Last Tour: RIP EVH

 For my mom it was John Lennon. For me, it was Eddie Van Halen. 

It was probably somewhere between my eighth grade and freshman year. 1983-ish. Someone was playing a Van Halen cassette tape on the pep bus to a football game. The first few bars of that chaotic, yet genius guitar soliloquy called Eruption punched me in the gut. Who was this amazing band who electrified The Kinks and seemed to play one thousand notes a second?

Now, I had already been a music fan. I faithfully listened to my mother's Beatles records as a kid. I had a nice collection of 45s: Blondie, Hall & Oates, Nick Lowe, Michael Jackson. My first two real albums were The J. Geils Band and Joan Jett. But nothing would prepare me for the love-at-first-sight when I listened to Van Halen I all the way through. Six thousand times. I quickly acquired their other albums. Van Halen II. Women and Children First. Fair Warning. Diver Down. I knew exactly how long to rewind my cassette to hear Little Guitars over and over again. Until the player ate my tape, of course.

Then something amazing happened.

1984.

I clearly remember Otis12 on Z-92 introducing the new album "featuring Eddie on the keyboards." And while the music was clever and catchy, something even more wonderful was about to happen: videos. Oh my goodness. How I loved videos.

Now, I had certainly had my share of childhood crushes: Shaun Cassidy. Leif Garrett. Scott Baio. But it was different with Eddie. I was fourteen, for one thing, so I was obviously mature. And Eddie Van Halen was so much more than just a cute pop star. He was a cute rock star, clearly evidenced by the Jump and Panama videos. I never tired of watching him shred the guitar with his sweet smile and kick-ass hair which I sort of replicated in my teen years.

I can't think of high school without a Van Halen soundtrack going through my head. Van Halen was literally at the top of my favorite band list. (This was a very real list that I shared with anyone who was interested in my music preferences.) I had a Van Halen pen which I faithfully used for taking notes and dawdling the VH logo throughout the day. I argued with anyone beating a bible and labeling the band as "Devil's Music," insisting that Running with the Devil was obviously a metaphor. To this day, I will not forgive a few of my friends for going to Van Halen's last "David Lee Roth" concert without me as I sat in my bedroom pining, vowing to let nothing stop me from seeing the band next time they came around.

Unless, of course, the band broke up, which, of course, they did.

You know the rest of the story. Sammy Hagar came around. I liked the new Van Halen, but it wasn't the same for me. Those early Van Halen songs were raw, unexpected and a celebration of youthful recklessness. I was transitioning into adolescence. While I wasn't a terribly reckless teen, I appreciated the sentiment and applauded anyone with the audacity to live a bit on the wild side. Van Halen was that world for me. Even if it meant watching them on Friday Night Videos or listening to the albums in my room. Thankfully, I would explore that world a bit more in college. My roommate and I would even pay homage to Van Halen by decorating our ceiling with red and black electrical tape in the image of Eddie's guitar. (It hardly damaged the paint.)

Other bands eventually snuck their way into my heart. Def Leppard. U2. Coldplay. But none of the charismatic front men of those bands would ever replace Eddie Van Halen. He was my very first, my very best rockstar crush. His music, his style, his influence on a nerdy, young girl will be forever tattoo'd in my heart.

Rest in Peace, Eddie.

Like a Bridge over Troubled Water

The other day I was channel surfing on XM radio and landed on a song I don’t hear often: Bridge Over Troubled Waters. As soon as I heard the familiar piano accompaniment, I cranked the volume and belted out with Simon and Garfunkel. By the end of the song, I was blubbering—crying my eyes out. You see, this isn’t just a beautiful song from my parents’ generation. It’s a song that holds a particularly special memory for me.

At a pops concert my senior year in high school, I sang this song with my two of my best friends, Nicole Heller and Kira Gaer. I was probably the weak link in the trio. Kira carried a pop star eminence and Nicole had a strong voice of her own. My piano background gave me an acceptable level of harmony instruction and we managed to pull off a fairly decent performance—from what I can remember anyway.

Add Nicole, Kira, and me.

Cannily the lyrics came back to me as if I was still that 17-year-old with my two friends, all caught up in the performance that would probably make us big stars. "Sail on silver girl, sail on by."  As my 47-year-old self drove home in the dark from work that night absorbing the beautifully sentimental song,  I became sadly aware of something. Would we ever have believed, back in 1987, we would've ended up with hardly any contact anymore? Never. We would never have believed it.

Kira, Nicole, and I had that 80's aura, John Hughes-like connection. We loved fashion and pop culture with a transparent goal to emulate Madonna on our audacious days or Whitney Houston on our playful days. We were not opposed to rating boys and did some heavy Bible research on premarital sex. We loved to laugh. And most of all, we loved to dream.

It was a given we were all destined to be rich. Nicole made sure we always drove around with the windows down—messy hair practice for when we purchased our first convertible. I was going to be the lawyer (Claire Huxtable style). Nicole would be the doctor. Kira only considered the medical field as her backup plan. Because she never, ever quit singing. She would be the next Madonna. At the end of one night of cruising our country roads and planning our futures, long after Nicole and I had quit singing to the radio, Kira’s voice went hoarse. She apologized. “Sorry guys. I’m not going to be able to sing for you anymore tonight.” We managed.

Nicole and I stayed in touch after high school, rooming together for a bit in college and standing up in each other's weddings. She married her high school sweetheart and became a pharmacist in Spirit Lake with three lovely children. I think of her often and hope she is well.

Neither of us see Kira anymore. Unfathomably, she died at the age of 22 from non-hodgkin lymphoma. She passed away just as we were starting off our lives. I visit her grave once a year and she still visits me from time to time in my dreams. "And friends just can't be found... " What would she be doing now if she would've lived? Would she be settled in with her family? Like Nicole and I? Navigating work and kids' activities? Mailing off our annual Christmas cards to each other? Or would she be competing against Beyonce for a grammy? I kind of like to think maybe.

Cheerleading days

My teenage self probably wouldn't have been surprised that I turned out to be banker, nor Nicole a pharmacist. But I wouldn't never have imagined Kira, the most vivacious of us all, to be gone. But then again, she did always seemed to be destined for the stars. The truth is, she’ll never be gone–nor will the memories of my best pals and the dreams we dreamed. They will always live in a special place in my heart....like a bridge.