ION INDIE MAGAZINE September 2015, Volume 16 | Page 19

DARLING’S WATERFRONT PAVILION • Bangor, Maine • July 30, 2015
XFINITY CENTER • Mansfield, Massachusetts • August 1, 2015
I could have easily turned this review into an argument about
who’s the best front man for the mighty VAN HALEN. But does
anybody ever really win that argument? Is it even worth
wasting your breathe trying to figure out who’s been the best
choice with the mic to front one of the world’s greatest Rock
bands? Is it Sammy or Dave? Should we even consider Gary
Cherone? Who’s the better singer? Sammy or Dave?
Shouldn’t we include the awesomely talented Gary Cherone in
that discussion, even though his tenure was oh so brief? The
Van Halen fans vs the Van Hagar fans vs the VH III fans…the
Van Halen brothers and company have taken on many forms
in the band’s history, and it’s legion of fans are always ready
and willing to argue about which version was and is the best.
What can be said with absolute certainty is that Van Halen –
whichever version is your favorite, has given us catalogs of
great music and vivid memories of awesome stage shows
since the late 1970’s.
A few weeks before my 18th birthday and a month before
graduating high school, a friend’s older brother took us to see
a newer band that everybody was talking about. That would be
the first time I ever witnessed Van Halen live, at the
Cumberland County Civic Center in Portland Maine--May 16,
1981. I seized the opportunity to smuggle in my old Pentax ME
Super camera with as many rolls of film as I could stuff into my
pockets. I didn’t realize it at the time, but that was actually the
start of my other life-long addiction--concert photography. It