Philadelphia, PA
October 3, 2007

by Jim McCoy.

The long-awaited and much-delayed concert reunion of David Lee Roth with the brothers Van Halen rolled into Philadelphia for two shows this week, the band now “three-quarters original and one-quarter inevitable,” as Roth stated in alluding to the addition of the teenage Wolfgang Van Halen on bass. Although long-time fans lamented the dismissal of Michael Anthony from the band after over 20 years playing everywhere from small clubs to sold-out stadiums with Eddie and Alex, much of the disappointment with the line-up change dissipated after the quartet took the stage on Wednesday night.

Eddie Van Halen looks like you would expect a man who has battled cancer and multiple addictions to look as he enters his fifties. No one can question, however, that Eddie still plays his guitar like he is three decades younger and the perma-grin is still there on his face at every turn. The infamous ‘brown sound’ guitar tone that made its debut on 1978’s Van Halen remains unchanged, but Van Halen’s uncanny virtuosity prevents him- and the entire band, for that matter- from sounding like an aging retread still mired in Eighties. His distortion is loud, clear and pure with the just the right touch from the MXR phaser that characterized his early sound. His fingers still fly all over the fretboard, he still plays inspired licks that twist and turn on unforeseen and unpredictable intervals, and he is still capable of bringing an entire arena to its feet with one devastating power chord and a few tugs on the whammy bar. He ripped through his solos and made it look effortless, from ‘I’m the One’ to ‘Mean Street’ to the keyboard-laden ‘I’ll Wait’ from 1984. His solo spot included the tapped-harmonic intro from ‘Women in Love,’ ‘Cathedral’ in its entirety and the classic ‘Eruption.’ He wasn’t straying too far from familiar territory there, but it was all played perfectly and eaten up by the crowd.

David Lee Roth isn’t jumping from drum risers and stacks of amplifiers any longer (say what you will about the short-lived Gary Cherone, but he put on a very energetic stage performance), but any questions as to whether his voice is still up to task were answered early. It is. He took the band through a set list that included all the classics, both well-known (‘Panama’ and ‘Pretty Woman’) and lesser known (‘So This is Love?’ and ‘Beautiful Girls’) interspersed with some gems that the true diehards could really appreciate, such as ‘Romeo Delight’ from Women and Children First and ‘Little Dreamer’ from the debut album. He is still a performer and entertainer, but is not in competition with the music and the other rock legends on the stage. He even took some time to tell a few funny (and nostalgic) stories from his pre-Van Halen days as a teenager in California while fingerpicking a bluesy 7th chord on his acoustic guitar before launching into ‘Ice Cream Man’ with the full band. Roth and Eddie also shared a few hugs on stage, with Roth seeming genuinely amazed while watching the guitar master at work on stage again after their two decade hiatus.

Wolfgang Van Halen looks as if he was just plucked from a group of kids smoking cigarettes outside the high school cafeteria and suddenly placed on stage in front of 20,000 screaming fans. He seems very much in awe of the whole experience, but he held the bass down competently and his backing vocals with his father were stellar and remained true to the sound of the Roth-era albums. In an age where an over-the-top stage show still isn’t enough for some fans, it was refreshing to see a smiling kid simply having a good time with his dad while pounding out the hits. It may only have been three-quarters of the original band on stage, but 75% of the vintage Van Halen still graded out as an ‘A’ on this early test from the 2007 tour.

Labels: Live Reviews, Van Halen