What's My Age Again?

It seemed like a good idea at the time.

Blink-182, on a Thursday night, at the Sands Casino in Bethlehem, PA, two hours away.  Ok.  Maybe didn't seem like that good an idea.  

But, my favorite band, which already broke up once (Van Halen is my other favorite band, by the way), on a relatively close to home on a very limited tour.  There was a little hesitation in our decision when my friend suggested it a few weeks ago, but we decided we had to go.

It did not seem like a good idea, though, as we drove up route 222 in a torrential downpour, or as we had been sitting in a traffic jam around Harrisburg, or on a construction-choked exit ramp 2 miles from our destination.  It did not seem like a good idea as we had dinner at the pub at the casino and were already exhausted.

It did not seem like a good idea a few minutes before 10:00pm, when Blink-182 still had yet to take the stage.

However, from 10:00pm until approximately 11:30, it was a spectacular idea.  Mark Hoppus, Tom DeLonge, and especially Travis Barker put on a great, high-energy show for the fans, most of whom were younger than me. Blink-182 played a mix including most of their biggest hits from each album but also mixing in considerable material from their last full-length album, Neighborhoods (2001) and their more recent EP, Dogs Eating Dogs (2012). (Full setlist here).  I've been a Blink-182 fan since college, and when they fired to huge confetti cannons at the end of "Dammit", their first big hit, to close out the evening, I definitely felt like I had gotten my money's worth.  Great idea!

 (L to R:  Mark Hoppus, Travis Barker, and Tom DeLonge of Blink-182)

I suppose I could say that it didn't seem like a good idea as we drove home, got back to my place at 2:00am, and then had to get up at 6:30 for physical therapy.  But I'd be lying.

It was still a great idea.  What's my age again?  37.  But that's not too old for the occasional stupid punk rock adventure.

Trying to Come Back...Again & Some Off-Topic Fun

I went on my first run since the unfortunate events of Spartan Race. I'd gotten up to run a few other times over the past week and a half, but aborted due to either weather (Saturday), too much pain in the tailbone area (several days last week), getting home at 4am after an excellent Dream Theater concert in Atlantic City (Sunday), waking up too late (Monday), or staying up all night working on Monday night (Tuesday).

I decided that I'd run out of excuses, and so this evening I ended up running 3 miles in 28:46.

It felt like 20 miles.

It was a gorgeous evening, but in the 80s and still Sunny at 6:15ish when I hit the roads. I'm not used to running in the 80s, so I've got to either get out earlier and beat the heat, like I did last summer, or perhaps try 9 or 10 at night, when it may be a few degrees warmer than 6am, but less humid and no sun. We'll see.

At any rate, I feel like I'm starting over and I'm not sure that's necessarily a bad thing. After a pretty good start, the comeback had badly stalled over the last two months. And I do have a plan this time, but I have to save something for my next blog post, right?

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(So, how was the concert, Brian?)

It was great, thanks for asking. For those unfamiliar with Dream Theater, who have failed to achieve the level of fame that their talent deserves, they are a progressive metal band (I don't really know what "progressive" rock means, but think Queensryche or Rush, but heavier) that I've been listening to since high school, when they released Images and Words, which features their best-known song, "Pull Me Under" (which is still not THAT well-known) and Awake, their best selling album to date, in 1992 and 1994, respectively.

However, I was unforgivably behind on their albums. It's easy to lose track of them, since they're more of a cult following-type band then a widely-known band and most of their songs are at least 10 minutes long so that they get almost zero airplay. So last week was spent working long hours and "cramming" for the concert any time I wasn't on conference calls. Except for the side of effect of this metal marathon turning our kitten evil, it was time well spent. Their last three albums, Systematic Chaos, Black Clouds and Silver Linings, and A Dramatic Turn of Events are all excellent, all with Dream Theater's distinct combination of metal and melody.

At any rate, the concert was excellent, with a good mix of old stuff and new stuff that left me feeling evil...but also uplifted at the same time. Musically, they're just amazing. Guitarist John Petrucci, bassist John Myung, keyboardist Jordan Rudess and drummer Mike Mangini on the drums (replacing long-time DT-er Mike Portnoy) are all at incredible. And they like to show off; almost every song has long instrumental bridges between verses, during which lead singer James Labrie wanders off stage to (I assume) play Angry Birds.

Their newer stuff is heavier than their earlier albums, and heavier than I what I usually listen to, but the frequency with which they change mood and speed from heavy to melodic and the vocal range of Labrie, and their often contemplative lyrics make them always interesting to listen to and also made me glad I'd done my homework and caught up before seeing them live. If you like metal or hard rock, check 'em out...these guys can make anything sound epic.

And, during their intro, they also had these cartoon versions of themselves playing on the three screens above the stage. Fun!

Ok, we'll now resume our regular running and complaining about running blog posts.

The Trouble With Never: Another Post About the Return of Van Halen

They've still got it.

I've now seen Van Halen four times, and between age, all of the lead singer changes, the contentious history of the band with whomever is their singer at the time, and Eddie Van Halen's health scares, I'm always afraid each tour will be their last and also a little worried about how they'll sound live.

No reason to worry. I went to the Van Halen concert* on Monday at the CoreStates FirstUnion Wachovia Wells Fargo Center in Philadelphia, and from the opening chords of "Unchained", one of my favorites, to final notes of "Jump" two hours later, when David Lee Roth signaled the end of the show by waving a giant checkered flag as massive amounts of ticker tape rained down on the stage, they sounded awesome.

I'd last seen Van Halen on their 2007 reunion tour. Five years later, time has taken a bit of a toll on Roth. He doesn't look as youthful, and maybe has last a just a bit of his vocal range. Most of the time he still sounds fine, like himself, and more importantly, he just is himself. I became a Van Halen fan during the Sammy Hagar years. I like Sammy; I've seen the band with Sammy; I would just as gladly go see them again with Sammy -- but David Lee Roth is a better performer and I just think a VH concert is more fun with him in the lineup. His energy level and stage presence are just unmatched. It sounds like Dave's antics are quite a bit restrained compared to his 1970s and early 80s heyday with Van Halen, but he still puts on a great show.

I'm not even sure what needs to be said about the Van Halen brothers that others haven't said much better than I. They've been great in every show in which I've seen them, but I think Eddie's guitar solo, a 10-minute mix of "Eruption" and "Cathedral", was the longest and best I've ever heard from him in those four concerts. His "jump", after a hip replacement, is just a little hop now, but he looks healthy and sounds great. Eddie's solos are the best thing about seeing the band live, the thing you miss by not seeing them, and he gets most of the attention, but Alex never disappoints, either.

The most obvious difference between the 2007 and 2012 tours is the growth of Wolfgang Van Van Halen. He was technically excellent in 2007, but he didn't yet seem comfortable in his role. He stood in one place, played his part, very softly sang his background vocals. Now, he's a rock star in his own right He's the most mobile of the Van Halens, being 20 years old, and he understandably moved around the stage much more than Eddie. It's a bit funny to see, three aging 1970s rock stars and a normal-looking 20-year old, but it like Wolfgang was having fun out there.

The only bad thing you can say about Wolfgang is only that he's not Michael Anthony -- it's just odd to hear a different voice singing the background vocals on songs I've listened to thousands of times.

I reconnected with an old friend, the person who got me hooked on Van Halen many years ago, to go to the show, and we both felt like interaction between Roth and Wolfgang was interesting. They share a mic quite often, and DLR seems like he's trying to make Wolf laugh, while the young bassist endures Dave's antics with mild amusement. It's easy to speculate that Dave likes Wolf more than the other members of the band -- he's the only Van Halen who hasn't kicked Dave out of Van Halen...yet.

The set list was mostly 1970s and 80s -- Roth (or the band with Roth) refused to play any Hagar-era stuff. They opened with "Unchained", closed with "Jump", and hit the highlights of the era in between, with some selections that I didn't hear on the last Roth tour. I am a fan of the new album, and so I was glad to hear some of the new stuff: "Tattoo", "She's the Woman", "Chinatown", and "The Trouble With Never". Eddie and Alex both had solos, and Dave's solo was to narrate some video about his sheep and cattle-herding dogs. It's a funny story, if only to picture as Dave says, "a bunch of famers and him" -- normal guys and sequenced-pant wearing David Lee Roth -- sitting behind their pickups watching whose dog can herd the best. He then takes his acoustic guitar and sings the beginning of "Ice Cream Man" before the Van Halens return and Dave's guitar is a decoration again.

Here's the setlist: http://www.setlist.fm/setlist/van-halen/2012/wells-fargo-center-philadelphia-pa-23dee04f.html

My only criticism, as a fan of both eras of Van Halen, is that a DLR show ignores a big portion of the band's history, where a lot of hits were made. I understand why Dave doesn't want to sing Hagar stuff, and I've read that Sammy didn't want to sing Roth stuff, but couldn't not sing some of the band's pre-Hagar hits. I wish somehow everyone could get along well enough that they could tour with both Sammy and Dave and we'd get to hear the hits from both eras performed by the original singers. That will never happen and I'm grateful to have gotten the chance to see them with both Dave and Sammy**.

Of course, on several different occasions I never thought I'd see another Van Halen tour, either.

(Van Halen as seen from low Earth orbit. I'd unfortunately forgotten to bring a real camera. Rats.)

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*I also wanted to mention that the opening act, Kool and the Gang, was a lot of fun, but it seemed to not fit anywhere above and I didn't want to rewrite the whole blog post. Our plan was to stop and get some food before the concert, and we knew our timing might not get us there in time for the opening act and were fine with that. I'm glad we saw most of their set. They got everyone in a good, retro mood that was perfect for seeing Van Halen. Kool and the Gang would probably be more fun in a small venue than from the very top row of the CoreStates FirstUnion Wachovia Wells Fargo Center, but it was still an inspired choice for an opening act.

** I've also seen them with Gary Cherone in 1998. Honestly, while Van Halen III, the album they put out with Gary, just doesn't sound like Van Halen to me, I thought he did a good job performing in concert with the band.

The Guilty Pleasure Song

I'm pretty open-minded in my musical tastes, I think. But when I'm running, the range of music I like narrows considerably. Though there a few outliers, like same Dave Matthews and Counting Crows, which are a good change of pace when I'm on a long run, it's mostly short, fast pop-punk songs to try to keep my energy up.

For example, though I started my last 20-mile run out with AFI' rather grim album, "Sing the Sorrow", which was perfect because I was in a terrible mood at the start, other artists that appeared on my playlist are less serious stuff like Blink-182, Rancid, the Offspring, All Time Low, and New Found Glory. There's various speeds and moods within that set, but even when the subject matter is dark (like most of the Offspring's catalog) the tone is fast and what I would consider fun.

There's one thing on my Shuffle that just doesn't fit. I'm even a little embarrassed by it. However, when it started playing just as I began mile 19, it gave me a huge lift.

Without further ado: "Good Girls Go Bad" by Cobra Starship


I first heard this song in Summer 2010 while I walking outside the Planet Hollywood shops in Vegas, where it seemed appropria)te, and it's become one of my favorite running songs. Its over-the-top, tongue-in-cheek (I guess?) arrogance cracks me up, and it always provides a much-needed laugh.

Shuffle On

I ran with music for the first time in quite awhile on Saturday. (A few weeks ago, I used my Shuffle on the treadmill, but I hate the treadmill with music, without some tunes, there's no way I can could endure the torture.But, I digress.)

I purchased my remanufactured (discounted!) iPod shuffle back in 2007, during my first summer of 5Ks. It's proven reliable and easy-to-use, and I used it during almost every training run and every race from then until October 2008, when I started running regularly on my 10-mile York Haven-to-Goldsboro route, on which I feel the road is too windy, hilly, and narrowly-shouldered to navigate safely with the added distraction of music, as I prepared for the Philly Half. I got used to not having it, and for the next three years, I did almost all my running with only the sound of my own footfalls for accompaniment. Over the past year, I've done more long runs in the more suburban, residential neighborhoods of Manchester and Mt Wolf and even taken to the Rail Trail a few times, but the Shuffle has generally remained at home.

What was I thinking?

Afraid that the Rail Trail would be a swamp after all our rain last week and not having a good 17-mile course planned out along the river without the risk of bonking 6-7 miles away from my car, I chose to stay in Manchester and Mt. Wolf, since I have courses of many different lengths mapped out and am seldom more than 1.5 miles away from my car if things go south. On the downside, this route is boring. That, plus a warm, disgustingly humid day equaled drudgery. If I was to have any hope of finishing my 17 miles, I decided that the Shuffle had to come along for the ride.

I think it made a huge difference -- probably in this case the difference between success and failure. Without it, every single thought would have been "It's sooo humid", "I've never sweated so much before," "This is so gross," etc. Instead, every step was powered by pop-punk angst, and while I still had those negative thoughts, I didn't focus on them as much as I did on other disgusting, humid days over the summer. Especially helpful was a long block of music from The Offspring as I was struggling for the last 5 miles. That anger, cheesy 90's suburban anger though it was, helped me get through.


I've got 18 this Saturday. That'll tie my 2nd-longest distance ever. The weather's supposed to be a lot more Brian-friendly, but I'm planning on running it on the Rail Trail, which has proven scenic but also very boring. I'll be sure to bring my background music with me.