Edward Van Halen: A Definitive Biography (51 page)

The show came to Houston on July 2, 1988, and, of course, my brother and all of our friends were there. It was a scorching hot Texas afternoon, and Rice Stadium was filled to the upper decks. To appease Texans, the show was co-billed as an unofficial Texxas Jam (the very last Texxas Jam was held the following year—after that, it was gone forever). We got there fairly early and the entire stadium was general admission so we moved around all day.

When Metallica took the stage, the air changed. Smiles turned to slacked-jaws the minute they started. James Hetfield, Kirk Hammet, and Lars Ulrich had the audience at their command, and newcomer Jason Newsted spent half of the set flipping off the crowd (likely in response to hecklers on behalf of deceased bassist Cliff Burton). We moved to the floor for a great deal of their set and were absolutely floored and excited. Metallica’s popularity subsequently went through the roof.

Dokken had the grave misfortune of following Metallica, and worse yet, they were plagued by P.A. problems, and they didn’t handle it well at all. Dokken had gotten their show started when the entire P.A. completely cut out and you could actually hear the drums acoustically from the stage. The sound continued to go in and out. Singer Don Dokken threw his microphone stand to the stage in disgust, with guitarist George Lynch following suit by hurling his guitar angrily across the stage. We were joking that Metallica had blown the sound system out with their set. Upon Dokken leaving the stage, I decided then and there that it was the single worst performance of any live band I had ever seen in my life (it remains true to this day).

While anything following Dokken would have gone over well, The Scorpions really brought a great show. The sun had set and the air had cooled. The Scorps played hit after hit and their Spinal Tap-like choreography was just flat out fun—almost Broadway or Vegas-style but without a hint of pretention. I suppose I felt a certain excitement during their set because of the 2,000 times I had watched The US Festival video from 1983 when The Scorpions immediately opened for Van Halen.

After The Scorpions, and now being a sixteen-year-old, my testosterone-fueled buddies and I were tall enough and strong enough to brave the stadium floor and nothing was going to stop me from getting as close I possibly could to the stage on Ed’s side. We pushed, shoved, and cursed our way to within twenty to thirty yards of the stage directly in front of Eddie. Any further and we’d have been crushed.

The band came out slamming and played a great set—no P.A. problems. However, I will never, ever forget the look on Eddie’s face when one of his sequencers nearly failed. It was a first for Van Halen to play to recorded tracks—Edward had partly abandoned playing keyboards onstage live and nearly all of the keyboard and synthesizer lines were sequenced in. During one song, the sequencer cut out for at least five full seconds. Because of the fact that I watched Edward the whole time, I saw his face the moment it cut—he went from a smile to sheer horror in microseconds. Since Al was wearing headphones to play along with the track, Ed turned to him to give him that “What the hell do we do?!” look, and right about the same moment, the sequencer kicked back in in perfect time, as in it was only briefly muted and didn’t skip or start over. The band continued on and Ed looked back toward the audience after shaking his head in disbelief and giving the “Whew!” expression. Technology has its drawbacks.

7.    My Unabridged 2004 Tour Story

As soon as tickets went on sale, my friends and I jumped on them for the show in San Antonio on September 28. While 2004 was ultimately not a good year for Edward, it was surely not a good year for me either. That spring, after thirteen years together (nine married), my marriage ended just after our son had turned one. To her credit, I changed after my brother died. I became a different person—some things for the better, some things probably for the worse. Honestly, I was not the person she married. It was painful because our young son was in the middle. As a result, my already questionable level of drinking increased significantly.

The drive down to the show from Austin was drenched with beer drinking. Most of us, especially me, were already fairly lit by the time we arrived. We then proceeded to buy as many $8 beers as we had cash for. Nevertheless, I remember the evening and the concert very clearly—probably solely attributable to adrenaline. When they hit the stage, the crowd went absolutely nuts (although the venue was not quite sold out). I was not a critical audience member, I was simply there to have fun. I called a friend who had moved out to San Francisco from my cell phone so he could hear some of the show. I also called my answering machine at home and tried to capture Eddie’s solo (it sounded like fax noise when I checked it later).

It was during Ed’s solo that I did notice something. He approached the center stage microphone, which was something I had never seen him do. He said, “I’m just fuckin’ around, I hope you guys don’t mind.” The crowd cheered. Then he followed that up with, “I normally play the same thing, but I just feel like fuckin’ around tonight. Alright?” I noticed then that his speech was slurred. It occurred to me that he was probably drunk, but what the hell did I care? I was just as drunk as he was.

For the end of the show, my good friend Brando and I pulled the old move and walked around the venue hall until we came to the lower stage section on Eddie’s side. Through a combination of lax security and early departures, we ended up as close as you could possibly get to Ed’s corner of the stage—the left-front corner of the stage was about five feet from us. As they ended the show, Brando and I were just baffled by how close we were to Eddie and how easy it was for us to pull the sneak. After the last song, Ed led the crowd to thunderous applause. From the stage, he yelled, “1-2-3!” several times and gestured for applause. I will never forget that we were so close that we could actually hear Ed’s voice from the stage, no microphone. All in all, we had a blast.

On the drive back to Austin, someone said, “I think Eddie was wasted.” The thought got passed around the car, and I pointed out that his speaking and behavior during his solo was a little odd. As we drove further down the road, someone else offered up, “Did you notice Sammy stayed on Mike’s side of the stage the whole night?” I remember adding, “Did you notice that Sammy barely even moved during the whole show?” It didn’t take long for the adrenaline to wear off, and we all assessed that what we saw was indeed fun, but it was far from the real Van Halen.

At the time, I had so much going on personally that I didn’t pay much attention to the press surrounding the tour. I had not read any online reviews so I went into the concert absolutely tabula rasa. I just wanted to let loose and have a blast. If I had known what had been going on, I might have paid more attention. But all I really wanted to see was Edward and I most certainly accomplished that. I was so psyched that I just did not notice his hair or teeth or his skin. One friend that saw the show in August in Salt Lake City had close seats. He told me that Eddie’s skin looked “green.” I just didn’t notice. The next day, he met Darrell “Dimebag” Abbot for the first time.

8.    My Unabridged 2008 Tour Story

San Antonio and Dallas were the second and third shows of the third leg of the 2007-2008 tour. It was something I had been looking forward to since I was twelve in 1984. Almost 24 years had passed—twice as many years as I was old at the time. Because of the fact that there was no talk of recording an album, I was slightly wary that this might very well be the only time I would ever get to see this again in my life. I wanted to bring my decent quality but bulky digital camcorder to document it just for me personally, but I figured that security would be over-the-top, so I brought just crappy, older digital camera on which I was able to capture about ten minutes of lousy video. But it wasn’t about the video or the quality of the video as much as it was simply documenting what was happening. I deemed it an historic event. It needed to be documented. The security in San Antonio was so lax I could have walked in there with a film camera on a tripod. I cursed myself for not bringing my digital camcorder, which at the time could have captured an hour on one tape.

The little that I did document in San Antonio on January 24 was absolutely fantastic. One thing that was very obvious, however, was that Edward had either a bandage or a wrap of some kind around his left hand. It did not seem to affect his playing at all, but everyone noticed and wondered what it was.

I have to admit that I was so thrilled and astounded that my reaction during the show in San Antonio was more that of numbness than “Woo! Yeah!” I was simply thinking, “Holy shit, is this real?” I let the whole event just kind of run through me, just soaking it in. I was extremely sedate during the show with a case of a blown mind. I also knew that just two days later, we would be seeing them again in Dallas at Reunion Arena. That concert would be sold out, and the band would even come back to Dallas later in 2008 for a second show at the same enormous venue.

For the Dallas show, I figured that there was at least a lingering possibility that this show could be the last I’d ever see with Dave and Edward on the same stage together—I was just fearful, even though I was eternally positive for Edward’s future and the future of the band, which seemed to be going completely in the right direction after so many years of drifting. I figured that if the security was lax in San Antonio, then it would be lax in Dallas, so I decided to bring my digital camcorder with me to capture some songs in the best quality I possibly could for posterity. My best friend Michael, with whom I had seen Van Halen with in 1984, couldn’t make it to the San Antonio show, but he did make it for the Dallas show. Again, we had been waiting 24 years to see this. In fact, we really went out of our way to mark the occasion.

A club in Austin called Beerland was hosting a Van Halen hoot night and we jumped at the chance. Our lineup was a little bit from all of the different bands that we have played with and included me, Michael, bass player Doug, and drummer Brando. We billed ourselves as The Brown M&Ms and played “Mean Streets,” “Little Guitars,” “Somebody Get Me a Doctor,” and “So this is Love.” We did our absolute best to be as faithful to the originals as possible. Video exists. It’s not exactly terrible.

It was winter in Dallas on January 26, 2008—Edward’s 53
^rd
birthday. It was another reason I knew I had to capture some video. I was sure they were going to do something special for Ed’s birthday and there was no way I was going to miss it. The walk from the parking lot to the venue was fairly short, and I was bringing up the rear. Brando was up in front of me and turned back to me and said nervously, “Hey man, they got metal detectors, dude.” So, there I was, camcorder in hand. I thought about it and decided that it meant so much to me that I was going to attempt to bluff my way past security. The other guys went ahead of me and stared back like deer caught in headlights. I had put the camera in the back of my pants under my jacket. I set off the alarm. The security lady wanded me and my belt buckle beeped. She said, “You’ve got something right there.” I pulled my pockets inside out, which were empty, and she said, “Okay, go on through.” I just had my ticket scanned and walked on into the venue. I’ll never forget Michael’s immediate reaction was, “I loved your whole ‘What?’ thing about it. That was classic.”

Michael and I sat next to each other in pretty much the nosebleeds of Reunion Arena. I brought with me our original 1984 tour ticket stub and we laughed about it before the show started. The lights went down, up came the rumbling thunder of music from the stage, and into “You Really Got Me” they flew. I had that shot-out-of-a-cannon feeling again. It was fantastic. Song after song was masterful. Ed’s hand was still bandaged, but none of us could figure it out—if it was a wrap or a wound cover. Again, it made absolutely no difference in his playing at all, so that made it even more perplexing, because Edward Van Halen was on fire on the evening of his 53
^rd
birthday in Dallas, Texas.

“Romeo Delight” was one I knew I had to capture in my one-hour limit of tape because it had been so great in San Antonio and always one of my favorites. I had my camera rolling before the song started. This was the tune that Dave had something in mind to acknowledge Eddie’s birthday. Nevertheless, Wolfgang jumped up to the microphone and said, “Let’s sing Eddie ‘Happy Birthday!’” The crowd cheered briefly and Dave turned to Wolfgang and said, “Shut your fuckin’ mouth, Wolfie. Play the song, Eddie!” Edward started “Romeo Delight” and played one single time through the riff and stopped as if he wasn’t sure what exactly had just transpired. He actually paused for nearly ten full seconds before Dave said, “Play the song on the guitar!” and Edward went directly back into “Romeo Delight,” restarting it from the beginning. They launched into a rendition of the highest order of badass, it was straight out over the top. Ed and Wolf’s background vocals were ridiculously spot on. Edward’s guitar solo was absolutely off the charts, completely and totally.

The breakdown was astounding with Wolfgang taking some of the tapping parts on the bass in mini-solo of his own.

As the breakdown reached its lowest ebb, Dave started into “Happy Birthday,” prompting the entire crowd to sing along. “Happy birthday, dear Eddie,” Dave sang, “Happy birthday to you!” Ed stood there smiling, just soaking it in. Afterward, Ed and Dave embraced, with Edward giving Dave his trademark kiss on the cheek. Wolfgang stood close by clapping. Edward got on the microphone and said, “You get to make a wish, right? I want you all to have a great motherfuckin’ time tonight!” With that they launched back into “Romeo Delight.” Just before the “Feel my heartbeat” refrain, Dave said, “You see, Wolf, I just couldn’t sing ‘Happy Birthday’ in the other goddamned key!” Wolfgang walked over and laughed. No harm done.