Van Hagar '04 Part One: Thank God Its Saturday

Rest assured, fugitives of the arena rock days, that sometimes gods still hurl lightning bolts and stomp mightily. Some slumber for awhile, then awake to find that no one cares anymore. But some rub the sleep from their eyes, stretch, and roar again like in the days of yore. The Sammy Hagar-era Van Halen came to the Save Mart Center in Fresno on August 14th, 2004, and captured the sheer joy of the "Party On, Garth" days long thought lost.

Tickets for this event were announced a few months in advance and on the first day of sale, I bought a quartet of them for my wife Mary and I, Mary's sister Jean and her husband Scott. August 14th was to be a Saturday night, which meant it would be a party atmosphere with the ultimate party band. We sat on these tickets for what seemed to be forever and the excitement of going to the show waned a bit there for a time. But in the days leading up to the concert, I started looking forward to the show more and more. I played the handful of Van Halen discs featuring Sammy that I have and imagined the tunes cranked up live and loud. One of the releases I have with Hagar is the double live Right Here Right Now which was actually recorded in Fresno back in 1992 over two sold out nights at the old Selland Arena and released in '93 as a album and a video. Its a pretty good representation of the band at the time and I used it to get reacquainted with that Van Hagar sound. (Note: I was at the first of those two nights as well, but no good stories to tell).

The four of us decided to get something to eat at TGI Friday's, not for the exquisite cuisine and classy decor (now featuring more flair!), but simply for convenience. There are closer restaurants to the SMC arena, but I figured that they'd be packed with drunken, rabid mullet-heads, and we'd never get seated in time. Saturday night would also make it too busy to get into some of our choices out in the burgeoning Riverpark area of town, which really is just a commercial cluster of even more Middle America approved, lowest common denominator, national chain feed-troughs that seem to specialize in deep frying anything that may have started out as somewhat healthy. (On a side note; without a doubt, the most overheard comment at Krispy Kreme is, "I hear that "insert neighboring town here" is getting a Krispy Kreme too.") TGI Friday's, being in a central location to meet Jean and Scott and somewhat away from the masses treating themselves to what Fresnans call a "nice" dinner, got the vote and turned out to be a good choice. We beat the crowd, got seated right away (although too far away from the hypnotic draw of the Raiders pre-season game on T.V.), and got a round of drinks for a toast to our genius. I was feeling assured that we'd get to the show in plenty of time to people-watch and get to our seats in time to catch some of the opening act if we wanted.

I had exchanged cell numbers with a few folks that I knew would be at the show that night. During dinner, I got a call from Mark, a really cool guy from one of my accounts, who told me that he and his buddy would be in the parking lot tailgating. He also said that there were signs posted prohibiting any sort of tailgating, especially with booze. We both laughed over the crackling cell signal as he gave me navigation to his parking spot. I folded up my phone and looked at Mary. She was making a stressful face. I asked her what was wrong and she replied that something was going wrong with her stomach. "Easy, girl", I said.

Mary and Jean had ordered Long Island Iced Teas and it looked like Mary had slammed hers a bit fast, burning her tummy as it paid her a punitive effect. Jean to the rescue; she produced a Nexium from her purse. It worked almost instantly and Mary was back in the game, this time ordering a Widmer. "Atta babe", I said.

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I know from experience how those TGI Fridays Long Islands can creep up on you. Years ago, on the night of my 21st birthday, my co-workers at the bank I worked took me out to TGI Fridays. Mary met us and we had drinks, me gladly showing my I.D. when checked by the waiter or bartenders. Mary and I were heading to Reno the next day so I could celebrate by gambling and drinking legally. I was a fairly proficient beer drinker by this time, but not so experienced with spirits, and I was given Long Island after Long Island by my "friends" from work and soon was touting this particular mixture as the "bes' fuggin' drink inna wurlda!" Then they ordered a bottle of champagne. You could almost hear the referee start the 10-count at that moment.

Somehow, I managed to shower and pack the next morning. I felt surprisingly alright, but a bit sluggish. I had Mary's car and as I drove to her place the next morning, while waiting at a stoplight, my left leg began shaking as I attempted to hold in the clutch. It wasn't a muscle spasm, but an involuntary shut down of motor skills. My brain was emphatically telling that leg to stay put, but it seemed like it was trying to bounce out of the car. I fought my way through the remaining lights with a cold sweat beading up on my forehead and chills running all the way to my fingertips. What the hell was this, some sort of delayed hangover? I pulled up to Mary's house and she met me at the door. I could tell by the look on her face that I couldn't have looked so hot. I mumbled something about how she should probably drive to start out. Before she made it to the outskirts of town, I had crawled into the back seat of that '87 Nova and snored all the way to Sacramento where I forced myself to eat some breakfast at Denny's to start my recovery. As I blinked from time to time from deep sleep to severe grogginess, I would hear Mary changing cassettes. One was Van Halen's OU812, making it kind of a full circle Six Degrees between Van Halen and TGI Fridays for me.

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We finished up the last round of drinks and drove over to Jean and Scott's house to park Mary's car in driveway. They don't live far from the arena and this way we'd save on parking while Mary could rest easier with her car at Jean's instead of Fridays. While Mary and Jean freshened up, Scott and I popped a beer. Not necessary, but a good time-filler. The girls came out beautiful, Scott and I stayed ugly, and we piled into their SUV for the short trip to the Save Mart Center. By cell phone, I verified Mark's position and gave him an ETA. We breezed through the surface street traffic, pulled up to pay for parking and saw the signs pertaining to tailgating. More laughter. We'd seen Mark's car from the overpass, and Jean made a bee-line towards the Honda that held the promise of more beer. The gravel laid on the temporary lot crunched loudly under the tires, but I could still hear Van Halen tunes pumping over car stereos from all over the hard rock bivouac.

Next Up: Van Hagar '04 Part Two: A Phoenix Soars In Fresno