Saturday, March 29, 2008

IF ITS FRIDAY NIGHT, I MUST BE IN JAPAN

A tiring week at work led me to skiing dude Rick's office doorstep late in the afternoon where I had a cigar and we bullshitted. I made him jealous of the fact that I received approval to take some time off of work to do a late season ski blow-out trip to the central and southwest corner of Colorado beginning next Wednesday. A road trip with a "party on the pass" planned for every night. In preparation for that event I've been downloading a bunch of concerts from the Sammy Hagar era of Van Halen. Not wanting to be a David Lee Roth snob and recognizing that Eddie, Alex and Michael were still producing great music after 1984, I decided to explore and get a feel for the "Van Hagar" incarnation of the band. I'm sure there are fans out there that would say I'm being sacrilegious for listening to that music!

I pulled out one of their Balance Tour appearances in Japan, October 30, 1995 in Osaka. Great sounding boot in which I had merged all the songs into a single track that more closely reproduces that concert atmosphere. Sammy does not have that natural talent DLR had for putting people in the party mood, but he's still good. It took a little while for me to warm up to their new groove, especially the unfamiliar set list, but once found I was into it. The boys played well this night and I was reminded of all the other VH hits that came out in the 10 year period after 1984. In an effort to learn more about their music from these years, I recently picked up their "5150" album (released March 26, 1986) and their "Balance" album (released January 24, 1995), the second of which kicked off this Balance world tour that brought them to Osaka. It's like a whole new window has opened up to me, revealing a side of the band I know little about! I'm going to enjoy this!




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