(Parental warning: explicit post) 

So the Oregonian has Van Halen's Rock: In search of a Party but I did bring the party, in the '99 Deville we a ragamuffin crew of 40-plus yr old men pumping fists, drinking exacly enough to not get tipsy and dozing off to long, long, will-he-ever-get done guitar solo's by Eddie Van Halen ... yes we brought the party to the very top row of the Rose Garden ... but where the hell was the after-party?!?    I mean really, Prince can have an after party and our friggin' chariot is turning orange at the stroke of midnight ... we can' even get a slice of pizza.

We got out of the Rose Garden at 11:30, walked out into gusts of wind and rain, lost Ron temporarily, thought about "Denny's" as a food option ... and realized how freakin' non buzzed we all were ... a sobering reminder that they stop selling beer at the Rose Garden right after David Lee Roth says "Helll -lllo Portlannnnnnnd" and that the car is a hike up a hill and nobody's had a bite to eat all night ...

so the 5 aging, safe-partiers in search of food happen on 3 joints that are all closed at 11:45, including a brew pub so we kind of disembark realizing we're closer to geritol than rave's and that we can't hear a damn thing each other is saying because of our noise induced hearing loss, which at our age is probably non-recoverable.

So much of what Dave is singing about, 25 years later, rings so true now with the aid of wisdom and age, consider:

"Have you seen Junior's Grades ??"     Used to be self-relative, now its really "Junior"  (our parents didn't get that, then again they didn't listen to Van Halen)

or, my personal favorite

"... I've been to the edge, and there I stood and looked down ... you know I lost a lot of friend there (baby) I got no time to mess around"

(how disappointing that in the early years, Dave always substituted, Live in concert "I've got no time to fuck around") ... but yeah, been to the "edges" and stood ... all rang true in the lyrics, except ... well "fuck around" brings such a pure, more honest look at what most of us really go through.  My only disappointment of the night, really, was that one lyric.

So the tamer, and not so much running around the stage front man managed to high kick every third song, not quite 180 degree vertically above his head in crotch splitting fashion but still higher than any of us would attempt, and with his open Captain Kangaroo meets the Barnum & Bailey ring leader jacket, no shirt and tight 56-year old midriff with short hair (which although not gay, I think looks better than Sting with his too close crop of cruft) ... Dave was the consumate stage commander and did his job remarkably well, both vocally, engaging the audience and keeping it moving towards the finally of "Jump" .  I loved the description in the Sacramentro Review of Dave as your cool, happy to be here, rock-n-roll Uncle.  That about sums him up.  I love him. (and thereby never liked Van Hagar with Sammy as frontman)..

I still was moved most by "Unchained" ... as Change, nothing stays same "unchained" you hit the ground running ... always felt that way... move, move, move ...

Always embraced change, myself, was refreshing to see Van Halen resurface, regroup and finally embrace it too.

Almost felt like, "Hey people, if you didn't get what we were doing the first time around, you know, as one of the most popular and biggest Rock bands of all time ... here's what it was about ... we are the shit, we bring our A game, and we are the party band. So two of the three have always been true (they sometimes were known to not bring their A game).  They did Saturday night." For those in doubt, note that Van Halen is in the Guiness Book of World Records with the most No. 1 hits in the Rock category (yes, that's more #1's than the Beatles!) 

Will they rock forever (like the Stones)? Doubt it, they won't stay together that long. Will they put out any new stuff (really, I hope not) ... was it great to take that trip back and see the Van Halen's back with David Lee Roth. Of course, was it sobering to be over 40 with a bunch of guys that have to turn in at midnight. Priceless.

M.