Ignoring My Own Advice

One of my favorite pieces of advice to give people is pretty simple: "don't listen to me, listen to you." I find that about 90% of the time when I talk to someone about a problem, they seem to already know what the best way to handle it is and all I end up saying is "yes, I think you're right". And it never ceases to amaze me when the same person who just told me what the best solution was then goes out and immediately does the exact opposite.

Well, this time it's me doing it as I didn't listen to my own advice: I went and saw Van Halen again.

I am one of the biggest Van Halen fans that ever walked the Earth. I've now seen them 9 times since 1994 (and that doesn't even include the 3 times I've seen Sammy Hagar solo and the one time I saw Sammy and DLR solo on tour together). I also own every studio album on CD (yep, even the brand new one) and I still remember going around to ARC Record Conventions in the pre-internet days scouring dealer booths for bootleg cassettes, VHS tapes, and even the occasional $60 CD. Nevertheless, back in 2007 about midway through my 8th time seeing them (which also happened to be my 2nd time seeing them that week) I suddenly knew beyond all doubt that I never needed to see them again. And yet I did. And how appropriate that the show was a week ago Sunday. Yep, April Fool's Day.

It isn't that the show was truly bad and was torture to sit through. It's just that I found myself completely unable to get excited about it. David Lee Roth has always been a terrible singer live - even when he actually tries to "sing" instead of just talking his way through he still makes absolutely no effort to stay within the rhyme and meter of the way the song was recorded. He was able to get away with it back in the day due to his undeniable raw charisma. Well, what's original and charismatic in your 20s and early 30s just looks lazy and tired when you're in your late 50s.

And then there's Eddie. God bless him, he's still one of the greatest rock guitarists out there. The trouble is that even though that's true, he's a mere shadow of his former self. I used to go to a Van Halen show and hang on his every note; I'd strain to hear each note of every solo and actually hoping that somewhere along the way he would screw up. Because it was like hearing God make a mistake - that tiny trace of an imperfection which offered the reassurance that he was human after all. Since seeing him in 2004 when he was quite, shall we say, chemically unbalanced, that perspective has flipped. Now as each solo approaches I think "please don't screw this up Eddie". And for the most part he does just fine, but this is Eddie F'n Van Halen we're talking about here - "just fine" does not cut it. I wish I could look and listen to him while comparing him to the rest of the guitarists out there but I can't. I can only compare him to himself, and he just doesn't measure up anymore.

Really, it's not his fault. The guy's 57 years old and to compare him to his 20 and 30-year-old self is admittedly unfair. But just like it was sad to see Michael Jordan those last few years on the Wizards, it's sad to see EVH now. But here's the thing - that's when Michael Jordan retired, and that's what I think it's time for Van Halen to do.

I don't think this is specific to Van Halen though. The more I've thought about it over the last week, I think I've decided that all rock musicians should stop when they hit 40. Really, can you think of a single rock musician where, if they had stopped at age 40, the world would have been denied some of there best work? *Maybe* U2, but that's about it. Everyone else I can think of has released albums that are either downright awful or merely decent, but nothing great. Hell, I actually think that the latest Van Halen album is pretty good, but that's because 75% of it are unreleased songs that Eddie wrote 25-35 years ago.

This is a problem that's specific to rock music, I think, because rock is the music of conflict. Whether it's a political struggle or resisting conformity or just wanting the right to get high and/or drunk and/or have sex all day and not give a shit about anything else - it is predominantly about fighting for something. Thus rock is by definition the music of the young and energetic. So I think that there is just something inherently sad about seeing aging, decrepit rock stars up there singing the rock anthems of their youth. It's not that I don't think they have the right to do it, or that people don't want to see them do it, it's just that somewhere along the line I wish they'd realize "alright, that's enough already" and stop, even though I know they won't.

At least stop making new music. I think they should hit 40 and take 10 years off. Then at 50 you can come back out and play your old hits if your fans still want to pay to hear them. Just do it with the full knowledge of what you are at that point - a nostalgia act. Realize that, whether you like it or not, no matter how good you were in your glory days your contribution to the pantheon of rock music is done. You're not "still going strong" or "still rocking after all these years" - you've basically been reduced to being your own tribute band.

Taken in that context, I think that was my real problem with the Van Halen show. They still think they're a current rock band, and I was hanging onto that too. Instead, if I had gone to the show with the mindset of "oh, I just wanna get drunk and sing 'Panama' with 15,000 people one more time" I probably would have enjoyed it a lot more. Hey, maybe I will go see them one more time after all . . .

Just kidding.

I think.