Concert Memories: Van Halen, Evansville IN 2/9/1992

Van Halen at Roberts Stadium in Evansville Indiana was one of the first concerts I remember going to with a group of people.  My sister drove me, my late cousin Matt, my best pal Brent, and my future brother in law from Owensboro to Evansville to this show.

I want to say the whole show was general admission....  I do remember being on the floor for it.  No seats, just standing.  Matt, Brent and I braved the floor, but my sister and her boyfriend took seats in the slightly upper seating area.  I remember it being a VERY party like atmosphere at this show, and I had a great time.

The Baby Animals opened for Van Halen and I really liked them at the time.  They had a good, hard sound with a female singer.  I also remember they did a CD signing at the old music store at Washington Square Mall before the show.  We stopped there for a bite to eat, and saw the signing as it was winding down.  As a side note, I can't remember the name of the music shop there, but I loved it.  I thought the Baby Animals were a good opening act, and I thought they would break big at some point.  They had a hit song called "Painless" that I really liked, and I still listen to it a lot on my ipod these days.

A Sammy Hagar fronted Van Halen put on a good show.  I remember Sammy having a great, sincere and likeable stage presence.  You truly felt like he appreciated the fans.  I remember being blown away by the Van Halen brothers and by Michael Anthony too.  I know my sister was always a David Lee Roth Fan, but I always like VH with Sammy more.  I think this was a matter of who you came up with.  My sister is 4 years older than me, so the DLR version of the band was all over the radio when she started listening to music a lot, while the Sammy version was all over the air waves when I got a little older.  I loved Roth's first solo album though.

I bought a "For Unlawful Carnal Knowledge" shirt at the show and I totally wore that thing to school a LOT.  Only one teacher said anything about it, my art teacher, Ms. Hailey.  She was a lot of fun though, and had a great sense of humor.  I think she made fun of me for wearing it.

As another side note, I once won a CD from local radio station 96WSTO by calling in and identifying Michael Anthony as the bass player from Van Halen, who's birthday it was that day.  The DJ told me that he had callers guess every member of Van Halen EXCEPT Michael Anthony before my call.