EDDIE'S ONE IN A MILLION!!

It's amazing how many Van Halen bootleg recordings are out there being given away or traded. But it's not an endless supply. I stressed out this past week when I realized that all the easy downloads were found and turned into CDs for my weekend concerts. There are more out there, but they require access to registered sites that have specific rules on posting and downloading that I may not be able to easily satisfy. Mild desperation set in when I realized my stack of Van Halen CDs that I've listened to equals the stack I have waiting to listen to. I've reached peak "Van Halen", where the supply has equaled the demand and now I'm on the downhill slide towards "using up" the available supply. I spent a couple nights scrounging around for new downloads to keep the party going with no success. But then I carefully went through site archives, like looking for pennies in tall grass, and found a few bootlegs that eluded me on the first pass, surging my "to listen to" stack of CDs ahead of the other pile. My sense of desperation abated. The bootleg concert noted in this post came from my recent search through the weeds.

Cling to mountain peaks
Gray against the orange sky
Clouds in evenings haze

Birds greet the twilight
Songs drift across the grasslands
Eddie interrupts

Gathering darkness
Touched by the evenings cool breeze
Start the loud music

Friday night's concert was once again held out on the open grasslands across Hilltop Road. The sun set, leaving behind a very pleasant evening to stand outside and listen to Van Halen's concert "One In A Million". Live in Rotterdam on April 13, 1993, a time when the band was still riding a wave of popularity. Eddie and Alex were both born in Amsterdam, Holland so every visit to that country is like a homecoming, and the audience knows it and expresses their appreciation in a very, very loud way. This show was the 10th show in the Right Here, Right Now tour and Sammy lets the Rotterdam crowd know that they are the most energetic and loudest so far on the tour, making the band feel at home. There were times when the crowd chanted for Eddie and broke out in song as though it were a soccer game. Good quality recording and good set list, even though portions of the concert appear to have been edited out to keep it under 80 minutes and on one CD. There were times during the evening when I thought someone was sneaking up behind me in the darkness, only to realize it was people close to the guy taping the concert back then in '93.

Another blast from the past!

Enters the bloodstream
Interrupts the flow of time
Music turns it back

The mind is relaxed
Music provides the focus
Lost in the moment

Performs the ritual
Booze, cigar, Van Halen
High priests of music

His outdoor concerts
Looks at cathedral's ceiling
A sky lit with stars

Smiling on the stage
The thousands chant for Eddie
His guitar rewards

Really needs to score
Searches for the next download
A junkies craving

He's flying so high
Stereo speakers are cranked
Whole truck vibrates