REUNITED VAN HALEN REALLY GETS THE CROWD GOING
By Elysa Gardner, USA TODAY
Van Halen bandmates David Lee Roth, left, and Eddie Van Halen perform at Cafe Wha? in New York on Thursday. The group has announced its 2012 North American tour and the Feb. 7 release of the album A Different Kind of Truth. By Charles Sykes, AP
NEW YORK – An arena it wasn’t. On Thursday night, music industry insiders and press crowded into the tiny, storied Greenwich Village club Cafe Wha? to watch a reunited Van Halen rock the joint. Frontman David Lee Roth explained that the venue had sentimental value, as his Uncle Manny had owned it.
“This is a temple,” Roth said of the club where his uncle had once played host to a young singer/songwriter “named Bobby Zimmerman” (later known as Bob Dylan). “I’m more nervous about this gig than I would ever be at (Madison Square Garden).”
Roth didn’t seem it, and neither did the musicians with whom he will tour this year: his former nemeses Eddie and Alex Van Halen— respectively on guitar and drums, for anyone who slept through the ’80s — and Eddie’s bassist son Wolfgang.
That lineup will kick off a North American tour Feb. 18, following the release of a new album, A Different Kind of Truth, on Feb. 7. The group introduced a new song from that collection, She’s the Woman, a chugging, unabashedly carnal rocker with a classically wailing guitar solo.
The focus was on old favorites, though. Starting with their cover of The Kinks’ You Really Got Me, the band launched into a string of fondly remembered hits, including Running With the Devil, Everybody Wants Some, Somebody Get Me a Doctor, Panama and Hot for Teacher.
“Welcome to Occupy Van Halen, ladies and gentlemen,” bellowed Roth, who looked fit and boyish in a jaunty cap and slightly baggy overalls. Diamond Dave was as energetic, cheeky and verbose a showman as ever, at one point launching into a lengthy monologue about his work as an emergency medical technician in recent years. “Hold on one more second there, kiddo,” Roth quipped when Wolfgang let loose a bass riff toward the end.
The youngest Van Halen proved a deft, muscular player, helping his Uncle Alex sustain a robust foundation for dad Eddie’s fluid, frantic virtuosity. Despite the close, rather hot quarters, the audience remained rapt till the final number, Jump!, which Roth jokingly called their “fake encore.” (The musicians had entered through the crowd, and there wasn’t enough space for them to exit and re-emerge.)
Manny Roth, now 92, was in the house (which he sold in 1988), as his nephew proudly acknowledged. So were tennis champ and sometime musician John McEnroe and his rock-singer wife, Patty Smyth. Chatting before the show, McEnroe described himself as “a longtime fan and friend” of the group. “They’re one of my favorite bands of all time, and you can quote me on that,” he said.
“Ditto,” said Smyth.