the band’s live music is so great; you can listen to every VH bootleg in the world (and my old roommate Brian nearly has), but there is no substitute for standing in an arena, being made nearly deaf by the volume of the music, being rocked so hard that you’re worried one of your testes is going to fall off and roll down your leg.
And rock they did. I can’t believe I’m going to write this, but David Lee Roth was really impressive. He’s rocking a new short hair look (which is much, much better than his combover days) and his moves are more than a little toned down, but I thought he sounded and moved great. He was working both the crowd and the band, messing with Eddie and Wolfgang, telling the younger VH that if he keeps playing so well he’s definitely going to get some "New York City poontang." To his credit, Wolfie played bass very well and some of the most entertaining (or at least, endearing) moments of the show came when Wolfie and his dad were playing facing each other; not only was it obvious that Eddie was thrilled to have his son in the band, but at one time during one of Eddie’s solos he reached over and smacked the strings on Wolfie’s bass and Wolfie reciprocated – lots of smiles and hugs between these two. Alex was a rock and played an impressive drum solo that nearly had me hypnotized (thank you, pot brownies).
Admittedly, Eddie Van Halen was not up there on my list of favorite guitarists – I’ve always preferred those in the Hendrix and Yardbirds/Bluebreakers schools, bluesy types who combine virtuosity with booze-fueled emotion. EVH always struck me as at best, emotionless, and at worst, a guitar tech nerd (a genius guitar tech nerd, but a guitar tech nerd nonetheless). But again, seeing him live…I’m at a loss for words. I have never seen or heard anything like it. Again, it could have been the drugs, but Eddie’s guitar playing was so beyond great, so beyond amazing, I can only describe it as incredible in the most literal sense of the word, as in "not believable." I play guitar, and though I’m not great, I at least know about guitars, since I’ve spent a good portion of the past fifteen years learning about them. And what Eddie was playing, and the sounds he was making, I mean, I’m not sure he was even playing guitar; it was more like a guitar crossed with a super computer crossed with the magic wand of Merlin. One of the songs I wanted to hear was a guitar solo called "Cathedral" from the album "Diver Down," a minute and a half of sounds so foreign that they seem not of this earth. Eddie did an extended guitar solo near the end of the concert and as part of it played "Cathedral" and the experience was so moving, so mystical, that I swear to God I started seeing ghosts; during "Cathedral" I turned to my left and there was Martin Luther King, Jr. sitting next to me, and he said, "There you go, brother. There you go."
Another song I really wanted to hear was "Little Guitars," which, despite its lack of sweeping/crashing Van Halen chorus, is one of my favorites. They played this and played it well, much to my delight. Two other highlights were not as well known songs "Somebody Get Me A Doctor" and "So This Is Love"; the former I don’t think I’ve ever heard before but really got into and Wolfie’s bass playing on the latter was especially terrific.
And then there were the hits: "Running With The Devil", "Beautiful Girls", "Dance The Night Away", "Everybody Wants Some", "Pretty Woman", "Unchained", "And The Cradle Will Rock…", "Hot For Teacher", "Jamie’s Crying", etc. During these songs, the crowd, which was not quite the best, would rise to the occasion and the stadium would shake, middle-aged former Strip hangers, college-aged kids guzzling beers, and my friends and I, rocking in unison to the thunder riffs of Eddie Van Halen, following David Lee Roth as he paraded around the stage, shirt open, a showman in full glory, inciting the crowd to rock harder.
During "Panama," the song I prefer to have playing while I make love, I looked at my friends and I was afraid - I actually thought their heads were going to explode, right then and there, right in the middle of Madison Square Garden, shooting brains everywhere. Corinne was doing some form of the twist and Brendan had his devil horns in the air. Brian had a look on his face of such contentment that it took me a moment before I realized when I had seen it before - March 3, 2004. On that day, Brian won a bet with me and as a condition of the bet I had to buy him a pack of cigarettes. He later told me it was the greatest day of his life.
Score.
************
But the time the band ended with "Jump", we all were exhausted, feeling like we’d been beaten up or had just finished having sex. Also, we were deaf; we went to a bar after the show for some beers and though music was playing at a very low level in the bar, we were basically shouting at each other while conversing. After a short stop at Rosario’s with the gang I was home, soon in bed, hoping the room would stop spinning and the drugs would wear off, since I was pretty sure there’s no such thing as goblins.
The night and the concert was a great success: a group of friends rocking out, doing something they love. Above all, it was memorable, a rare and unforgettable chance to see, live and in person, the characters that we’ve watched dance across the screen on VH1 Classic for so many years (we even ran into Eddie Trunk at the concert!). Someday soon, Brian may leave NYC, and I may no longer feel the urge to watch VH1 Classic. If these things happen they would be nearly catastrophic, but at least I’d be able to say we went out on a high note.
(Double pun entirely intended, possibly even supremely witty.)
