Monday, July 20, 2009

PARADISE AT THE COW PALACE

Compared to past weekends, this one was down right relaxing. All I needed to do on the house was put up a few last pieces of trim, and I was essentially done, except for the painting later in the summer. There is one small section of wall above the roof line that needs to be completed, but I'm waiting for the birds inhabiting the wall to vacate their home before I tear off and replace that siding.

I went to a friends house later that evening for his wife's birthday party. Margaritas, good Mexican food and fine company. I returned home sometime around 9 PM, racing down the darkened county line road. The Douglas County sheriff pulled me over for going 60 in a 40 mph zone, but he was kind and let me go with a warning when I explained my wife left me to take care of a neurotic dog now sitting alone at home.

I had time enough this evening to pull out a bootleg concert of Van Halen's live performance on May 11, 1984 at the Cow Palace in San Francisco. This was their third and final night in San Francisco with David Lee Roth, never to return, not even during their 2007-2008 reunion tour. The closest they got in 2007 was Oakland, CA across the bay.

A very good audience recording, the band ripping through their very long music set. An enthusiastic audience. Dave is kind of singing. Eddie muscles his way through the songs, lacking the finesse of later years.

During the lull in Everybody Wants Some, Dave does his usual rap with the audience. He just kept on going and going and going. I think the other guys in the band were growing tired of his endless gibbering that they cut him off by starting up the music to finish playing the last part of the song.

A day that marks time
Measured in decades elapsed
Old, but still a babe

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