Van Halen – 5150

Everyday for the past year or so, I’ve tried to post a video celebrating…This day in Music. I post a video celebrating the work of an artist or an event in music history. I’m not that “encyclopedic” with my trivial knowledge. I get most of my daily knowledge from http://www.thisdayinmusic.com/. Within the last month or so, a couple of dates that hit me was the 25th anniversary of the transitional(and controversial) release and tour of Van Halen’s 1986 album 5150.

Van Halen had been my favorite band during my high school years. The band represented everything I wanted in rock. They were cocky and full of confidence. It gave me the confidence I needed during my teenage years. I had followed the band religiously. I would buy a copy of Hit Parader and Circus magazine every month just to read more articles about Van Halen. But, I was always annoyed when a magazine would have the headline or “poster” of Van Halen and it would all be about David Lee Roth. I thought Eddie was the greatest guitarist in the world and Alex Van Halen was one of my early drumming favorites too. To me, the band was more than just David Lee Roth….and I still think that!
This was such a great time for me. I had started my freshman year of college in the fall of 1985. Around that summer and fall, it was announced in the music press and MTV news etc. that the band had split with original singer David Lee Roth. This was big news. But, then all the articles usually included a footnote that journeyman rocker Sammy Hagar had been recruited as the new lead singer. As I’ve written before, I had been a regular patron of music and record stores at that time of my life. In High School, I had bought quite a few of Sammy Hagar’s solo albums. I had VOA, Three Lock Box, Standing Hampton, Live 1980, (debut solo album) Nine on a Ten Scale and his collaboration with Journey guitarist Neal Schon HSAS-Through the Fire.  I had listened to these albums front to back and I was a fan of Sammy. But, they didn’t seem to light me up like a Van Halen album would. They just seemed a bit pedestrian or generic sounding and with a lot of filler tracks. So, I was very hesitant about the new collaboration with VH.
Then, in March of 1986, all of a sudden there was a buzz about a new Van Halen album. Even Modern Drummer magazine had Alex Van Halen in a Paiste cymbal ad with parenthesis next to his name as listed from the band “Van Hagar”.  I have never liked that nickname for the band and try very hard never to refer to the band under that name.  I would travel home on weekends to Hastings from Kearney. My parents had moved to Hastings from North Platte early in my senior year of High School. So when I would come home to Hastings, I didn’t have a lot of friends and would spend a lot of my time with my brother Mike. One of those times coming home from either Kearney or the Hastings Imperial Mall with my brother, I had ejected the tape in my car stereo and caught a little bit of a song playing on the radio. As I listened, I thought that the guitar tone and drums sounded familiar and then I thought the vocals sounded familiar too. Then I realized it was the new VH tune Why Can’t This Be Love.  It didn’t sound like the stuff they had done with Dave. But, it had energy to it and it felt fresh.  A few weeks later, during Spring Break, the family(Mom, Dad, Mike and I) drove over to Grand Island for a day of shopping.  I think at the time, Grand Island had about 4 record stores.  The Conestoga Mall had a couple of stores. I was in the Record Town store flipping through the cut-out bins and noticed as I perused the whole store that they were playing VH-5150 in its entirety. By this time, I had heard Why Can’t this Be Love many times and really liked the groove and the semi-scat singing Sammy did with the guitars in the chorus. Then came the slammin’ double bass drums of Alex Van Halen and the double time excitement of the song Get UP!  I stood in the aisles of that store with a smile on my face. I may have even asked the employee the obvious question: “Is this the new Van Halen album?”  Looking back, I knew that it was and I really liked what I was hearing.  I knew one of the stops that day would be a trek over to the Grand Island Dustys Records store. I had become a big patron of the Dustys store in Kearney. So, I was going to support Dusty with this purchase and buy the album when I got over there.  We got back to Hastings later that day and I put that album on my turntable and recorded it over to a cassette soon thereafter too. I was pumped on this album. I liked the energy that Sammy gave the band and the fire that the band gave Sammy.  My one complaint about the production on this album was the lack of bass guitar by Michael Anthony. If you listen to the early VH albums, Mike’s bass is very prevalent in the mix. My other big complaint is Alex’s use of Simmons electronic drums for his rack toms. When he used those drums, he automatically dated the record and made it an album from the 80’s.  As a drummer, that has always bugged me and (at times) prevented me from really enjoying the album.
At the time, It seemed I was buying either a new album every month (or every week). But, I would inevitably come back to that new VH album.  I even drove back to my old hometown of North Platte to share my excitement with my old high school buddies(and VH fanatics).  Imagine my dismay, when my buddy Kent bought the cassette and tells me… “You know what Dave…I don’t like it very much!”  This became an issue of discussion for many years for Kent and I and many music and Van Halen fans. Kent and I had many conversations about the music from the Dave years and the Sammy years. Many fans have always said that the “Diamond Dave years” were their best because Dave was such a great frontman/show man etc. I did have fond memories of cruisin’ around NP with VH blasting from boom boxes, ghetto blasters, walkmans and car stereos. But, I was enjoying 5150 from the same band only with a new singer. David Lee Roth and Van Halen represented my high school years and Van Halen with Sammy represented my college years.
Later in the spring semester, my fellow music department classmate Tim Cline tells me that he and his brother had got tickets to see Van Halen in Omaha on Memorial Day weekend.  I thought it was cool but I still wasn’t sold on the whole Sammy as the new singer. How would they be live? Then Tim called me again and said he had an extra ticket and did I want to go.  Are you kidding? This was VAN HALEN! Even if it wasn’t with DLR, I would get to see my favorite drummer and favorite guitarist in my favorite band LIVE. YES I”m going!  Tim, his brother Randy, their cousin Korry and their friend Joe G were all going and getting a hotel room after the show. So, this was a great big rock concert road trip to Omaha! So, five of us piled in a car. We drive to Omaha and get lost on our way to the Civic Auditorium. For some reason, the first few concerts I saw there, I always got lost trying to find the place.

 

A couple of the guys wanted to watch from the floor and some of us wanted to watch from the stands. The Civic Auditorium was usually general admission seating in those days. So, we could push our way to the front if we wanted. I remember standing on the floor to begin with. The opening band was the classic rock band (and FM radio staple)BTO-Bachman Turner Overdrive….not a bad band. This crowd just wanted to see Van Halen. You could tell because the crowd would just start chanting “EDDIE! EDDIE! EDDIE!!!” After BTO left the stage, the crowd started to push forward. It was much more than I could take. So, after awhile, I decided to go watch it from the stands. I’m not sure where. I never actually took a seat. I just stood and watched the show standing up. I remember the band hit the stage and I remember Alex was wearing a baseball cap and it was hard to see his face. But, they hit the stage with the band’s cover of the Kink’s You Really Got Me.  So, right off the bat…a classic tune from the classic lineup. That should make the crowd happy! Then, into Sammy’s tune Only One Way to Rock!  Then onto Summer Nights and Get Up from the 5150 Album!

I was just on fire about the whole thing! The Concert was simply awesome. All the guys (except Sammy) took a solo. Alex took a drum solo on his (now antiquated) Simmons toms and Ludwig Snare and Bass drums. He really is one of the great drummers of all time(in my opinion).  Michael Anthony took a bass solo that was just a screaming mess of distorted bass sounds. I really did not like it! It was loud and painful to watch. When Eddie took his guitar solo. He played every little bit of his signature licks from the early years. He played the solo from Eruption; The instantly identifiable tapping intro of Mean Streets were followed by the reverb delay of Cathedral from the album Diver Down.  As he played those bits of Cathedral, I thought back to my teenage years in my friend Mick’s basement listening to Diver Down and being told that the sounds I was hearing were made on a guitar and here I was watching Eddie play it.
The band was all smiles and the show was completely high energy. They pulled out Ain’t Talkin’ Bout Love from their debut album and Sammy sang the whole song on top of the lighting rig. Absolutely UNBELIEVABLE! This would be a concert memory for the ages!

Most of my memories of this show are prompted from watching the live home video released later that year titled Van Halen: Live Without a Net.  But, I do remember when they came out for the encore and hit the stage with Alex hitting that all too familiar opening drum riff that John Bonham got from Little Richard’s Keep a Knockin’   I’m talking about Led Zeppelin’s song Rock and Roll. I had become enamored with that song after playing it in a battle of the bands months earlier. Led Zeppelin hadn’t reached the now legendary status they now have. But, their popularity with a lot of people my age were growing at that point. So, When Alex hit that intro, I was jumping up and down and screaming like a man on fire. The people in the seats around me stared at me like I was possessed.  But, I didn’t care. This was a band that got me jacked up excited about Van Halen again. If I had any doubt about Sammy Hagar when I came into the concert, I was completely converted. I came back from that concert and consumed everything I could on Van Halen. MTV aired a special that summer called “Van Halen Unleashed” I dubbed this off from a friend of mine and watched it constantly.

I saw Van Halen two more times with Sammy on lead vocals. I saw them on the Monsters of Rock tour in Kansas City on July 10th, 1988 (3 days after my 21st birthday) and April 19th, 1992 (Easter Sunday). 
There are many people who still don’t like what Sammy brought to this band and that’s okay! We all have our own opinions. But, as I have looked up the many many many live performances of the band with both Dave and Sammy fronting the band, IMO…Sammy is the most consistent singer with this band. The band seems incredibly more tighter with Sammy! The energy is higher and the performance seems more genuine than the “showbiz” phoniness that DLR displays onstage.  I have compared the two frontmen to my own growth and maturity. David Lee Roth was the “Dave” I wanted to be in High School…..very hip, cocky and filled with enough self confidence to say just the right thing(and not with the assless chaps)…..  But, Sammy is more like who I really am. I am your friend, I want to hang out with my friends. I want to be happy with my friends making music and talking about music.  Dave’s rehearsed answers really got very boring and tired over the past 27 years. There was never an honest answer in any of his interviews. 
As most VH fans know, Sammy was basically forced out in 1996 and went back to his solo career while the VH brothers made one album with Gary Cherone on vocals. Sammy reunited with the band in 2004 for a tour and 3 new songs on a double CD Greatest hits package. It didn’t last and Sammy went on to form a new supergroup called Chickenfoot featuring VH bass player and backing vocals maestro Michael Anthony, superstar guitarist Joe Satriani and Red Hot Chili Peppers drummer Chad Smith. For me, when I heard the Chickenfoot debut, it reminded me of the high energy and good feelings I associated to the 5150 album. I credit most of that to the great vocal interplay that Sammy and Mike Anthony have together.
This past month, Sammy released his own autobiography about his career in Rock and Roll and the music business called Red: My Uncensored Life in Rock.  He’s been on a big press tour for the book. I’ve peeked a couple times at some of the chapters. Most people may think that Sammy has a lot of ill will for Eddie and Alex Van Halen. But, as I look at these old clips, I see a band with a genuine love for each other.  I’ve held onto this era of the band as one of the greatest bands ever. I have great memories with friends and family when it comes to this album. When I started writing this blog, I went back and looked at a bunch of the old videos. At the time, the band didn’t have time to shoot actual promotional videos. So, MTV edited the performances from Live Without a Net and added Best of Both Worlds to heavy rotation.  I saw it a lot and until I looked back on the performance, I didn’t realize what a great bond these guys had onstage.