REUNION 2004

Friday night and Van Halen's scheduled to play Madison Square Garden in New York! In exactly one week I'll be dancing to their music in Chicago! There was no doubt in my mind that I needed to celebrate with a CD bootleg concert of my out on the prairie just down the road from the house where I have no fear of disturbing the neighbors when I crank it up! The concert began shortly after sunset with the sky aglow above the mountainous skyline to the west.

Twilight's orange glow
Gives way to the nights dark blue
Stars slowly appear

Prairie winds still blow
Criss-crossed by asphalt ribbons
Horizon of light

Last weeks post involved a concert that marked the beginning of the Sammy Hagar era of Van Halen, while this nights concert is the resurrection of that era after it came to an end in June of 1996. Van Halen appeared in Greensboro North Carolina on June 11, 2004, the first concert of the 2004 reunion tour and 8 years since their last appearance together. A decent audience recording on which Sammy comments that he never thought this day would happen and that the band was glad to be making music once again. Although the boys were sounding a little ragged in spots and it lacked the energy and spontaneity of the band back in the late 80's and early 90's, it was plenty good enough to dance to and get lost in their music as they played all the old classics.

I couldn't help but think how different the music scene was when these songs were originally played and what was popular then in 2004. Old rock versus modern rock. I was recently given a couple of cassette tapes of Sammy Hagar music that was originally released in 1984 and 1987 and they distinctly had a dated feel to them. The same could be said for the Greensboro concert, but the music was still easy to groove on.

I have a bunch of these 2004 tour bootlegs that I've been reluctant to listen to because of their "reunion" feel to them (i.e., not associated with the release of new music) and the fact that Eddie was notoriously bad many nights because his resurgent alcoholism meant he was intoxicated much of the tour. That fact will be much more evident in some of the later shows which I hope to play some other nights.

New millennium

Dinosaurs become extinct

Eddie lumbers on

Music scene evolves

Hard rock's time has been eclipsed

Age of irony