Real-Time Thoughts On Van Halen’s Without A Net Live*

• Sometimes, I hear Younger Enthusiasts talk about the 80’s.
• “That’s my aesthetic,” the YE’s say.
• Bullshit, you little bastards.
• THIS.
• This was the 80’s.
• Not synthwave or vaporcore or any of that shit.
• The 80’s were a mousse-stained bandana wearing a deconstructed double-breasted jacket.
• With sneakers.
• These were the guys who were headlining the arenas and banging all the chicks.
• Your mom probably would have been around the right age at the time, Younger Enthusiast.
• Van Halen fucked your mom, dude.
• Are you gonna talk about the show or not?
• I was easing into it.
• Anyway, this is New Haven, Connecticut, on the 5150 tour; it’s virtually the only pro-shot record of the band back when they were any good.
• My God.
• 
• It’s the Steinberger.
• Guitarists went nuts for those geeky toys in the 80’s.
• A guy at my high school named Adam Bagoon had one in white.
• I still remember his name because he had a Steinberger.
• He was unto a god to us.
• Fucker just had rich parents, but still: IT DIDN’T HAVE A HEADSTOCK!
• That’s some magick right there.
• Eddie’s was cooler than Adam Bagoon’s, though.
• First of all: paint job.
• Second of all: cigarette.
• 
• I don’t even know how he did that.
• On a normal guitar, you can jam the butt between the low E string and the headstock.
• Like this:
• 
• But I have no idea how Eddie jerry-rigged a holder out of a Steinberger’s neck.
• Jesus fucking Christ, it’s the drum solo.
• Which begins with the gong.
• Most drummers save the gong-whacking for the end.
• It’s a climactical kinda sound, y’know?
• But not Alex Van Halen.
• Gong first.
• He’s gong ho.
• BOOOOOOOOO.
• Shaddup.
• Why are you even doing this?
• Honestly?
• No, lie to me.
• Because I’m an artist.
• Now tell the truth.
• Well, a lovely Enthusiast hit the Donate Button incredibly hard.
• And requested this?
• Oh, God, no.
• Who the fuck would request this?
• I’m halfway through and I’m still not sure whether I want to be doing it or not.
• Kinda leaning towards “not.”
• But, you know, I didn’t write anything last night and I felt bad about it.
• Like I should do something.
• But why did the “something” have to be this?
• My mental state is rapidly deteriorating.
• Okay.
• Can I get back to it?
• You do you, Sancho.

• You don’t have to watch the whole show–you have my permission to abstain–but at least watch this one tune.
• The song is the eponymous album cut from 5150, the first and best of the four Van Hagar records, and it is the band’s latter years encapsulated: the digitalish drums, the drenchings of harmony, the useless lyrics.
• And the trousers, Enthusiasts.
• Oh, the trousers.
• “You! Boy! Are those baggy trousers still in the window of the haberdasherery?”
• “Yes, Mr. Van Halen! The baggiest I’ve e’er seen!”
• “Fetch them up for me! Bring them back in ten minutes, and I’ll give you half-a-crown!”
• Sammy and Eddie are now doing the evergreen “Guitarist mimics the singer” routine.
• This was a high-level Rock Star Move.
• Any schmuck could pull off the leg-on-the-monitor, or the town-name-lyric-sneak, but doing the call-and-response with the guitarist was only for professionals.
• Most of the material on this tour was from 5150, as Sammy did not want to do too many of David Lee Roth’s tunes.
• He could certainly sing ’em.
• The Red Rocker has–objectively, measurably, statistically–a better voice than Diamond Dave.
• Dave couldn’t sing.
• He was a great singer, but he couldn’t sing.
• The notes bedeviled him.
• Live, he’d mostly just yell and do karate.
• And this was before he blew out his voice.
• Anyway, Van Halen was never above cheap (and effective) showmanship.
• Look at this bullshit:
• 
• Place went nuts when they did that.
• Didn’t cost a cent.
• The best tricks are the simplest.
• Van Halen tried.
• They went out there and made an effort.
• Jumping and running and making eye contact with the audience and all sorts of guitarobatics.
• Hopping, frolicking, gamboling.
• “NOW IT’S YOUR TURN TO SING, NEW HAVEN!”
• And there’s nothing at all wrong with that.
• Maaaaaaan.
• You don’t always have to be too cool for school.
• For example, Sammy has now interrupted Best Of Both World to spray paint a pair of shoes.
• A woman threw her flats onstage, and then Sammy spray-painted them red while chatting with the crowd.
• A purse has also made it into Sammy’s hands, and he is accusing the other members of Van Halen of being its owner.
• Banners proclaiming the band’s greatness, and bearing its logo, have also been presented to the group; Sammy fashions one into a cape and drapes it over Michael Anthony’s beefy shoulders.
• Which means the bass solo is nigh.
• Eddie taking an extended solo is understandable.
• Cuz, you know, Eddie is Eddie Van Halen.
• But Michael Anthony is not Eddie Van Halen.
• He’s shorter, for one thing.
• And he’s not the greatest guitarist that ever lived.
• He’s a great harmony singer.
• Can play the bass pretty good.
• But he’s not Eddie Van Halen.
• Michael Anthony does seem to know his limitations, though, and spends his time in the spotlight making end-of-the-world noises and running around hyping the crowd up.
• Also:
• 
• Fuck you, that’s cool.
• PANAMA!
• Dave’s songs were not meant to be sung by anyone other than Dave; the words make no sense when you can understand them; the lyrics of Dave’s songs were mostly just delivery vehicles for grunts and yelps.
• Sammy has shed his Chess King blazer to reveal his multiple bandana configuration.
• One is a sash, several are bejoined around his neck, the legs are involved: Sammy has transcended his humanity.
• He is the Mandana.
• Ooh, Love Walks In with Eddie on the synthesizer and Sammy on lead guitar.
• Don’t get it twisted: Sammy can play.
• If Sammy was in literally any other band, he would be the best guitarist.
• Tough break, Sammy.
• How much of this was overdubbed?
• The harmonies are suspiciously perfect.
• Why not put out a live album, Van Halen?
• Warts and all.
• Surely, you made work tapes of the shows, Van Halen.
• There’s gotta be some salvageable nights in there.
• I know a guy in Canada who could walk you through the process.
• You only have to sell around 15,000 units to turn a profit.
• Again: I can hook you up with someone who knows all about this.
• Aaaaaaaaaaand here we go:

• Thirteen minutes?
• Oh, kiss my ass, you Dutch drunk.
• That’s longer than one of Garcia’s marriages.
• …
• Jesus, he can play.
• I wouldn’t be pissed at Jascha Heifetz soloing for thirteen minutes, so why would this annoy me?
• General principle.
• Guitar solos should not be this long on principle.
• In practice, this specific guitar solo is acceptable.
• I saw Van Halen a few years after this on the For Unlawful Carnal Knowledge tour, and Eddie’s solo was the highlight of the night.
• EDDIE!
• EDDIE!
• All fucking night, but especially when he stood out there by himself and ESPECIALLY when he started doing the tapping bit from Eruption.
• I lost my voice screaming.
• Yeah, it’s pointless showing off.
• But the best part of the NBA’s All-Star weekend is the dunk contest.
• FUN FACT: Eddie kinda married himself.
• 
• A little weird.
• The second of two tunes from Sammy’s pre-VH days: I Can’t Drive 55.
• He simply couldn’t do it.
• The man was incapable, be it physically or mentally, of sticking to the federally-mandated speed limit of 55.
• It wasn’t that he didn’t want to.
• He couldn’t.
• The act was beyond him.
• Anyway, Sammy is perched up above the audience on a scaffolding, and–as he has his guitar–is singing into one of those earpiece-attached doohickey mics that the NFL analysts wear.
• Hey, it’s Ain’t Talkin’ Bout Love!
• Ohhhhh, that’s why Sammy’s up there.
• For the line about “I been to the edge and there I stood and looked down.”
• I get it now.
• Not the best line in the song, though.
• That’s “You know you’re semi-good-looking, babe.”
• Holy shit, Sammy is hanging off that fucker by his fingertips.
• Here, look:
• 
• Who the fuck let him do that?
• He doesn’t even have a harness on.
• Someone call OSHA.
• Rock Star is an Occupation, and this is clearly a Safety Hazard; the incident is well within the agency’s purview.
• I want OSHA to use the Time Sheath to go back to 1986 and fine the shit out of Sammy Hagar.
• …
• That was a weird sentence, I agree.
• Shouldn’t have made sense, but yet both you and I got it just fine.
• Something wrong with us.
• Anyway, Eddie is back behind the synthesizer for Why Can’t This Be Love?
• Appropriate question.
• We’re told that it’s got what it takes.
• The antecedent of “it” is not made clear.
• But, whatever “it” is, it’s got what it takes.
• Although, we are not apprised of what “this” has got.
• “It” is not logically required–syntactically speaking–to be “this.”
• We know that “this” is not love.
• Of that we can be sure.
• But what is “this?”
• Hand sanitizer?
• The St. Louis Tushee Dance?
• Ennui, as a concept?
• Dunno.
• Sammy Hagar has secrets, and you will never know them.
• Ew, Rock and Roll.
• The Zeppelin tune.
• The song’s fine, but covering it shows a lack of motivation.
• It’s the obvious choice.
• And the big finish, fireworks and sustained chords and rabbiting about together in boyish camaraderie.
• This was your Woodstock, children of the 80’s.

*Dude, I totally forgot that the Dead also had a live record called Without A Net. Always a Dead connection.