Van Halen plays club set

A DIFFERENT KIND OF SET: Van Halen didn’t play like an arena band concerned with lighting cues and special effects; for the night, it was a club act treating songs like jams, according to the N.Y. Times’ Jon Pareles, reviewing Thursday’s throwback club show at the Café Wha? in Greenwich Village;. ‘We used to play gigs like this five nights a week, and we used to do five 45-minute sets a night,” David Lee Roth said during “Dance the Night Away.” During its 11-song, hour-long set, Van Halen mostly stuck to staples, but they broke out one new song, “She’s the Woman,” from the upcoming album A Different Kind of Truth (Interscope, Feb. 7), and it “fit right into the repertory, with a turbo-boogie riff, lusty lyrics and a cheerfully tangential guitar interlude,” Pareles wrote. Roth, 57, showed some wear in his high notes, and he wasn’t taking his shirt off for this gig; in fact, he was wearing overalls, the reviewer noted. But he was in peak form with his shtick. Examples: “I told you we was comin’ back. Say you missed us.” “Last time I stood on a stage this low, we had to have the car back by midnight.” “It took us 50 years to get this gig. It was easier getting into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.” “I’ve gotta have a double, I got a long drive home.” (1/6a)