Blimp Time Hop: David Lee Roth At The Civic Center In ’88

32 years ago today, David Lee Roth returned to Portland for the second time as a solo artist.  March 29, 1988, Diamond Dave arrived at the Civic Center on the Skyscraper World Tour. This was his 5th and last appearance onstage at the CCCC counting 3 trips with Van Halen in '78 (opening for Sabbath), '79, and '81.

Skyscraper was the second and last album with Dave's superhuman line-up of Steve Vai on guitar, Gregg Bissonette on drums and Billy Sheehan on bass guitar. Gregg's brother Matt played bass in videos and on the tour, replacing Billy Sheehan after he left to form Mr. Big.

WBLM was spinning the new song, Just Like Paradise. This album also gave us the Blimpville favorite, Damn Good. The opening band that night was Faster Pussycat.

We can't seem to find the setlist for this Portland show. However, they did play down the road in Providence the next night. It's probably safe to say that the songs played at the Civic Center concert were pretty close to this one.

The following week the Skyscraper World Tour stopped in Toronto Maple Leaf Gardens. Here's some surprisingly good quality fan footage of the ENTIRE show.

Check out the original video for Just Like Paradise featuring Dave doing some insane rock-climbing!