Photos By Chuck Davis

The one and only time I was lucky enough to see Van Halen live in Orlando back in 2008 was monumental for me; I knew I was watching total greatness on stage that night, grinning from ear-to-ear from start to finish, especially while watching the late Eddie Van Halen perform his guitar solo. To this day, those concert tickets were one of the best gifts anyone has ever given to me, and I’m forever grateful to have seen such sheer raw talent and brilliance in my lifetime (thanks again, Dad).

Yet I still felt at the time like there was something missing that night. As much respect as I have for Eddie’s talented son Wolfgang, as a bass player at heart, it was the riffs of Michael Anthony from the band’s “classic” lineup that I had actually grown up playing along to, and I couldn’t help but feel a certain sense of disappointment that he was not there that night. And as exciting as a reunion with original frontman David Lee Roth seemed at the time, I’ve always felt Sammy Hagar has been miles above him talent-wise.

So I was of course elated when my wife Brooke actually won tickets last December to the Red Rocker’s show at the MIDFLORIDA Credit Union Amphitheater this past Sunday, July 14. The tour not only features fellow Van Halen alumni Michael Anthony on bass and a VH-heavy set list, but guitar extraordinaire Joe Satriani and drummer Jason Bonham (who Rewind It actually just caught last year with Jason Bonham’s Led Zeppelin Evening at Welcome to Rockville).

Of course our luck would change on the actual day of show, as we battled our way through rain storms to get to the venue on time, only to remain water-logged throughout its entire duration. It was so bad that even openers Loverboy decided not to take part; thankfully the wife and I had already seen them once before back in 2014, though our teenaged son Jacob (who is perpetually playing catch up with us!) was actually looking forward to hearing such classics as “Turn Me Loose” and “When It’s Over” (among many others) for the first time.

But the minute the entrance video featuring various clips throughout Hagar’s five-plus decade long career began to play, all worries went to the wayside (for the most part), and it was time to finally rock. Opening with “Good Enough” from Van Halen’s 5150 album from 1986 was not quite the initial “jolt” one might be hoping for right off the bat, but fortunately numbers like “Poundcake,” “Runaround,” “There’s Only One Way to Rock,” and “Judgement Day” were all admirable follow-ups possible of transporting a person back to a specific time and place almost immediately.

Hagar then surprisingly went into “Panama” from the Roth-era 1984 record before launching in to “5150” and “Summer Nights.” After this Sammy graciously stepped aside to let Anthony sing the lead on “Ain’t Talkin’ ’bout Love” from VH’s classic 1978 debut album (one of the definite highlights of the night for sure).

Longtime bandmates Michael Anthony (left) and Sammy Hagar performing in Tampa, FL on 7/14/24 (Photo By Chuck Davis).

“Top of the World,” “Best of Both Worlds,” the Satriani-lead “Satch Boogie,” and “The Seventh Seal” (the only track played from VH’s last full-length album with Hagar at the lead, 1995’s Balance), all followed prior to performing the iconic “Right Now” – without a doubt one of the biggest rock hits of the early ’90s and a major part of my own youth (the band’s 1991 effort For Unlawful Carnal Knowledge was actually the first album I ever owned on CD).

By the time Sammy and co. got to their fifteenth track of the night, “Why Can’t This Be Love,” we had had more than enough of our share of rain, and decided it was time to hit the exits and call it a night. We could still hear the tracks “Eagles Fly” and “Mas Tequila” as we made our rounds through the venue, but with a two hour trek still to get home, missing hits like “Heavy Metal” and “I Can’t Drive 55” did not feel like such a loss at the time.

Regardless of what songs we may or may not have missed that night, the fact remains we made it through it, and the family and I were able to actually share a night of hearing the music of Van Halen together for once (special thanks to Photographer Chuck Davis for donating a couple of the awesome shots he obtained that night to Rewind It Magazine, too!), making every bit of it worthwhile.

Berlin at Epcot’s Garden Rocks on 4/30/22 By Jesse Striewski/Photos By Brooke Striewski

I really didn’t have intentions of going to yet another Garden Rocks concert at Epcot this past Saturday, April 30. But my wife/photographer Brooke insisted we each meet there after our schedules aligned, and I’m glad we did (ironically, I ended up seeing the whole show while she missed a good portion of it!). And truth be told, I didn’t even know much of Berlin’s material until I first met said lovely wife of mine roughly a decade ago.

The band took the stage right at 8:00pm (for the sixth and final time of the weekend according to singer Terri Nunn) opening their short set with “Masquerade.” More fan favorites like “No More Words,” “The Metro,” and the newer “Animal” continued the show before Nunn slowed things down a bit to tell a brief but teary-eyed story about meeting Walt Disney in person when she was a child.

This tender moment segued into the group’s most well-known hit, the synth-pop ballad “Take My Breath Away” from the 1986 Tom Cruise blockbuster Top Gun, which of course the crowd ate up with more than just a little bit of delight (and on a side note, I often point to said film as the movie that really “awakened” me to rock music with its soundtrack, so on a personal level it was great seeing another band that performed on it live, with Cheap Trick and Loverboy being the other two).

But it didn’t end there; a high octane cover of The Cult’s “She Sells Sanctuary” gave Nunn an excuse to run from the stage into the audience and continue singing among a stunned, ecstatic crowd. For the finale, bassist John Crawford put down his four-string to duet with Nunn on a PG-rated version of “Sex (I’m A…),” which if I’m not mistaken, contained some alternate, Disney-inspired lyrics to better suite the atmosphere.

After this, all of the band members gathered arm-in-arm on stage to take a gracious bow. It was a fitting, classy goodbye to an already appreciative audience, and a night few in attendance are likely to forget anytime soon. The only downfall of the entire evening? The lone young lady thrashing herself next to us and hitting us with her hair the entire time. A word of advice in the off-chance she’s reading this; when at a concert, have some courtesy for those near you, because you never know if those people next to are actually there to get coverage (like this) of the show for you.

Berlin taking a bow after their final set at Epcot’s Garden Rocks on Saturday, April 30, 2022 (Photo by Brooke Striewski).

Retrospective: 20 Years Since the Last Great ‘Wet Hot American Summer’ By Jesse Striewski

In the summer of 2001, an ensemble cast of young comedians and actors unleashed the mother of all summer camp romps on an unsuspecting world, Wet Hot American Summer. Directed by David Wain, the film was given an extremely limited theatrical release after premiering in New York on July 27, 2001 (and six months before that at Sundance), and went largely unnoticed at first (I myself didn’t catch it personally until years after its release when I came across it on cable TV).

Set in the summer of 1981, it follows a group of counselers and kids (the majority purposely played by actors far too old for their parts) at Camp Firewood in Maine. Janeane Garofalo leads the group as Camp Director Beth, who does her best to hold together her group of misfits – each focused on wrapping up their own indivdual pursuits and/or love triangles – on the last day of camp, often with over-the-top results.

Frasier’s David Hyde Pierce plays a professor in a role seemingly tailored for him, while several members of the MTV show The State, including Ken Marino, Michael Ian Black, Joe Lo Truglio, and Michael Showalter, turn in some showstopping moments. Paul Rudd also plays one of the best/worst bad guys on screen to date, while a young Elizabeth Banks slinks across each and every scene as the stereotypical ‘loose’ girl.

But the most unforgettable performance has got to go to Law & Order‘s Christopher Meloni, who cranks out the crazy as a cook/Vietnam vet who talks to a can of mixed vegetables, and helps the kids with their ‘woes’ (the montage with him and Showalter is without a doubt the standout moment of the entire film). This was not the only time Meloni would let the guard to his more serious side down (having since appeared in two Harold and Kumur films as well), but certainly one of his most memorable moments doing so.

Of course the music reflects the time it’s set in as well; tracks by Foreigner, Jefferson Starship, and Quarterflash make their way throughout the picture. Several of the bands featured I have since personally seen live, including KISS (the solo from “Beth” can be heard at one point), Rick Springfield (“Love is Alright Tonite”), and Loverboy, who have not one, but two tracks on the soundtrack with “Turn Me Loose” and “When It’s Over” (hearing the latter two songs used in the film may have actually been the moment I realized Loverboy wasn’t half bad, and might have even helped convince me to go see the band in concert with my wife in 2014, see attached flyer below). Unfortunately, I have very few usable photos of Loverboy, thanks to it being a last minute show, and our not having a SLR camera with us at the time (anyone out there with pics from the show, I would love to see them!).

The characters have since been brought back twice via two Neflix shows; First Day of Camp in 2015, and Ten Years Later in 2017. But I digress; if you have never seen Wet Hot American Summer, now would surely be the perfect time to give it a chance. After all, you still have a few weeks left until the ‘last day of camp!’