Van Halen World Tour 1998

by Ulli Jung

Alex’s Arm

I was there when Alex hurt his arm, but I'm not an eye-witness, just an ear-witness. They were scrappeling around for a bit, then started ‘Without You’. Something didn't work during the first verse, so they stopped, scappeled around a bit more and started the song again. I was standing right at the stage door, the "Docks" club is a kinda small club, I had been there before a couple of times, the stage was not far from where I stood, and they opened the doors every 30 seconds or so. I couldn't see Alex from where I stood.

When they started to play ‘Without You’ again and I heard Ed playing his solo I knew they were going to play the whole song so that the mixing guy could check the backing vocals at the end (they did the same thing in Berlin the day before) so I was a bit surprised when they suddenly stopped again with some strange noise that was not a part of the song. The doors were closed immediately, and after a couple of silent minutes they started rolling the flightcases to the truck which was parked directly behind me.

My friend Melanie just grabbed one of the local stagehand guys and asked him what happened inside, and he told us that parts of the ceiling came down and hit Alex's arm. He said it looked like it was broken, fortunately it wasn't in the end. Meanwhile they took Alex to the hospital. Me and my friend rushed to our car, because there was amongst others a whole VH fan club from Amsterdam there, and Dutch people and especially VH fans can be uncomfortable when they're angry. When we reached our parking lot on the nearby Reeperbahn we heard a guy with a megaphone cancelling the gig. I don't know what happened then, we went home to my place.

Well, for all those comments that Alex's injury was a fake and that VH cancelled the European shows due to the lack of ticket sales - those guys are ridiculous fools! The Hamburg show was TOTALLY sold out, there were tons of people trying to get tickets outside, but NO CHANCE!

Rock Am Ring

At the Rock am Ring festival on the Nurburgring Formula One race track, I had pass. Just a VIP/GUEST one, unfortunately not a backstage one, and most unfortunately not a photo one. But anyway, it was easy for me to get into the front row, there were 60.000 people standing behind me... It was most uncomfortable, because before Van Halen there were Bad Religion playing, and I never had so many crowd surfers flying over my head. Well, but of course it was worth it!

I had a huge banner with me with "KICK ASS, GARY!" written on it. When he saw that plus my Extreme hat he absolutely enjoyed it and kept pointing at me and the guy next to me who was helping. I also wanted to write "WE'RE STILL AROUND!", but I didn't want to bug Eddie and the guys. But I think this was alright with them, what do you think?! Why shouldn't they want to see their frontman kicking ass!

Berlin

Berlin also was fun, they played in a 1,800 capacity unseated club called "Huxley's", I've been there before lots of times. I went there with mixed emotions, because exactly in that club I have seen one of Extreme's last gigs on the Punchline tour. I went to all the German shows on that tour in '95. I'm sure you can understand my feelings. The show was good, but WAY TOO LOUD! They had four monitor speakers in front of the stage, but directed to the audience, and I was standing (front row of course) exactly in front of Eddie's. I'm really not hypersensitive concerning noise, but I wouldn't have survived that without earplugs! Well at least I could watch Eddie's 20 fingers from the nearest place possible. Gary was hard to reach, as you know he's everywhere on stage. Well, his performance was great, but I would have preferred to see him jumping around with Nuno... sigh...

Eddie was funny though, the dressing rooms in that club were on one side of the stage, and he had to enter the stage to get to the other side, where he was standing, and there was no chance to walk behind that stage, so he had to cross the stage several times before the show. Everyone cheered at him (the first time only the front row people noticed him when he took his guitar to the other stage side, most people thought it was a crew guy), and Eddie gave us high fives, peace signs and funny faces! He also stopped in the middle of the stage, put one finger on his lips and said "Sssshhhhhhh!" Right before the show began he was sitting next to the stage, smoked a cigarette and joked with us in the front row who could see him from where we stood. It was a very intimate atmosphere, and though I wished for Gary that Van Halen would play stadiums (he just LOVES giant crowds, you know that), I was very happy to see the band under those club conditions! It was a bit like seeing the Rolling Stones' usual warmup club gig. Well, I really can't complain, I've seen both, the festival and the club gig.

This time a girl next to me had a huge banner with her with the Van Halen logo and something written on it, and I helped her holding it. Eddie LOVED that, he gave us thumbs up and everything. This girl is a HUGE Sammy Hagar fan, but not one of the militant ones, and she also loves Van Halen, but I told her before the show, she should expect the hell of a frontman! Well, afterwards she told me I hadn't promised too much! She was absolutely convinced by Gary! 

The Good Old Days

You just can't catch Gary anymore without having connections, the guys don't drive with buses anymore...it's limos now. I knew that before, but I still don't like the limo attitude. In Berlin they had two big Mercedes S class cars and one Audi quattro for the ladies.

I'm so happy that Alison got to meet him when he was in New Zealand! I still get melancholic when I remember the Punchline tour. I loved this band for ALWAYS parking the bus in front of the venue, and no matter how late it was they always had their meet'n greet when they left the building! Especially Gary is SOOOO patient with the fans! He could sing like a frog, I still would love him for his gorgeous character! Well, that doesn't mean that I'm in love with him or whatever, I love Extreme for their music, but he's absolutely a guy who's great to have around.

On the Punchline tour in Berlin even Mr "difficult-to-handle" Nuno went with me to my car to sign his lifesize Washburn display that I had in the trunk! Well, it was parked right in front of the bus, but he did it! He had a crew guy with him who had an eye on him when he left the venue and this guy didn't notice immediately that Nuno and I went to my car, he was busy with some other fans, but when he finally saw it, you could see a guy running... ha haaa, he probably thought I'd steal his guitar hero! Nuno just said "'S’alright, man!" and we had a good laugh!

Another story? In Berlin when Gary came out of Huxley's at two in the morning there was a girl who asked him the stupidest questions ever. She started with: "Gaaary, have you heard about this "Mama Kin" club in Boston that Aerosmith opened?" Gary was signing autographs and stopped for a moment to look and her to see if that was a serious question. He saw it was, and smiled at her and said in his friendly way "Oh yes, I know". She asked him: "Have you already been there?" He stopped signing again, looked at her again, and answered "Yes, we played there at the opening night". She still didn't have enough and asked: "Was it packed?" Me and the other fans who watched the scene were already giggling but Gary just smiled at her and said "Well, our friends and families were there, yes!" But absolute not ironically! I loved that!

When he was heading for the bus this girl grabbed his arm and said: "Gaaaary, I'm going to Boston now for one year!" He smiled at her again and just said "Oh, really? Well, I'll be there!" Ain't that guy gorgeous?!