Loading ...Mommy, make it go away!
Aug 14th, 2007 by Jeff
Like a recurring nightmare or bad toothache, the Van Halen family picnic has once again reared its ugly head. Fresh out of rehab, apparently Eddie is ready to hit the road once more, probably literally and figuratively. Still touting Jaba-the-hut wannabe Wolfgang Van Halen on bass instead of actual bass player Michael Anthony, the only member of this sad entourage who can’t give Eddie a blood transfusion will be the ever-popular(?) David Lee Roth, who hasn’t performed with the band since, well, 1984.
Despite being the band’s bass player on every album it ever released, apparently Anthony is still persona-non-grata with Eddie, I guess because he actually wanted to go out and play music while Eddie wanted to wallow in a puddle of drunken self-indulgence. Does anybody else think this thing has a volatility level just somewhere above Mr. Creosote? Just one “wafer thin mint” and Eddie and Dave will be at each other’s throats, while Wolfie tries to eat half the audience. Sorry, but this is shaping up to be more like a bad reality TV show than a concert tour.
Supposedly Wolfie has picked out his favorite 24 songs (I guess from VH’s first 6 albums, as Dave doesn’t have any rights to anything after that). Apparently Eddie’s brain still isn’t right after all that booze, if he’s letting a teenager pick out songs written and performed long before his birth, as well as replace an established and talented musician in the band. Get the kid a garage, an amp, and some friends, don’t drag him out on tour to blow any illusions he might still harbor that his dad might be a decent human being.
Of course, the questions remain 1) Do they actually have 24 songs on those 6 albums worth playing in concert (”Big Bad Billy is Sweet William now”? As popular as 1984 was, it gets a little thin on concert material after “Jump”, “Panama” and “Hot for Teacher”) and 2) Can these rollicking bags of ego and fun get through a complete 24 song set night after night? I’m betting “no”.
Of course, what sort of Blog would be complete if I didn’t put together my own set list to compete with Wolfie’s, having actually been there and heard the music. In no particular order (well, actually, from 1st album to 6th): “Runnin’ with the Devil”, “Eruption” (does this actually count as a song?), “Ain’t talkin’ bout love”, “Jamie’s Cryin’”, “Feel your love tonight”, “Ice Cream Man” (Little dreamer or Atomic Punk would work as well, but let’s leave room for some stuff from their other albums), “Dance the night away”, “D. O. A.”, “Beautiful Girls”, “And the cradle will rock”, “Everybody wants some”, “Mean Street”, “Push Comes to Shove”, “So this is love”, “Where have all the good times gone” (by the end of the tour, won’t this become poignant?), “Pretty Woman”, “Dancing in the Streets”, “Little Guitars”, “Happy Trails” (to end the show), “Panama”, “Jump”, “Hot for Teacher”. Hmm…, 22, maybe we’ll throw “Little Dreamer” and “Atomic Punk” back into the mix after all.
Y’know, I thought Eddie had absolutely no class before, but after what I just found out, he’s so far from right he’s left. On the “official” VH website, Eddie’s replaced Michael Anthony’s photo on the VH1 album cover with his son’s. He’s also removed the band photo from the WACF album cover. How the hell do you go back and re-write history? Wolfpack wasn’t even conceived when VH1 came out, and this is all just to screw Anthony?
What did Mike, one of the nicest folks in Rock & Roll, ever do to Eddie? This goes way further back than Mike playing on tour with Sammy, as Eddie was screwing Mike as far back as the awful “VH3″ travesty, and Eddie screwed Mike out of a fair share of the money on the 2004 reunion tour as well. From what I hear, the only reason why Mike was included in that tour was because Sammy refused to play without him. Is Eddie that jealous of someone who can actually stay married to the same woman for over 25 years? This whole revisionist album cover thing completely pisses me off, and I’m calling for a total boycott of this VH4 tour until Eddie apologizes (like that will happen). Don’t waste your money. Sammy and Mike are touring again starting in October, and in addition to the Sammy stuff and VH stuff of the earlier 2006 tours, Mike will be playing an expanded set of old VH stuff as well (not just “Runnin’ with the Devil” as he did on the last tour). Funny, everytime jumbo-sized wolfie takes the stage, he’ll be earnin’ Mike money, as Mike is part owner of the rights to every VH song ever recorded (except the three “bogus” tracks on the greatest hits album).