Some things in life, like light beer and Stonehenge and the designated hitter, cannot be explained or justified.

        Topping that list would be how anyone could not prefer David Lee Roth's body of work with Van Halen to Sammy Hagar's.

        The two former Van Halen lead singers played back-to-back sets at Riverbend Tuesday night, each fronting his own band and Mr. Hagar going first. And at the end, when Mr. Roth took his final bow after an encore of “Jump,” the prediction any sane person would have made before the show was proven true: Diamond Dave blew his Van Halen “replacement” off the stage.

        Mr. Roth, the Picasso of peroxide, the Seurat of spandex, put on an hour-and-20-minute show that might go down as the best of the Riverbend season. There was a bit of pre-concert talk that he would be a burned-out, wrinkled shell of himself, but although some of the leg kicks weren't as spectacular as they were 20 years ago, he looked good, he sounded good, and he and his three-man-band put on a stripped-down set that never relented.

        “The hits just keep on coming!” he repeatedly observed throughout the set, and he was right. From the opening sequence of “Hot for Teacher,” “Panama” and “And the Cradle Will Rock” to the finale of “Everybody Wants Some,” “Unchained,” and “Ain't Talkin' 'Bout Love,” Mr. Roth put his focus on the music while his natural charisma took hold.

        Mr. Hagar's show, by comparison, felt forced and gimmicky. Except for an episode in which Mr. Roth simulated a sex act with a bottle of Tennessee whiskey, his set was prop-free. Mr. Hagar's 90-minute show (plus 10-minute introductory video documentary all about why Sammy is so great) came off like a big commercial for the brand of tequila he peddles. It culminated with Mr. Hagar smashing his guitar into a giant tequila bottle-shaped pinata. Out popped a big worm puppet. It was painful to behold.

        As for the music, at best it was earnestly rendered hard rock, at worst it sounded like the antecedent to such mediocre modern-day chart-toppers as Creed and Nickelback.

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