YouTube 4/13/88 Toronto

[Seshmeister]

[vandeleur]

Sorry Dave for all the horrible things I've said on here, that was cool

[Jérôme Frenchise]

that was cool

Stellar, don't you mean?

I've just been through "Bottom line", and it's the word that comes to my mind.

[Terry]

Good show.

Never was overly wild about the Skyscraper album or the Crazy From The Heat Ep, but there were several CVH tunes in the set, and the energy level was high. The backing vocals were good, the keyboards weren't overly dominant on the guitar-centric tunes.

I mean, this was Roth still at essentially the peak of his powers in terms of the overall frontman package he represented when he was at his best. Highly athletic, adept at getting a crowd riled up, entertaining and the lead vocals were basically what they needed to be. You can see some signs of the athleticism and the high-end screams beginning to wane, but the essence of what he brought to CVH was still very much intact.

Plus, you get the steel drums, the boxing ring over the middle of the crowd, the surfboard going over the top of the floor seats. A good-sized arena and because of the production and staging virtually everybody in the audience gets to feel like they were in the middle of the action. Just 90 minutes of start to finish high energy rock. Not too much concert time wasted on instrumental solo wankfests.

Roth's career was reaching the end of its commercial peak here, but he was still going string and delivering the goods.

[FORD]

Can't believe there wasn't an "official" DVD of this tour ever released. Only thing pro-shot I've ever seen is that 90 second clip of "I've Just Seen a Face" from a show in Japan.

[Von Halen]

Dave could have done so much better than Vai...

[Nickdfresh]

Dave could have done so much better than Vai...

yeah, Eddie Van Halen...

[vandeleur]

Dave could have done so much better than Vai...

If you say George lynch Kristy is right about you .

Who had the combination of technique and flamboyance more than vai at that time ......






























Who would put up with daves shit

[THEDOCTOR]

I find it very interesting that the supposed guitar player Dave had in mind was Steve Stevens, who said no but recommended Vai, if i'm remembering the story events version correctly. I saw Idol/Stevens last year and he is a hell of a guitar player. Loved his Atomic Playboys cd and he elevated Vince Neil. What an interesting combo DLR/Stevens would have made because he is a guitar player that has so many textures and layers......

[Seshmeister]

This was during Vai's 'David Copperfield' onstage phase which continued for a few years until he calmed it down a fucking bit.

[Seshmeister]

Good show.

Never was overly wild about the Skyscraper album or the Crazy From The Heat Ep, but there were several CVH tunes in the set, and the energy level was high. The backing vocals were good, the keyboards weren't overly dominant on the guitar-centric tunes.

I mean, this was Roth still at essentially the peak of his powers in terms of the overall frontman package he represented when he was at his best. Highly athletic, adept at getting a crowd riled up, entertaining and the lead vocals were basically what they needed to be. You can see some signs of the athleticism and the high-end screams beginning to wane, but the essence of what he brought to CVH was still very much intact.

Plus, you get the steel drums, the boxing ring over the middle of the crowd, the surfboard going over the top of the floor seats. A good-sized arena and because of the production and staging virtually everybody in the audience gets to feel like they were in the middle of the action. Just 90 minutes of start to finish high energy rock. Not too much concert time wasted on instrumental solo wankfests.

Roth's career was reaching the end of its commercial peak here, but he was still going string and delivering the goods.

Some of the sheer 80sness is nuts in this, the Easy Street walk at 24 mins?

This wouldn't haven't been the same kind of show nowadays with YouTube and the interweb, you were genuinely shocked when a boxing ring came down.

Nowadays Tickemaster would be charging a $30 premium for ringside seats...

[twonabomber]

I find it very interesting that the supposed guitar player Dave had in mind was Steve Stevens, who said no but recommended Vai, if i'm remembering the story events version correctly. I saw Idol/Stevens last year and he is a hell of a guitar player. Loved his Atomic Playboys cd and he elevated Vince Neil. What an interesting combo DLR/Stevens would have made because he is a guitar player that has so many textures and layers......

Stevens is thanked in the liner notes of either EEAS or Skyscraper, I can't remember which one. There was a small article in Guitar World about Sheehan and Stevens getting together after Sheehan left Dave's band. I remember Sheehan saying "I've got a new Steve and Steve's got a new Billy!"

When Warner Bros wanted to sign Stevens he told them that he wanted the deal Prince got: full control. I like Atomic Playboys but it wasn't that successful. I always wondered if WB made Stevens and Neil work together instead of taking a chance on having two unsuccessful projects.

Found this Neil/Stevens show on YouTube a couple weeks ago. Note the Peavey backline and the EBMM EVH. Supposedly EVH sent a truckload of gear to Stevens when Neil opened for VHagar.

[Von Halen]

If you say George lynch Kristy is right about you .

Who ever said (s)he's not right about me?

Yes, Lynch would have been a much better choice, as would have Stevens. However, I'd have preferred he went with a relative unknown, that wasn't a soloist. Dave chose flash over substance. Vai sucks at rhythms and hooks. The reason the majority of his music doesn't have vocals, is because he sucks at writing for/with a vocalist and vocals in mind.

[vandeleur]

Vai was relatively unknown until the dave gig unless you were a Zappa Alcatraz fan.
And not many people were ...... and fuck off with the George lynch , he probably couldn't get in the George lynch band you potato

[Terry]

Some of the sheer 80sness is nuts in this, the Easy Street walk at 24 mins?

This wouldn't haven't been the same kind of show nowadays with YouTube and the interweb, you were genuinely shocked when a boxing ring came down.

Nowadays Tickemaster would be charging a $30 premium for ringside seats...

Yeah, but that was part of the greatness about what Roth did back then, production-wise.

I mean, for the 1984 VH gig, I wasn't particularly close to the stage, but the production aspect of the show was literally so huge it didn't matter: it overwhelmed you all the way to the rear of the arena.

Same thing for this Skyscraper gig: the sheer size and bombast of all of it draws you in regardless of wherever you sit. Including the elevated platforms on the sides of the stage.

Oh, yeah, for sure these days the boxing ring and surfboard aspects would have been leaked...probably via bootlegged pre-tour rehearsal footage even before the fucking tour started! Juxtapose that with the 1984 show, where at the end the lighting rigs turn over and the numbers '1984' are displayed in a massive blast of white light. Nobody knew that was going to happen, and the show I saw was several weeks into the tour.

Yeah, Ticketmaster was charging premium prices for those sitting inside the ring on the floor seating closest to the stage in 2007-2008. Like, upwards of $400 a ticket. I mean, honestly, I'm glad I got to see the vast bulk of the bands I wanted to see in the 1980s and early 1990s. In a 10 year span I saw...what...easily 2 dozen gigs. And bands in their fucking 80s prime. Maiden on their Powerslave tour. Dio twice with the lineup on the first 3 Dio solo albums. Ozzy twice. Rush on the Signals tour. Scorpions on the Love At First Sting tour. Priest on the Defenders of the Faith tour. The vast bulk of those gigs, tix were around $13 a pop.

Like, I remember the ticket prices for the Jacksons 1984 Victory tour were set at $25, which was I think the highest base ticket price for ANY concert up to that point (and was a significant jump up from what other tours were charging...like, I think I paid $15 for my Van Halen 1984 tour ticket at the local record store ticket outlet, which included nominal taxes, fees and surcharges), and people were losing their fucking minds over the cost.

Am going to see X's 40th Anniversary tour in Orlando in a couple weeks at a small, non-descript club, and ticket prices are STARTING at $30. For a fairly obscure old niche LA punk band...at a small club!

And I'll tell you something: ticket prices are probably now ten times the price they were in the 1980s. I get inflation to a point, but there's nothing these bands are bringing to these tours now that is substantively any better than what they were thirty years ago (in most cases, these bands have gotten slower and less energetic with age). Certainly not ten times better!

Put it this way. I paid $50 for my ticket to the 1989 Rolling Stones Steel Wheels show from a scalper in the parking lot at what was then known as Sullivan Stadium, where the New England Patriots played. I thought THAT was fucking expensive, but hey...it's the Rolling Stones we're talking about. Last Stones stadium tour, people are paying $600+ for prime tickets via a LEGITIMATE TICKET OUTLET! Not Stubhub or some "ticket broker"...

It's fucking nuts. Ain't NO band worth that money to me, but I guess it's how much you want to see it.

I mean, fuck, if CVH announces a 2018 tour, I wouldn't pay more than $100 a pop to see it, and that's one show I've been salivating for since 1996.