Van Halen Concert

Last Monday around 3pm, H called and asked what I was doing that night. I had planned on attending a meeting for the GED tutoring that was about to start back up, but he told me we had Suite tickets to see Van Halen!

Well, Van Halen is super awesome and everybody had been begging for tickets and they were Legends of Rock, right? I was very excited to go and H was almost giddy for the concert. So we went to the concert all jazzed and with assurances from H that I'd know most of the songs. We waited through the opening act, which was an interesting mix by Bob Marley's son, Ky-Mani Marley.

After seeing some huge concerts recently, I was quite impressed by the volume of noise the 3 musicians and a vocalist could put out. It was LOUD. Not, "your getting too old" loud, but "it sounds crappy because of distortion" loud. I knew a couple of songs, if you include Pretty Woman and their opening song.

David Lee Roth is a very eclectic man. That's really all I can say. He's definitely got his own style and sense of dance. It was just odd and fascinating in a twisted sort of way to watch him perform. The drum solo and guitar solos were pretty awesome, but I was generally overwhelmed with the noise when they all played together and DLR yelled over them.

And well the crowd was an entire form of entertainment that was off stage. The Houston Chronicle summed up my experience better than I could have:

Guys in the crowd suddenly reverted back to adolescence. They snapped
cell-phone photos, pounded on imaginary drums and sang along to everything from Beautiful Girls and Dance the Night Away to Jamie's Cryin'.

It was exhausting to watch, to listen to, to be in the midst of for more than two hours. But it wasn't necessarily a bad thing. The weak-kneed result is really a testament to the (mostly) veteran band's almost superhuman energy. The levels were cranked up to ten and never subsided.

The crowd was populated by middle-aged dudes in ball caps, button-downs and slacks, parents with curious kids and the requisite gaggle of breathless females. There were even a few vintage T-shirts and pairs of leather pants.

GOOD NEWS OF THE DAY: I had a fabulous 8 mile run to a gorgeous sunrise this morning and I'm off to give blood now!