I knew it was going to be a wild night as soon as I pulled up to the Houston Toyota Center. As I was driving through the garage, there was a guy in a Motley Crue Girls, Girls, Girls shirt with some kind of bottle wrapped in newspaper. He was already stumbling and it was only around 6:40 pm.
I went to go meet my friend, who was going with me to the concert, in the Hilton lobby. There were a lot of Van Halen fans gathering there, but also folks from the big Mary Kay convention that is in Houston right now. Those two crowds did not mix. Although my friend did hear one of the Mary Kay reps brag to some Van Halen fans that she had seen Night Ranger recently.
Van Halen sold out the Toyota Center, or it sure looked that way. When the band came out on stage, the audience was actually louder than the music. That's different from last week's Houston Foo Fighters show.
The stage was pretty simple. I anticipated something bigger for Van Halen. Like most concerts now, part of the stage came out into the audience. There was a massive HDTV screen above the stage so you could see Eddie Van Halen's playing right up close. You know about 50% of the audience was wondering what he does on the neck of those guitars. He was amazing of course. This was my first time seeing Van Halen, so I have never seen anything like that. WATCH ERUPTION FROM THE HOUSTON SHOW
David Lee Roth had several costume changes including hats. He wore a lot of sparkles because after all he is Diamond Dave. He did a lot of high kicks and flag waving too. He handled vocal duties well. His voice never seemed to go out. It wouldn't be a DLR performance without a few stories and he delivered. In one instance he started crying after a story from his youth. You can read more about those in his biography Crazy from the Heat.
Alex Van Halen had a good drum solo and Wolfgang played the bass just fine. I had heard they were going to pipe in pre-recorded Michael Anthony backup vocals and I believe that is totally true. I could swear I heard him in the mix.
Originally I wasn't sure if I would get to see the band. I figured the tour would fall apart before they got to Houston, but it was really a love fest up on stage. David and Eddie were hugging all night and DLR kept praising EVH.
Through out the show I kept thinking about the time I interviewed David Lee Roth at the studios of Rock 101 KLOL in Houston. What an amazing time. READ MORE HERE
And just for those of you who couldn't make the show, here are some Van Halen song demos:
- Van Halen - Everybody Wants Some!!(Demo Version) 1980- Van Halen - And The Cradle Will Rock (Demo Audio)- Van Halen - House Of Pain (Demo)
Let me know what you thought of the show in the comments below.
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