The legend of the rise of some bands provides local lore for families to pass down. The Pacific Northwest will always have this with Nirvana, and in New York City, it might be seeing the Ramones at CBGB. For Los Angeles, and particularly Hollywood and the San Gabriel Valley, it is Van Halen. Growing up here, with a mother raised near Van Halen’s hometown of Pasadena, seeing the Van Halen brothers at a barbecue or at a tiny club became the tales that uncles would recount of their youth, that would allow their eyes to glaze over and their minds to slip away to a different era. That even a memory of music or a band can provide this transportive experience speaks to the power that music possesses.

This was in full effect on Friday night at a packed Hollywood Bowl. Nearing the end of a long summer tour, the two Van Halen brothers, Alex and Eddie, along with Eddie’s son Wolfgang and their long-time frenemy lead singer David Lee Roth, delivered 140 minutes of unapologetic rock, where men and women alike could relive their own youth, dancing in the aisles and playing air guitar with their friends. And onstage, that same effect was in action.



As with any band of aging rock stars, Van Halen’s 2015 selves are prone to wax nostalgic, very much aware that their audience is looking to relive the past as much as they are hoping to enjoy the present. And some of the evening’s lasting impressions were when frontman Roth, with his ever-changing parade of flashy stage costumes and predilection for giving thumbs ups to random points on the stage, would embrace that. Though inclined to jabber throughout his songs, sometimes incomprehensibly and sometimes with on-point witticisms, it was when the music wasn’t the focus that Roth proved himself to be a lucid, engaging storyteller. An early section of the show found him giving dance lessons, showcasing some of his favorite stage maneuvers and giving their musical history. Later, during an acoustic interlude that found his bandmates offstage, Roth recalled memories of Hollywood clubs and alleyways, of wilder times that he was sure the audience would share. These glimpses into his own mind, into the tradition of Van Halen, put the concert in perspective and allowed those of us too young to share in the Van Halen mythos to comprehend the emotions present in the middle-aged men that surrounded us.

Musically, the band often sounded less like the memory of Van Halen and more like what you’d expect of a group of 60-year-olds. Eddie Van Halen is still very much the guitar god he has always been, handling every iconic guitar lead, from the set-opening “Light up the Sky” and “Runnin’ with the Devil” to the night’s ending hit parade of “Panama” and “Jump”. The guitarist even showcased his trademark finger tapping during his late-set guitar solo, the kind of indulgent moment that the ’80s thrived on, with Eddie missing only the long hair of his youth to recall the stadium shows that Van Halen headlined in their prime. But his drumming brother, Alex, was less on point, finding it hard to keep up with songs and progressively tiring over the course of the set, to the point that “Jump” was only held together by the audience’s commitment to singing along.

But it is Roth that allows the ship to sink and sail. Van Halen has notably been one of the few successful bands in rock and roll history that have considered their frontman expendable, but watching Roth soak up the love of the audience makes it hard to imagine Van Halen being much of a band without him. And though the group spent decades at odds with each other, Van Halen in 2015 finds the hatchet very much buried, with Roth putting his arm around Eddie during the middle of the set to let him know “the best years of my life were spend on stage next to you.”

For this night at the Bowl, and surely for the entirety of the Van Halen tour, musicians and fans alike were invited to relive their own happiest times, their spirited youth gone by, with music being a great way (and maybe one of the only ways) to make that possible.

Van Halen Setlist:

Light up the Sky

Runnin’ with the Devil

Romeo Delight

Everybody Wants Some!!

Drop Dead Legs

Feel Your Love Tonight

Somebody Get Me a Doctor

She’s the Woman

I’ll Wait

Drum Solo

Little Guitars

Dance the Night Away

Beautiful Girls

Women in Love

Hot for Teacher

Dirty Movies

Ice Cream Man (John Brim cover)

Unchained

Ain’t Talkin’ ‘Bout Love

Guitar Solo

You Really Got Me (The Kinks cover)

Panama

Jump

Van Halen // Photo by Philip Cosores Van Halen // Photo by Philip Cosores Van Halen // Photo by Philip Cosores Van Halen // Photo by Philip Cosores Van Halen // Photo by Philip Cosores Van Halen // Photo by Philip Cosores Van Halen // Photo by Philip Cosores Van Halen // Photo by Philip Cosores Van Halen // Photo by Philip Cosores Van Halen // Photo by Philip Cosores Van Halen // Photo by Philip Cosores Van Halen // Photo by Philip Cosores Van Halen // Photo by Philip Cosores Van Halen // Photo by Philip Cosores Van Halen // Photo by Philip Cosores Van Halen // Photo by Philip Cosores Van Halen // Photo by Philip Cosores Van Halen // Photo by Philip Cosores Van Halen // Photo by Philip Cosores