Yes I Was There!

memories from the very first concert of the American Monsters of Rock tour

Two days ago I saw major rock accounts in Twitter posting about this 1988 tour, and specifically about the kick-off concert down in Alpine Valley. This isn’t some special anniversary — it’s been 34 years since that particular Monsters of Rock tour — though this one was the first American tour. But I gotta say, it was a pretty awesome day, and one of my favorite concert experiences ever!

They asked: Were you there? And I realized not just that, yeah I was there, but that — something I didn’t know as a 17-year-old metalhead — this was a pretty special day. Alpine Valley in East Troy, Wisconsin, was where the whole Monsters of Rock American tour started! And I was there!

Getting There And Getting In

Monsters of Rock came close to the end of my senior year of high school. Back then, I was what you would call a “burnout”. I was on the smart side, so I could coast by in my remaining classes, especially since I had no intention of going to college. I did like reading a wide range from speculative fiction to semi-philosophical stuff, but my main interests at the time were endurance lifting and martial arts, a string of relationships, partying with my friends, and of course the metal scene (which overlapped with a lot of this). I was working the first of a string of low-end restaurant jobs that I’d do before and after enlisting in the Army

Much of the year, I wore either a black leather jacket or a denim jacket, combat or cowboy boots, and jeans when I could get away with them. My high school had a dress code that only let you wear bluejeans on “casual days”, so I got around that by having three pairs of colored jeans that could sneak by. One white and tight, one grey and slightly more relaxed, and a black pair of “boot” jeans tapered at the bottoms. By then, I’d filled in to my 6'3" frame, getting to about 170 pounds of pretty much just muscle and bones.

I’d developed a lot of confidence, and a number of interlocking circles of friends. They included a lot of fellow burnouts, some jocks, some of the punk kids. A few were in my class, but most of them were a year or two older, or a year younger than me. Somehow the classes of 86, 87, and 89 were a lot wilder, more into the metal lifestyle (which included a good bit of crime, fighting, and vandalism) than my own class.

My senior year, the older burnouts had graduated, and a few of them had gone off either to college or the military, but a lot of them still lived, worked, and partied in the area. And I’d go to occasional concerts with members of “the old gang”, a core of which were part of the “Midnight Sales and Services” I’d been brought along as security for my sophomore and junior year, when they were fencing goods in Milwaukee. Anytime AC/DC, KISS, or Iron Maiden came to town, it was a reunion

As far as Monsters of Rock went, though, it was the younger metalhead kids from the class of 89. Chris Karsch bought a block of tickets, and asked me if I wanted to come along with the guys in his car. I bought one off him for $20 (I think). There were three other guys, as I remember, but I don’t really trust my memories of who they were! John Klosse, maybe? Matt Sneed? Could be. Doesn’t matter, really. “Show up in the school parking lot,” Karsch told me, and that’s what I did.

It was a Friday, and the semester wasn’t finished, so we watched all the other kids slowly go in to school. “Everybody ready?” We piled into someone’s beat-up midsize car, someone cranked up WQFM, and we hit the road, windows down, long hair blowing around, excited for the show. It was a gorgeous day, and the miles got eaten up fast, heading down to what was at that time the coolest concert venue in our part of Wisconsin.

I remember pulling into the vast dirt parking lot of Alpine Valley, and all of us getting out, stretching our lanky bodies after the drive. It was still morning, with a bit of the chill in the dusty breeze, but the sun was shining strong. Some people were already tailgating. One of the guys had a fake binoculars filled with some sort of liquor, and he was hoping he’d get it past security. Someone else had brought a bottle of vodka along — good chance it was Karsch himself — and we all took tugs off it, getting ourselves good and buzzed before we headed up to the entrance, where we showed our grass-seats tickets, got just looked over by a security guy who nodded, and we went in.

Alpine Valley was exactly that. A covered bandshell with a lot of seats down in a valley, with a vast incline fanning upwards of grass. On a drizzly day, the grass seats might not be such a great bargain, but most of the time — especially for young metalheads like us — they were awesome. You could bring in blankets to spread out and sit on. I want to say we could even bring in sandwiches back then, but I gotta admit that portion of my memories of the day are pretty hazy!

The First Band: Kingdom Come

The show started with an at-that-time real “opening band”, Kingdom Come. If you’re a metalhead and you don’t remember them that well, they were a really new band — just formed the year before — with one album out at the time. They got a lot of radio airplay, and apparently were chosen for the Monsters of Rock tour by Van Halen, as this Chicago Tribune piece from way back then tells us:

‘’It was a matter of who was around and who wanted to do it with us,’’ chips in bassist Anthony. ‘’That’s how Kingdom Come are on the bill. They’d already been offered a lot of tours, but they really wanted to do this, and we thought the only thing missing is a new band, so they were a logical choice.’’ Kingdom Come may be about to go through a baptism by fire, but the rest of the ‘’Monsters’’ line-up consists of other veteran road outfits, each with its own rabid following.

(reading that, I’ll admit, I kinda expected he’d have said “that’s how come Kingdom Come. . .”!)

If there’s anything else that might jog your memory about Kingdom Come, it’s likely the fact that they quickly got labeled as a “Led Zepplin clone”. And not just by a few people, but by major rock royalty like Jimmy Page and Gary Moore. Apparently their bandleader and vocalist Lenny Wolf added fuel to the fire by rather implausibly claiming that he’d never heard of, or heard, Led Zeppelin. We didn’t really know about all that controversy as teenagers, but all you had to do is listen to them to know they were either straight-out ripping off Led Zeppelin or were kinda derivative. And they were also a bit on the lite, glam, or pop metal side by comparison to these other bands. At least that’s the way it seemed to us.

And maybe it seemed that way to the rest of the crowd there that day. Looking at the setlist from that concert, they played six songs total. I think I maybe knew two of those songs. It didn’t seem like too many member of the audience did either. It was a festive crowd, and it was early in the day, so it didn’t become a restive crowd, but I think most of the people there were eager for Kingdom Come to finish up their set so the other bands could come on.

The Second Band: Metallica

Here was a band that was on the other side of the spectrum from Kingdom Come. Already deservedly recognized as one of the top bands in the thrash movement, they already had what would turn out to be their three most solid and seminal albums behind them. Cliff Burton’s death was a major shock to the whole system, but his replacement, Jason Newstead, was working out. They’d done the cover album Garage Days Re-Revisited together, and they’d finished recording And Justice For All. This was before what to many of us was the first of their missteps, The Black Album. If anything, Metallica was getting heavier and tighter in their sound in this period.

We five guys were all there to hear them, and I wasn’t sure who I was looking forward to the most — Metallica or the Scorpions! I don’t know that some of the other conference-goers were as interested in a thrash band, but the rest of us all made up for it. This is when the real headbanging, air guitar, and thrashing around started in the day. It was a high-energy performance, and for me it was the first time I’d seen them, so it was frankly a pretty amazing set.

They had a awesome mix of ten strong songs:

• a couple from their rawer debut Kill Em All (“Whiplash,” “Seek and Destroy’)
• three from Ride the Lightning (“Creeping Death,” “Fade to Black,” “For Whom The Bell Tolls”)
• three more from Master of Puppets (the title track, “Sanitarium,” and “Battery”
• two covers, the Misfits’ “Last Caress” and Diamond Head’s “Am I Evil”

The Metallica of that era had just a slew of solid material they could draw upon, but this was a pretty ideal selection.

The Third Band: Dokken

This middle band swung the proverbial pendulum partway back towards the glam side. I always considered Dokken to be a band like Ratt: definitely glammy, but also solid metal. They could construct and rock a power ballad with the best of them. And they contained some great talent at the time — along with serious tensions between vocalist bandleader Don Dokken and lead guitar George Lynch. These would eventually lead to the band breaking up just one year after we saw them, with Lynch and drummer Mick Brown starting the Lynch Mob. Whatever disagreements were festering in the band at the time, they delivered a solid set.

Dokken got the same allotted time as Metallica — an hour — and they blazed through 10 great songs from their three most recent albums. This was fun stuff for me. I wasn’t a major Dokken fan, but I did like some of the stuff they played. I mean who doesn’t rock out to “Into The Fire?” I’ll admit that I liked — and still like today decades later — the power ballad “Alone Again”.

I can’t say I really remember that much more about the Dokken portion of the day, other than it seemed like pretty much everyone was enjoying themselves. I’m glad I got to see them at the top of their game, with their classic lineup.

The Fourth Band: The Scorpions

This was the second band I was really looking forward to seeing live. One of my longstanding favorite metal bands, like Dokken and Metallica they had arguably reached a pinnacle of their career. Their catalogue going back into the 70s featured heavily in the harder and heavier local rock stations. In fact, there was even a recurring plug by Klaus Meine for WQFM, telling us in his heavy accent that he wanted to rock Milwaukee like a hurricane! I had all of their albums from Lovedrive to Love At First Sting, and my little sister recently bought Savage Amusement, which had just come out the month before. They were a band in constant rotation in our house.

They played a trio of songs from the new album — definitely doing their part to support it in a setlist of fourteen — “Don’t Stop at the Top,” “Every Minute Every Day,” and “Rhythm of Love”. The rest were a mix of hits from their earlier four albums

• their portion began with the title track from Blackout, with “Dynamite,” “Can’t Live Without You,” and the power ballad “No One Like You” peppered through the setlist
• four songs from Love at First Sting: “Big City Nights,” “Bad Boys Running Wild,” “Rock You Like a Hurricane,” and what is arguably one of the greatest metal power ballads ever, “Still Loving You”
• just one song off Lovedrive, but what a perfect one for a concert like that: “Coast to Coast”
• two great tunes from Animal Magnetism, “Make It Real,” and the never to be missed “The Zoo”

This was a real crowd-pleaser, coming on the heels — well, not directly, since the stage had to be more and more set up the bigger the bands got — of the high-energy Metallica and Dokken. We were in solid scorching metal territory. The Scorpions could easily have been the headliner.

The Final Band: Van Halen

This was just three years after David Lee Roth and the remainder of Van Halen had parted ways. He was replaced by Sammy Hagar, best known for his early years with Montrose and then his solo career. Interestingly, in Van Halen’s early years, some music executives had proposed that very replacement. So we had a band that had moved on from its first lineup, and consolidated around a new singer who also brought another guitar into the mix. Hagar was a decent vocalist and showman, and two new albums in, I think there were a number of fans who were still kind of waiting to see how all this was going to work out.

I had actually already seen this new version of Van Halen — called by many “Van Hagar” — at Alpine Alley on their 5150 tour. They’re a fun, talented, and heavy band, and when it comes to replacing Roth, my view was that Hagar wasn’t better or worse, but just different. Still high-energy, but at least on the lead vocals end, somehow. . . tame, domesticated.

There was an interesting incident that occurred. I don’t quite remember if it was early during the set or just before it, but at some point people in the crowd started tearing up big pieces of the newly planted sod and tossing them around. There had been a number of beachballs that people had been bouncing all over, making their way through the crowd. I kinda thought that they were doing something similar with the portions of sod. But that is not what Sammy Hagar thought!

He got to the mike, and started telling the audience that tearing up the sod like that wasn’t cool. He pointed out that people could get hit — and hurt — by the admittedly pretty big and heavy chunks of dirt and grass that were getting flung about. He also noted that Alpine Valley had just laid that sod down, at significant expense, and that the fans shouldn’t be destroying property. Now he was starting to lose the crowd, seeming like an older out-of-touch uncle lecturing the kids. They started booing him! And then he told them that if they didn’t knock it off, and settle down — and he spoke for the whole band, he said — Van Halen wasn’t going to play. The concert would be over! They did settle down, but there was a lot of grumbling about old man Hagar, how he’d sold out, how he’d become “the man”, and so on.

As the headliners and the final band, Van Halen got to play a longer playlist. Officially, it was twenty-one songs — so basically both Metallica’s and Dokken’s portions put together — but three of these were solos: guitar, bass, and drums. The actual songs they played were some interesting choices reflecting the band sorting out their legacy, supporting the new albums with Hagar, and even incorporating some of the hits he brought to the band.

• they really supported their new album, OU812, with seven songs: “A.F.U. (Naturally Wired),” “Black and Blue,” “Mine All Mine,” “Sucker in a 3 Piece,” “When It’s Love,” “Source of Infection,” “Cabo Wabo”
• off their earlier album 5150, they did three more songs “Summer Nights,” “Why Can’t This Be Love,” “Best of Both Worlds”
• from the David Lee Roth era, they played just four songs: “Panama,” “Runnin’ With the Devil,” “You Really Got Me,” and “Ain’t Talkin’ ‘bout Love”
• they did three Sammy Hagar songs: “Eagles Fly,” “I Can’t Drive 55,” and “There’s Only One Way to Rock”
• the concert closed with a cover of Led Zeppelin’s “Rock and Roll”

If you were a big fan of the post-Roth Van Halen, there was a lot to love in this setlist. For those of us who loved Van Halen, but were less enthused about Sammy Hagar as a replacement for Roth, it was still a good set, but not quite as enjoyable. It’s understandable that they would want to support the new album, but it was disappointing not to hear more of the classic Van Halen songs from the first six albums.

Still all told, a really awesome day, the very first concert of the 1988 American Monsters of Rock Tour. And to go back to the question that got all this started. Yeah! I was there! And holy crap, did that lineup rock!

I’m Greg Sadler, the Heavy Metal Philosopher. You can join me and my co-host Scott Tarulli each month for a new session of Classic Metal Class).

I’m also the president of ReasonIO, the editor of Stoicism Today, a speaker, writer, and a producer of highly popular YouTube videos on classic and contemporary philosophy. I teach at Milwaukee Institute of Art and Design, and offer classes to the wider public in my Study With Sadler online academy. I also produce the Sadler’s Lectures podcast and co-host the Wisdom for Life radio show