Official 1/5 NYC Cafe Wha? Review Thread

[ashstralia]

Can I get an AMEN ????

yes. yes you can. amen

[Hardrock69]

A-Fucking-MEN!

[philouze]

Do you believe ??
I said
DO-YOU-BE-LIEVE ??
Lawd have mercy.
Hey, notice how these two names sound alike ? Hagar/Swaggart..

[george]

Holy shit Wolf was rippin' up the bass.. powerful playing right there.

[Hardrock69]

Lol.

I CAIN SEE DEE LIGHT! LAWZY LAWZY SAKES-A-MIGHTY ALIVE!

[philouze]

Lol.

I CAIN SEE DEE LIGHT! LAWZY LAWZY SAKES-A-MIGHTY ALIVE!

FZ in When The Lie's So Big:

DO YOU BELIEVE IN THE INVISIBLE AAAAAAAAAAARMYYY ???

Dear Frank, we're not invisible anymore.. We miss you.

[njbill]

That was alway bullshit !! The problem was he wasn't playing through bass amps in 07, he was using Ed's Peavy stuff. It sounded thin like a guitar tone. Who knows about the singing. I watch the boots from that tour and don't think they are recorded Mikey. They just arent good enough.

I remember reading an article where they admit to using canned backing vocals. If there is a bootleg of the 2nd Philadelphia show, in Romeo Delight, the background vocals come in a bar early after the "Feel My Heartbeat" part and there is noone near a microphone... .LOL I was there.

[if6was9]

The other thread has been closed, so I'll ask the question again here:

Did they use keyboards in Jump?

[riggodrill44]

I have six quick thoughts before I get my teenager off to school and head into the office...

1. It's a great day for real Van Halen fans. A day I thought would never come. And now that is has, I feel better. It's like being vindicated. Can anyone else relate to that?
2. Wolf has been practicing. I think that was the point of playing "She's the Woman". He is for real. The dude has some chops. You may be familiar with his lineage...
3. Ed is sharper than 2007/2008. He's been practicing, too. Maybe he thinks he has something to prove?
4. Obviously, it's going to be different than it was "back in the day" But you know it's still going to be great. Time changes things... but they can still be great.
5. You know... bringing Wolf into the band... "Van Halen" is a "brand" that can sell new music to a whole 'nother generation. I bet Wolf can shred on guitar. It's actually brilliant if you really think about it.
6. David Lee Roth is THE consummate front man. It's all about attitude and experience. You cannot possibly re-create his perspective. And it connects with this fan... still.

Roth On.

[Va Beach VH Fan]

OK, time to post the reviews I've seen this morning...

http://blogs.wsj.com/speakeasy/2012/01/05/van-halen-and-david-lee-roth-rock-greenwich-village/

Van Halen and David Lee Roth Rock Greenwich Village

To stoke the fire for the band’s new album “A Different Kind of Truth” and forthcoming tour, tonight Van Halen played for about 250 music-industry insiders and journalists packed elbow-to-elbow at the tiny Café Wha? in New York City’s Greenwich Village.

Featuring three original members – brother Eddie Van Halen and Alex Van Halen on guitar and drums, respectively; and vocalist David Lee Roth – and Wolfgang Van Halen, Eddie’s son, on bass, the quartet ran through an 11-song set heavy on familiar hits and guitar pyrotechnics by Eddie Van Halen, who, at age 56, was at his dazzling best, blending flawless technique, off-the-moment invention and exploitation of raw volume.

Opening with two songs from its 1978 debut disk, the band found its footing early and by the fourth number, “Everybody Wants Some,” Alex and his nephew locked in, providing a supple platform for the guitarist to wail and squeal, hammering a blizzard of notes, though seemingly never to excess. Soon, old tunes, including “Hot for Teacher,” a hit some 28 years ago, roared in the small venue. (“Perfect,” said Roth to drummer Van Halen at its end.) The lone new song in the set, the rave-up “She’s the Woman” featured knotty unison playing by Eddie Van Halen and his son. The new album is due for release on February 7.

The evening was a homecoming of sorts for Roth, whose uncle, Manny Roth, ran the Café Wha? from the early ‘60s well into the ‘80s. (Now 92 years old, Manny Roth was in the audience.) Roth said he first entered the club when he was seven years old; now 57, he said, “It took me 50 years to get this gig.” Kicking off “Ice Cream Man,” he added, “I’m more nervous about this gig than I’ve been at the Garden,” referencing the arena some three miles north of the Village.

In brown overalls and a newsboy cap, Roth was in a chatty mood – at one point, Eddie Van Halen looked at his wristwatch during one of his lengthy tales. His good cheer carried over into the songs: During “Panama,” he mimicked Jim Morrison singing a rendition of “Stairway to Heaven.”

The venue, which is no more than 20 yards wide from the front of the stage to the back wall, sparked memories for the band, which formed 40 years ago in Pasadena. “We used to do gigs like this five nights a week for five years,” Roth said. Alex Van Halen played the opening percussion riff to “Dance the Night Away” on an overhead water pipe. Known for his hurdling about stage, Roth sang with the ceiling about a foot above his head – no room for leaps, not even during “Jump,” the show’s finale.

Beginning February 18 in Louisville, Kentucky, Van Halen will return to arenas in the U.S. and Canada for a lengthy tour, its first since 2008, that runs through June. Tickets go on sale beginning January 14. Kool & the Gang, who, like Bob Dylan, Jimi Hendrix and others played Café Wha? at the start of the start of their careers, will open for Van Halen on some dates.

“Tattoo,” the first single from the new album, will be released January 10.

What do you think? Leave your thoughts in the comments.

Jim Fusilli is the Journal’s rock and pop music critic. Email him at jfusilli@wsj.com or follow him on Twitter: @wsjrock.

[philouze]

Totally agree with you, Riggo...

Jim Fusilli ?? Brother of John Tortellini ? Or cousin of Robert Penne Rigate ? Niiiice...

[Va Beach VH Fan]

http://www.nydailynews.com/new-york/van-halen-surprises-fans-gig-250-capacity-village-club-cafe-wha-article-1.1001727?localLinksEnabled=false

Van Halen surprises fans with gig in 250-capacity Village club Cafe Wha?
Frontman David Lee Roth's uncle once owned venue

BY JIM FARBER / NEW YORK DAILY NEWS

Friday, January 6 2012, 12:37 AM

IT WAS A genuine “wha?” moment: The megametal band Van Halen played the matchbox-sized Cafe Wha? in the Village Thursday, a superrare move geared to pay off in PR what it lacked in scale.

As it turns out, David Lee Roth’s 92-year-old uncle, Manny, used to own the 250-capacity venue. (He sold it in 1988). But the club remains at the same address where stars like Bob Dylan played in its 1960s heyday.

Frontman Roth spent no small portion of his many, many monologues in the 75-minute set emphasizing his connection to the city, as if to temper the band’s essential California character. It didn’t hurt that the audience consisted entirely of area press. Roth talked about attending the club for the first time for his 7th birthday, about hanging out on Ludlow St. (which he called Ludlow Blvd.), and about several New Years Eves spent as an EMT volunteer in the Bronx.

That last bit went on so long, Eddie Van Halen thoughtfully pointed to his watch before it was over. The tensions between them haven’t always been dealt with as lightly. But last night found the band in good spirits, and the players in bracing synch. As on their last reunion tour, in 2008, this incarnation subs Eddie’s son Wolfgang for snubbed original bassist Michael Anthony.

The musical closeness of the foursome made itself apparent from the opening piece, their famed cover of The Kinks’ “You Really Got Me.” The chunkiness of Eddie’s riffs played ideally against Roth's gasping scats. All but one of the 11 songs came from the six albums Roth cut with the band. The sole new song, “She’s the Woman,” sounds like a worthy descendent of a garage-metal cut like “Ain’t Talkin' About Love.” It’s set to appear on “A Different Kind of Truth,” the first full disk by the band with Roth in 26 years (out Feb. 7).

The band's top bragging point — Eddie's loop-de-loop solos — reached a peak in “Ice Cream Man,” a wholly metallic rewrite of the blues. Often his leads formed commentaries on the melody, filled with snarky asides and randy innuendos. Roth matched him in bellows and yelps. Hopefully their boyish rapport can keep things light enough to allow the band to actually get through the coming tour without killing each other. Their show comes to Madison Square Garden Feb. 28 and March 1.

jfarber@nydailynews.com

SET LIST :

You Really Got Me

Running With The Devil

Somebody Get Me A Doctor

Everybody Wants SOme

She's The Woman

Dance The Night Away

Panama

Hot For Teacher

Ain't Talkin' 'Bout Love

[Va Beach VH Fan]

http://www.washingtonpost.com/national/regrouped-van-halen-performs-intimate-nyc-gig-announces-new-tour-and-album/2012/01/05/gIQAFiJxdP_story.html?tid=pm_national_pop

Regrouped Van Halen performs intimate NYC gig, announces new tour and album
By Associated Press, Published: January 5 | Updated: Friday, January 6, 12:52 AM

NEW YORK — They’ll be playing arenas when they tour next month, but on Thursday night, a regrouped Van Halen provided thrills in a tiny club where a VIP crowd stood elbow to elbow as the storied band played some of their greatest hits including “Jump” and “Panama.”

“Welcome to Occupy Van Halen, ladies and gentleman!” frontman David Lee Roth yelled just before the band launched into “You Really Got Me,” the first in an approximately hour-long, high energy set.

The show was at the famed Café Wha? in New York’s West Village — a club owned by Manny Roth, the uncle of Roth.

David Lee Roth noted some of the greats that played in the club — including Bob Dylan — and told the crowd, “I’m more nervous about this gig than I would ever be in the Garden,” referring to Madison Square Garden.

The band will soon be playing the Garden and other venues like it, as they kick off a nationwide tour next month. The Rock and Roll Hall of Famers start the tour in Louisville, Ky., on Feb. 16, and will tour through June, hitting cities like Boston, Atlanta and Chicago. They’ll also be promoting a new album: The group announced Wednesday that they’ll release “A Different Kind of Truth” on Feb. 7, the group’s first album with Roth since their celebrated album “1984,” released that same year.

Van Halen has gone through plenty of changes since then. Roth left the band for a solo career and was replaced with Sammy Hagar in a messy breakup; he later returned to the band as Hagar exited in a split that had just as much discord. There would be more turmoil as bassist Michael Anthony was replaced a few years ago with Wolfgang Van Halen, the son of guitar great Eddie Van Halen.

But it was all smiles on Wednesday, as father and son, along with Eddie’s brother and drummer Alex were all on hand as the reconstituted group played a warm-up of sorts before their nationwide tour, their first together in almost four years.

“This has been a really long time coming,” Roth told the audience.

The band hardly seemed rusty. Though his mic was weak, Roth’s voice wasn’t, as his signature screech was in top form, as was Eddie Van Halen’s scorching guitar play on songs like “Hot for Teacher” and “Dance the Night Away.”

Roth joked about the small size of the club: “The last time I stood on a stage this low, I had to get the car home by midnight.”

Later, he talked about how he used to wander through the club as a kid, dreaming of a chance to play on its stage.

“It took us 50 years to get this gig. It was easier to get in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame than to get this gig,” he said.

Roth’s uncle Manny, now 92, was in the audience, sitting next to John McEnroe, one of several luminaries in the crowd.

“It’s come full circle,” said a beaming David Lee Roth amid the audience’s cheers.

[POJO_Risin]

UNBELIEVABLE!!!

I gotta say that for past few years I've pretty much not given much of a shit with any prospects for a VH return to form, preferring to lurk around in Non-VH Forums (even that out-of-the-blue Aussie gig, that the incompetent promoters eventually stuffed up, didn't quite encourage me as much as it normally should've done - but maybe that was some kind of sign there?)

...BUT WOW, JUST WOW...WHAT A BREATH OF FRESH AIR THAT WAS!!!

Cheers to WARF, Pojo, GEM, and all the rest here at the ARMY!

Cheers again!

Grant!!!!

Good to see you again! It's been too damn long!!!!!

Hope everything is going well for you!

[Va Beach VH Fan]

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/01/07/ar...w.html?_r=1Van Halen Delivers Big Nostalgia on a Small Stage

By JAMES C. McKINLEY Jr.
Published: January 6, 2012

When the rock band Van Halen played in a cramped basement club in Greenwich Village on Thursday, dozens of fans clustered around the back door, listening to the slightly muffled strains of hard rocking songs like “Panama” and “Hot for Teacher,” like children eavesdropping on an adult conversation in the next room.

One of them, George D’Anna, who is 50, had a plastic shopping bag containing a program from one of the band’s early tours in the late 1970s and several Van Halen albums — the old-fashioned kind on vinyl. On the paper sleeve covering “Women and Children First” he had written down all the Van Halen concerts he had attended as a young man when he first got hooked on the group, beginning with a show at a Manhattan nightclub in May 1979. Eddie Van Halen’s dazzling guitar solos bewitched him — the superfast runs, bell-tone harmonics and almost animal-like sounds.

“I snuck in with a friend to see them at the Palladium,” he recalled. “They were different than any band. Eddie’s guitar was different.”

There was no way to sneak in to see Van Halen on Thursday. Metal barriers had been set up around the front door of “Café Wha?” on MacDougal Street, and a team of bouncers and promoters were checking the driver’s license of everyone in line to make sure they were on a carefully selected list of guests. Several police officers had been assigned by the local precinct to control whatever crowds developed. The guest list included every music writer in the city, scores of people from the music industry with miscellaneous friends in tow and a handful of celebrities, among them Jimmy Fallon and John McEnroe.

Van Halen is a famous heavy-metal quartet that can still fill arenas and stadiums with ease. Ostensibly, the reason the band did a concert in a club that seats perhaps 250 people was to announce a new tour of 45 cities and to promote the release of a fresh studio album later this year, the first they have recorded with the original front man, David Lee Roth, since 1984.

Although Mr. Roth’s rambling monologues on stage covered many topics, including Lady Gaga and working as a medic in the Bronx, he never actually made the announcement. Instead it was posted on the internet. The new album, “A Different Kind of Truth,” will be released on Feb. 7 by Interscope Records, and the tour begins in Louisville, Ky., the following week. Van Halen will play Madison Square Garden on Feb. 28 and March 1.

But Mr. Roth did expound on about his ulterior motive for wanting to rock out at “Café Wha?” a fabled club where many famous rockers and folk musicians played in the 1960’s and 1970’s. His uncle, Manny Roth, who is 92, opened the club in 1960, and laid the marble floor himself.

After the band had delivered a tight and joyous rendition of “Hot for Teacher,” David Lee Roth recounted how he had been brought to the club when he was only 7 and saw his uncle appeal to the audience to help a young folk singer named Bobby Zimmerman find a place to stay. His uncle beamed at him from a booth across from the stage.

“It took us 50 years to get this gig,” Mr. Roth said. “This is a temple. This is a very special place and I am more nervous about this gig than I would ever be at the Garden. There is no hiding up here. There are no fake vocals. There is no fake anything.”

There was some truth to those words. Removed from their stadium-sized pedestal and placed on the foot-high stage, Van Halen seemed to be reduced to its elements: the blues-rock power trio, the unwavering drum lines of Alex Van Halen, the soaring virtuosity of Eddie Van Halen’s guitar work, and Mr. Roth’s endearing and gutsy vocals. (The original bass player, Michael Anthony, has been replaced in this incarnation of the band by Wolfgang Van Halen, who is Eddie Van Halen’s son.) If you squinted and lost yourself in the music, it was possible to forget they were stars and imagine they were just another rock band, a bit long in the tooth perhaps, but extremely good at what they do.

And what they did pleased many in the crowd. That was no small feat since their diehard fans were outside in the cold and some of the best critics in the business were listening. They started with a roaring version of “You Really Got Me,” the Kinks cover that was one of their early successes, then played with gusto through several of their biggest hits: “Dancing the Night Away,” “Panama,” “Hot for Teacher,” and “Jump.” They also unveiled a new song from the recently recorded album, “She’s the Woman,” which features a fast hard-rock riff that echoes their early style.

For some in the audience, the songs triggered a nostalgic response. Jonathan Cohen, who books bands for the Jimmy Fallon show, could not stop dancing and singing the lyrics. “1984” was the first album he bought from himself, he said, and he recalled leaving the dinner table early to see the debut of the video for “Hot for Teacher. “It was the first time rock and roll was really connecting with me in a major way,” he said. “There really aren’t new bands that sound like this.”

Seated nearby, Kirk Douglas, the guitarist with the hip-hop and ne0-soul group The Roots, said he felt overcome with emotion during the set. Eddie Van Halen had been one of his guitar idols when he was learning to play, he said. “I can’t believe I just saw that,” he said. “He got me started on guitar. The way he made it sound like an organ.”

Outside, some fans grumbled it would have been nice if the band had done a second date in the club and let the hoi poloi buy tickets. “Even a lottery would have been better than this,” said one fan, who gave his name only as Tony. Others said they had called everyone they knew in an effort to get on the list, to no avail. Still, they lingered outside in the chill, hoping the band would let a few extra people in, then hung around the back door to hear what they could. “That’s what we do,” said Kimberly Barnhill, 21, an aspiring singer. “We wait in the cold weather for our band.”

There were some consolations for the patient. As he left the club, Mr. Roth signed Mr. D’Anna’s copy of “Women and Children First” with a silver marker. Mr. D’Anna had spotted Mr. Roth earlier in the evening and memorized the license number of his hired car, so he knew which car to stake out after the show. “Always memorize the license plate,” he said, smiling as he showed off his prize autograph.