Guitarist Damon Johnson says the night he first witnessed Van Halen in concert, it literally left him in tears.
Johnson (Brother Cane, Thin Lizzy, Lynyrd Skynyrd, Alice Cooper, Blackstar Riders) was a recent guest on Final Resonance TV and shared the story of the time he first saw Van Halen in concert. It was on August 4th, 1980 at the Birmingham Civic Center in Birmingham, Alabama. He and his friends were able to get third row, stage left seats right in front of Eddie Van Halen’s microphone.
“I don’t remember or care who the opening band was. I can’t remember to this day,” said Johnson. “Man, those guys came out and hit the stage and…it’s like my brain just, like, PFFFFHHHH!!!!! Just opened! It was probably 75, 80 minutes of just pure joy and energy.”
Johnson later added, “I don’t mind tellin’ you brother….they walked off stage, the house lights came up – I don’t know if I ever told this story man – but I sat back down in my chair, I put my face in my hands and I wept! I literally was in tears! And it was like, “What the FUCK was THAT??!! What just happened??!!”
You can watch Johnson tell the whole story in the video below: