Van Halen, TD Banknorth Garden, October 30, 2007
By JAMES PARKER | November 5, 2007
REAL DEAL Dave and Eddie are still a great couple. |
How much red-blooded American entertainment can one town take? Mere hours after the Red Sox had completed their victory cavalcade a week ago Tuesday, a reunited Van Halen took the stage at the TD Banknorth Garden and saturated the pleasure centers all over again. The eternally warring factions of Roth and Van Halen have been reconciled, and Diamond Dave stands once more beside Eddie, making grotesque pop-eyed faces of wonder and naive delight as the guitar god spews his miracles. Eddie in turn does his drunk-boy grin and rushes around with his shirt off. On bass, where the smiling Michael Anthony once stood, is Eddie’s son Wolfgang — a round and rosy-faced teenager in a black hooded sweatshirt. Somehow he is not at all out of place.The incredible façade of cheeseball camaraderie projected by Eddie and Dave might lead the amateur psychologist to surmise that they continue to detest each other. But who cares about that? Eddie’s technique still sounds as if it had been scraped off the back of a passing asteroid, and Diamond Dave in the autumn of his renown is really something else. The physical limitations that age has placed on his performance (now 53, he can no longer make those kamikaze leaps from the drum riser) have had an alarmingly concentrating effect on his personality: he leers and preens and savagely grins, wizened and tricksterish under his top hat. The bawdy talk in “Everybody Wants Some” (“No, no, no, no, don’t take ’em off! Leave ’em on . . . ” etc.) was word for word as you hear it in the recorded version, but there was an impressive piece of freshly minted doggerel about the home team: “I love every base those motherfuckers steal. . . . Everybody knows New England is for REAL!” Nice one, Dave
Related:
Van Halen | A Different Kind of Truth, Exclusive: Sammy Hagar and Gary Cherone on the new Van Halen record, Photos: Van Halen at TD Garden, More 
- Van Halen | A Different Kind of Truth
Who would've thought Eddie Van Halen would still be innovative in his late 50s?
- Exclusive: Sammy Hagar and Gary Cherone on the new Van Halen record
Last month, after Van Halen dropped A Different Kind of Truth (Interscope) — the rock legends' first album of all new material with original singer David Lee Roth in almost three decades—fans and detractors alike took to the Internet to vote yea or nay on the comeback gigs.
- Photos: Van Halen at TD Garden
Van Halen played TD Garden on Sunday, March 11, 2012.
- Playing it smart
If you’re a band looking to survive in this frigid social climate, you have to be either really smart or really stupid.
- Get Ready, Here Come... The '70s
Okay, so they missed a few things, but Get Ready manages to be a whole lot of fun by ignoring the music that mattered.
- On the Racks: June 6
David Lee Roth, AFI, Cheap Trick, Camera Obscura, Elvis Costello, and Live
- Worst in breed: Media
Who are the unsexiest media men of 2007?
- The 100 unsexiest men 2007: 80-71
- Under the Covers battle
Rock-and-roll beefs are never quite as delicious as the heat-packing rivalries of their hip-hop brethren. Watch: Battle of the Album Covers
- Worst in breed: Music
Who are the unsexiest music men of 2007?
- Soundoff: Joe Frechette
Sounds like good intro music to a television show, ya know?
- Less
Topics:
Live Reviews
, Van Halen, Van Halen, Van Halen, More
, Van Halen, Van Halen, Van Halen, Michael Anthony, Less
