Whammy Bar

Ah yes! The reunion tour!

First of all, let me say that I haven’t seen Van Halen since the Starwood days. It was a fun show all in all. Eddie looks healthy and is playing as well as ever. David still does well with his game show host persona and Wink Martindale smile. Alex is as solid as ever. Wolfgang’s inexperience shows, but he plays well, sings well and proves he can hang with the big boys.

The show was all early DLR stuff of course. No Sammy tunes, but that’s not a surprise. I am a bigger fan of Sammy than Dave. Sammy’s just a better all around vocalist. On this night, David started out strong, but seemed to get weaker as the night went on. He relied heavily on the backup vocals of Eddie and Wolfgang, and he screws around the timing. End of the night – he can’t hit the notes in Jump.

The show is still about Eddie. Just an amazing guitarist. Astounding technique. Never makes a mistake. He broke a string on his Frankenstein Strat and made it through the song. For you non-players out there, when a string breaks on a tremolo-equipped guitar like Eddie’s, the guitar will go wildly out of tune. Solos and chord patterns suddenly have to be reinvented on the spot. Eddie made it through unscathed. I’m sure most of the crowd never noticed.

Alex is the anchorman he’s always been. A solid rock drummer with all the right chops in all the right places. Plus he has some sort of voodoo brother link to Eddie.

Wolfgang still seems a little stiff onstage. Chalk that up to inexperience. He’ll loosen up with time. The bass playing is right on – it could be easy to overplay. Wolfgang does it right. His backup vocals with Ed were right on. It’s tough holding a harmony over 4 bars behind “You Really Got Me” without wavering. They sound good together.

I’ve included a pic from the good old days, pre record deal. This photo was shot by my buddy Marvin Rinnig. You can see all of Marv’s rock and roll photography at www.Musikfoto.com

a week earlier…