After reading Noel Monk's book about his time being the road/band manager, I totally felt sorry for him. But after watching "Breaking the Band" I no longer feel bad because maybe his nice guy persona is fake. Or Sammy rubbed off on him.
On that "Breaking the Band" show both Mike and Sammy crossed the line, imo. They brought up that Alex was such an alcoholic that he needed a pee bucket behind his gong because he would get so drunk that he would pee on himself. That wasn't that bad. Embarrassing, yes, but at least they kept the feud between them. Then, they both brought up that Alex and Ed's parents were major drunks too. You don't do that, imo. Don't bring other family members into the feud. I have no idea what the hell where they were thinking.
When I saw that I KNEW Mike would never reunite with Dave, Alex and Ed. The Mighty Van Halen was laid to rest after that show aired. IMO, the so-called reunion wasn't the VH that I knew and still loved even though Dave said "3/4 original, 1/4 inevitable. I guess it was for the best because at that age there is NO WAY they could've recaptured that stage presence and energy they had during the Roth era. That was 100 percent pure Columbian bam-bam energy. Krell, as they called it.
Sucks that they have not one pro-shot concert or properly mixed audio/video from that era. The 3, 1981 Oakland videos is all we have to reminisce on. The 3, 1979 Fresno videos are cool, but they poorly done. But they are better than nothing. I think every band from that era has multiple pro-shot videos for their fans to enjoy. Hell KISS has like a thousand.
There is a lot of 1982 Diver Down tour videos on the internet, including the US Festival, but that tour was my least favorite because they looked drunk and burned out on that tour. After reading Monk's book I found out why they didn't want to tour so fast after the successful 1981 Fair Warning tour. I watched the US Festival once that was it. That wasn't a good representation of the band. Those full pro-shot shows were actually leaked and not released by the band because they knew they knew they weren't the same. Those shows were not properly mixed. Runnin" With the Devil, You Really Got Me and Happy Trails, from the US Festival, were the only videos from that tour that got mixed in the studio. Not unusual because just about every live album you hear is mixed in the studio before being released, some better than others. Elvis: As Recorded at Madison Square Garden, is the only live album I can think of that was released as is. You hear out of key horns, band talk captured from stage mics, etc.
Anyway. Damn it, Cowboys. Talking about VH here has momentarily made me forget the state we're in. Thanks, guys.
*edit* My God, this looks like blueblood wrote this book. Lol
