by Terri Hintz

My son is turning 12 this week and we celebrated last night with thousands of our not-so-close-friends -- rednecks, yuppies, bikers, kids, soccer moms, drunks and more.

We were at Gwinnett Arena to see Van Halen. Where else would you find such an eclectic crowd for a Sunday evening?

As my guitar-playing son turns 12, I realized that taking him to his first rock concert would be something both memorable and cool. And since I had a sneaking suspicion that this sort of "gift" with Mom tagging along might not be so welcome as he gets older, Van Halen playing right in our own backyard at Gwinnett provided the perfect birthday opportunity.

The crowd seemed calmer than I recall a couple of decades ago. Have we all mellowed with age? That wasn't the only difference I noticed compared to concerts 20 years ago. David Lee Roth's profanity was nothing compared to what our kids see and hear on cable and reality television. The arena smelled a little smoky but didn't reek of marijuana as it might have in the '80s. The crowd was, sad to report, much fatter than a decade or two ago. And, rather than a sea of teens and young adults in black T-shirts and jeans, this crowd ranged from children to senior citizens and came from all walks of life.

We arrived early for the show, bought T-shirts, grabbed a snack and headed to our seats. The man sitting beside us was surprised at how empty the arena was but I assured him that it would fill. With easy parking and proximity, people knew they didn't need to arrive hours in advance. He was from Dunwoody and this was his first event at our hometown arena.

Ryan Shaw opened the show with a mix of R&B, The Beatles and Janis Joplin. He was a hometown boy with an amazing voice and variety in his music. Some of the rednecks in the crowd voiced displeasure but that wasn't about Ryan -- they only wanted Van Halen.

Then, the stagehands arrived to clear things away. The lights came up, the music started and with the first strokes of Eddie's guitar, my son was mesmerized. He loves to play guitar and Eddie Van Halen doesn't just play guitar -- he's a master of guitar.

Despite illness and issues, I thought Eddie looked and sounded great. Wolfie seemed like he was born to be there on stage playing bass with his Dad.

My son played along too from the stands, pausing his air guitar only long enough to snap photos of Eddie's guitar on screen. I don't think those blurry photos will seem out of focus to Liam. He'll remember the images of those lightning quick hands for a very long time. He sang along and asked how I knew the words to the Guitar Hero songs that Van Halen did. Because Van Halen was long before Guitar Hero, of course.

David Lee Roth seemed past his prime to me, but the crowd didn't seem to care. Muddled lyrics don't matter when the whole crowd is singing along. My kids thought an old rocker in tight pants doing high kicks and swinging his microphone stand around was kind of amusing and they commented on his washboard abs rather than his hair plugs.

Aren't we all a bit like middle-aged rockers? We can still taste the sweetness of youth despite the challenges that propel us through adulthood. We are still trying to figure things out and yet yearn for the seemingly carefree days of our youth. Let's face it though -- they really weren't so much carefree as careless much of the time -- a bit like the drunk who slopped his beer on us from behind as he staggered.

So, here we are in 2008 and Wolfgang Van Halen tours with his dad while his mom worries about him being on the road so young. Life's ups and downs including cancer, divorce, substance abuse and loss affect the band and crowd alike. Yet for an evening, the music transcends and we forget our troubles and enjoy some good old-fashioned noise called "Rock."

I think I can predict the reports that will come as the kids return from school today. I think my daughter will have told her friends about the drunks in the crowd and her cool pink Van Halen T-shirt. My son will have raved about Eddie Van Halen on guitar and picked a few songs to learn at his guitar lesson this week.

As for me, I'll remember a day when it was still cool for my son to hangout and sing/cheer loud with Mom. It was a day when my kids could experience something musically amazing through the eyes of youth without a flicker of thought of the rocky journey these men have traveled in order to arrive in Duluth on a windy evening in May, 2008.

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