A wall of Brown sound erupted from the darkness and held me captive. I could not breath, I could not move, I could not believe what I was hearing… until the next power chord drove a torrent of sonic fury up my spine. He held the note until its fiery intensity had thoroughly drown me in its current, he held the chord for as long as he pleased.
It was a strange animal being unleashed onto the crowd. You could hear it breathing as the power of that chord’s resonation shook the arena. The whole place was literally shaking. The intensity of that one sustained chord curled every hair on my body… and then it stopped as suddenly as it appeared. It was as if its sudden departure created a vacuum in the room.
It was still dark, and I could feel my heart beginning to pound in my chest. Then without warning a blistering fury of notes and power chords, that made those first two eruptions seem docile by comparison. The fury pounded my heart into submission. Then once again… silence.
The vacuum was more intense, more sustained this time. Perhaps I just died.
Then he pounded his strings once more and this time the wall of sound pummeled me with a barrage of lights and smoke and he emerged from the darkness of the stage alone… just one small man, and his guitar and he shook the ground upon which I was standing with such a violent presence, that I was nearly moved to tears. He was Edward Van Halen. I’m not sure, but I think he was immortal. He was one with his guitar and he played it at will. It was as if he fed off it, and the guitar fed off him. They needed each other.
The band kicked it into ‘Jump’ and proceeded to play for the next two-and-a-half hours and I witnessed a spectacle that transcended emotion.