Instead of sweating to Van Halen, the ravers who packed Staples Center on Tuesday often looked as if they were gaping at a movie. They were; they all had to stand at seats, and the dynamic angles on the behind-stage mega-screen pumped the scene with a cinematic dimension.
They had another reason to lurk like peepers behind their cellphone cameras, though: They couldn't quite believe they were seeing Van Halen reunited with singer-ringmaster David Lee Roth after more than two decades.
With his tile-work expanse of Smilin' Bob teeth and his vaudevillian shtick, Roth has always been exactly the showbiz rocker Los Angeles deserves. After an early '70s launch in Pasadena, Van Halen survived the T-shirt tribulations of late-'70s punk, the scythe of addiction and several hiatuses to continue delivering a bigness and whirling glamour that never seem to go out of style. And while ego dust-ups between Roth and guitar god Eddie Van Halen may have led to singer transplants via Sammy Hagar, Mitch Malloy and Gary Cherone, Roth's picture is the one that has stayed in most fans' love lockets.
So the Roth reconciliation, which has teetered on the brink for more than a decade, was huge. Adding to the intrigue, Eddie Van Halen has said he agreed to try it mainly to offer his son with actress and ex-wife Valerie Bertinelli, 16-year-old Wolfgang Van Halen, a shot at filling the shoes of original bassist Michael Anthony. A dubious way to bend the Van Halen family twig, maybe, but that's Hollywood.
A gusher of pent-up guitar energy roared from the stage shadows, the curtain ascended, and Van Halen bombed into the first hit from the group's 1978 debut album, a headbanging cover of the Kinks' "You Really Got Me," to which Roth still hasn't learned Ray Davies' lyrics.
Both sporting trim short hair in contrast to their lank 'dos of the '70s, Roth (in a series of embroidered jackets and top hats) and Eddie Van Halen (in fatigue pants, shirtless) split most of the spotlight time equally, appearing to hate each other very little.
Roth snapped hepcat fingers to Eddie's solo during the jaunty "I'm the One," blew powerhouse harmonica on the blues-shouting "Somebody Get Me a Doctor," traversed the expanded stage arcs front and back with ceaseless muggery, flicked his hat Gene Kelly-style and mounted it on his crotch (no hands).
