Eddie can play, David can jump, but is it fun?
By DAVE TIANEN

Rarely has a major concert come to the Bradley Center as fraught with questions as Monday night's rescheduled Van Halen gig.

Would guitar god Eddie Van Halen be able to remain upright for the entire event?

Could Eddie resist the temptation to smack David Lee Roth over the head with his guitar?

These were not small issues. This is a band that for much of its history and especially its recent history has overdosed on bile and booze. Aside from an abortive reunion 12 years ago, Roth and the Van Halens hadn't really played together since Roth checked out in 1985.

Given the possibly dire expectations, things went remarkably well. You got most of the early hits - "Oh, Pretty Woman," "Jump," "Hot For Teacher" and "Running With the Devil" among them. Eddie looks fit if different - tanned with close-cropped blond hair. His guitar solo near the end of the regular set - a blend of "Women in Love," "Cathedral" and "Eruption" - was both stunning and downright gorgeous. The Van Halen reunion tour is attracting a crowd that tilts heavily toward middle-aged white guys, which would seem to infer an exercise in guitar god worship.

If you thought guitar pyrotechnics was the evening's first priority, you probably went home happy.

As for Roth, he, too, looks fit but different. That famous mane of blond hair is now cut short, and rock's hairiest heavy metal chest is now shaved smoother than the Gerber baby's butt. That said, Roth appears remarkably fit for 52, still tight and chiseled across the middle. Indeed, the fitness slacker in the band is probably Eddie's teenage son Wolfgang, who has taken over at bass for Michael Anthony. The musical logic of that move remains elusive.

Among its accomplishments, Van Halen was credited with being the first metal band that smiled while they played and the first metal band that made girls want to take off their clothes. Both distinctions could probably be credited to Roth. In his prime, Roth was the classic swashbuckler, a gaudy blend of rock 'n' roll pirate and heavy metal burlesque queen. He was glam and hammy and sexy and fun.

He's still an over-the-top, one-man carnival, preening and posing and cavorting bare-chested with a sequined top hat.

But . . . and I realize this is perhaps an odd thing to say about an act built on theatricality, it now feels contrived more than exuberant. Maybe it's that there's no longer a small army of rock 'n' roll mamas screaming and clawing their approval. Maybe it's the incongruity of men in their 50s singing "Hot For Teacher."

Maybe it's the dubious camaraderie of the band, but the Dave and Eddie show feels somehow hollow, like two middle-aged men doing their best to impersonate their youth for money.

Photo/Gary Porter
David Lee Roth (left) and Eddie Van Halen rock to "You Really Got Me" with the band Van Halen during a performance Monday night at the Bradley Center.

[Return to Current Headlines]