( quick apology to my main man letsrock- i couldn't find the thread- and to the moderators- this is not intentionally redundant - i am an old guy here- just reregistered recently )


hey!! do you live in the midwest??
can you drive to central ohio ??

are you feeling a twinge of guilt for how much $$ you spent to see van halen even though mike was excluded??
do you adore eddie van halen even though he is a douche?

well heres your chance homies!! hook up with us to see mad anthony express in akron ohio. tix are still ( if you hurry ) available -- see us beforehand and have a few beers.

trust- these preshow hookups are always a blast!!!

tix are still ( if you hurry ) available --

Who would have thought?
;) Just kidding

Hey i couldnt find the other MA threads where i put the word out there.
Well i found one.

Anyway for a good time PM us and hook up before the show. Its a great time beer, good conversation.

JOhn

have fun!

Whats up Twon?
I had to add "DDLR" to my id here.

John

we appreciate the plug! :D

A DDLR reunion in this thread!

Might as well join in on the fun....

So did Jlor & John go see MA? Was it any good?

Might as well join in on the fun....

So did Jlor & John go see MA? Was it any good?

it was excellent!!

i am working on my full review to post later, but safe to say we had a blast.
mike anthony practically stole the whole show. including the stage break after " mad anthony " the show was 2 1/4 hours. mike was up there at least half the time. vic johnson did a impressive job. lots of surprises on the set. amazing bikini girls. unbelievable.

@ work now so i will post more details asap.

:bounce:

A DDLR reunion in this thread!


i see you saw mike a week ago- did you get to tape it??

ok- FULL review- including "other half" :

i had a logistical nightmare getting all six of us up to akron, but well worth it. stayed at the radisson ( more on that later ) , met john and the family at BW3.

the e.j. thomas hall was nice enough- a bit small for a sammy show and understaffed the bars. but nice . at least a third of the people missed the first half of mike's set which pissed me off ( see my anecdotes after the review ) .

" MAD ANTHONY EXPRESS" -

mike had the most delicious setlist- an excellent selection for old-school van halen fans. he opened and closed with iconic CVH tunes ( RWTD and ATAL ),in between however he dug deep with some amazing deep-cuts and club days covers. some of my gang were " casual " vh fans and were puzzled by some of the songs but were all smiles- especially for the led zeppelin song.

mike's energy was simply off the charts !! he was like some hyperactive kid on a gallon of redbull. there is no way anyone was keeping up with him! the happiest guy associated with vanhalen had to be mike that night!
vic johnson has had about a year to get aquainted with CVH songs- he is not going to rival brian young yet- but he was sharp. he played around with the footpedals a bit but no real gaffs.

the drummer is new- and he was pretty cool- he used lauser's kit but had his own set for when lauser came out for the sammy set- and surprisingly stayed out the whole time! he backed up lauser and filled in with all sorts of percussion tricks . it filled out the sound nicely.

the crowd sang along beautifully with RWTD and ATAL - all in all a great set and a fun happy and impressive show.

" sammy and the wabo's " / "OTHER HALF "

i've seen sammy solo many times- this was a middle-of-the-road performance, imo. a bit shorter than normal but very well-played. his voice was great. he had a lot of energy. not a lot of talking ( probably why the 90 minutes -plus seemed shorter- no long chatty exchanges ) . nothing i could say i was unhappy with.

the setlist WAS AMAZING!!!!! sammy was - not to pun - "outside the box " . like mike he was digging a bit deep - avoiding some of the standards in favor of deeper cuts and some real surprises.
he did NOT play " right now " , " marcing to mars " " poundcake "or " bad motor scooter " - which surprised me.
instead he played the janis joplin cover " piece of my heart " from standing hampton. totally threw me- it was really sweet.
opened with "sam i am " and most of the rest of the essentials. he did the walk through the cantina crowd and about got mugged! mike was onstage alomost the whole time sometimes even when mona was there and he filled in vocals whie sammy escaped.
the bikini girls were un-f-cking beleivable !! just ridiculously unrealistically gorgeous.

the biggest surprise was his closer " dreams " . it was a slower tempo and fully acoustic version. not at all what i would have imagined but absolutely beautiful . it really was sweet. the whole crowd was into it. just sweet -you had to be there. then becuase the crowd was roaring he added a short acappela " cabo wabo " .

all in all a great show- never got slow, great setlist , great vocals .

some anecdotes :

- the venue was not completely full,but the crowd was great. as usual for a sammy show a very happy bunch of people except for one asshole. like i mentioned- a lot of people were hanging out in the foyers and atriums sipping thier drinks and didn't start filling the place up untill mike was half over. counting the brief intermission after mike the WHOLE show was 2 1/4 hours. not too bad- shorter than i would have thought but more than 2 hours. well one guy ( i am sure he was late for mike ) was shitfaced after the show and had a HISSY after the show and was blocking our exit bitching about his " 50 f-xking bucks for an hour and a half !! *&%$#$%!! " . he was with some people trying to nudge him out the door, but he was an angry drunk and shouted and swore all the way out the hall. i said - out loud to everyone that the show as over 2 hours and mike was PART OF THE SHOW! .

he didn't sour the experience ( there's always an asshole ) - but right at the end there it annoyed me . what a douche.


-- on a much better note , the hotel was great and the staff was there was terrific. afterwards we went to the hotel lounge ( we had stopped by before and the place was full of suits and a bit formal ) and the place was full of people from the show. it was pretty cool. we ended up closing the place at 2 a.m. there was this guy who could have been sammy's twin there with his wife , at the end it was my gang of 4 and this guy and his wife and the bartender ( oh and a dweeby salesman who kept leering at the wife when the sammy-clone went out to smoke lol! ) . we had a great time talking about vanhalen all night buying drinks . the lounge had one of those ridiculously expensive jukeboxs that is all digital and its 50 cents to a buck for a track. we spent a fortune trying to find the most obscure van halen and sammy tracks.

felt fine the next day ( very tired but not hungover ) but my bro said i looked like sh-t all puffy-faced from the beers . i had to laugh because he was right! we had such a good time . :drunk:
i hated going home and back to work.

can't wait for the " anthology tour " next summer .