VAN HALEN at The Tacoma Dome
Wed.Jan.22

Well. first off, the miserable drive down to the Tacky Dome is always enough to get a rainy winter evening off to a foul start. This night was no exception. Couple that with typical TicketMaster annoyances and a mighty ensemble of over zealous south end security and you’ve got a fairly representational Tacoma Dome event.

Due to the distance, we completely missed Alice In Chain’s set, which, opening for Van Halen, was something we’d looked forward to. Due to the wet cattle run/reptilian maze that stood between the tickets and the entrance, we missed the first half of Poundcake. No biggee, but we still gotta find our seats. On the other side.

By the time Judgement Day had started we were set. Runaround completed the initial greet from For Unlawful Carnal Knowledge then they went into several Sammy tunes, One Way To Rock and the solo acoustic Give To Live.

For me, the highlight of the evening by far was when they spontaneously launched into Rock Candy (from Sammy’s early days in Montrose) after picking up a local [RKCNDY nightclub] flyer thrown onstage.

Hearing Rock Candy done live suddenly made it all worthwhile. After having witnessed the Van Hagar production three or four times now, and feeling they are rather uninteresting live by this point, I realized that they still can swing flashes of brilliance.

They touched on the last couple VH albums, OU812 and 5150, with Black And Blue, Finish What Ya Started, Best Of Both Worlds and Why Can’t This Be Love. After I Can’t Drive 55, Sammy went into some angry rant about the state of society as an intro to This Dream Is Over. Then they took their traditional unified bow and left the stage. But you knew the old guys were coming back at least once; just like by looking around you knew they hadn’t lost their ability to pack throngs of scantily clad teenyrockers into arenas.

And they did. Returning with a silly Jump during the chorus of which Eddie was only able to get one foot off the ground at a time. Top Of The World was supposed to be the last, but Sammy, feeling good the first night back from a rest that began when they cancelled the show scheduled here in December, just didn’t want to leave.

So getting back at him for throwing the rest of them into Rock Candy earlier, the three original VH members dove headlong into Ain’t Talkin’ ‘Bout Love, a song Sammy finished by apologizing with,

“We haven’t played that one in five years!”

Sounded okay to me.