Dave's big solo gig !

[Terry]

Naaah....Jon's voice is shot. He sounds really awful. And he looks like he doesn't want to do it anymore.

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I get the feeling that he's just chugging along still doing it because the demand is still there. It's more a revenue source than a passion. When the last album was released initially he announced he was going to have a set list very heavily concentrated on the new material, with a half dozen or so of the best known oldies thrown in at the end of the show. He did a few shows like that, then ticket sales for the next leg of the tour were very sluggish, because people want to go to a show and hear as many of the best known oldies tunes as possible. He publicly announced he was going back to a set list heavy on the hits and light on the new material, and ticket sales rebounded.

I imagine from his standpoint it has to be both boring as fuck playing those same hits over and over again along with most of those hits being 20 to 30 years old and originally sung in a range he just can't reach anymore.

[Heater]

No one mentioned the bald spot on Dave's head yet? One hair thread comiiiiin' uuuuup!

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In fairness it looked like a patch of hair on an otherwise actively balding head. At least his singing was subpar. But that “look at me dancin” smile while wearing those special, special duds was awesome. Dave hasnt felt this pretty in some time. He never disappoints when he skips his way into so many hearts......

[ZahZoo]

I wouldn't say I really enjoy bashing Roth these days...

He just strikes me as a really odd, self-absorbed person to the utmost degree.

Odd in how he still tries to come across like the stud frontman version of himself circa 1986. Almost as if he's not comfortable aging, or comfortable inside his own skin. And the older he gets, the sillier it comes across.

And, strictly for myself, what Roth brings to the stage now isn't worth seeing. Certainly not worth more than $25 a ticket. It's been that way for me since (and including) the ADKOT/2012 tour.

I mean, one of my personal favorite top rock frontmen of all time. Always will be. But he just got weird as he got old. And his quippy interview one-liners lost their luster after being repeated over a period of thirty years. I think Roth is just one of those types of entertainers where his act was never going to grow old gracefully, or age well, or however you want to put it.

Thinking about the last 10 years or so of Van Halen and David Lee Roth... It's been a combination of really amazing stuff that rekindled the "magic" those guys used to generate intermixed with really destructive stuff where it all went to shit. Center stage in all that was Roth...

The sad thing to me that killed it all was much of the really entertaining stuff literally got removed from the public domain, then all that was good got stomped on and replaced with half-assed phoned-in performances. Then it all went dark...

If all the content and body of work from 2007 thru the ADKOT tour remained in place it as it had occurred, it would represent a great rebirth of much of the legendary VH/Roth. Everything up through Eddie's Smithsonian presentation... which I suspect was the catalyst for Dave's self-destruction. Then it's like it all got yanked, which literally all the Roth material did and then replaced with sub-par crap.

I really enjoyed all that stuff... The quirky Roth shows, pod casts and especially where the 3 Van Halens were heading from a musical quality perspective. But Dave... in my mind just fucked it all up. He had an amazing collaborative and creative gig in which Shelly produced some really great, entertaining video material. It was the stuff which drew me and many others to Dave's "entertainer" persona! Yeah, some of it was off-the-rails and just plain weird... but still fun if you don't take certain things in life too seriously...

In my mind it's feels like someone snuck into my world and stole all that stuff back because they were butt-hurt over some stupid shit and taking back their fun stuff. Then it all got replaced with cheap sub-par foreign knock-offs... I don't want to be despairing to the Japanese... It's not their fault. Dave should not have tried to reproduce his product in that market. It was a far superior "Made in the USA" product to begin with...

Bottom line... the going dark aspect is what has driven down activity here and all VH/Roth fan site. I really wish those would have been kind enough to leave their body of work out there rather than getting butt-hurt and just pulling it all out of the public realm.

[Terry]

Thinking about the last 10 years or so of Van Halen and David Lee Roth... It's been a combination of really amazing stuff that rekindled the "magic" those guys used to generate intermixed with really destructive stuff where it all went to shit. Center stage in all that was Roth...

The sad thing to me that killed it all was much of the really entertaining stuff literally got removed from the public domain, then all that was good got stomped on and replaced with half-assed phoned-in performances. Then it all went dark...

If all the content and body of work from 2007 thru the ADKOT tour remained in place it as it had occurred, it would represent a great rebirth of much of the legendary VH/Roth. Everything up through Eddie's Smithsonian presentation... which I suspect was the catalyst for Dave's self-destruction. Then it's like it all got yanked, which literally all the Roth material did and then replaced with sub-par crap.

I really enjoyed all that stuff... The quirky Roth shows, pod casts and especially where the 3 Van Halens were heading from a musical quality perspective. But Dave... in my mind just fucked it all up. He had an amazing collaborative and creative gig in which Shelly produced some really great, entertaining video material. It was the stuff which drew me and many others to Dave's "entertainer" persona! Yeah, some of it was off-the-rails and just plain weird... but still fun if you don't take certain things in life too seriously...

In my mind it's feels like someone snuck into my world and stole all that stuff back because they were butt-hurt over some stupid shit and taking back their fun stuff. Then it all got replaced with cheap sub-par foreign knock-offs... I don't want to be despairing to the Japanese... It's not their fault. Dave should not have tried to reproduce his product in that market. It was a far superior "Made in the USA" product to begin with...

Bottom line... the going dark aspect is what has driven down activity here and all VH/Roth fan site. I really wish those would have been kind enough to leave their body of work out there rather than getting butt-hurt and just pulling it all out of the public realm.

I think, as others have said in other threads, if you could have fused the 2007 Roth with the 2012 Ed, THAT would have been a really solid reunion show. As it was, in 2008 and 2012, I got to see shows where only 3/4s of the band was functioning well. Unfortunately, in 2008 the 1/4 not functioning well was Eddie, and in 2012 the 1/4 not functioning well was Dave.

I was never expecting the band in 2007 going forward to put out a stellar album and tour with each new year. I knew it wasn't going to be up to the level of CVH even if Anthony had been participating. I think maybe my overall lack of satisfaction with the last decade has to do with having been around when CVH was active, so I know what it was like in terms of frequency of output, and when CVH was active I didn't have to make allowances for seeing the band when Roth couldn't cut it vocally onstage, or Ed was too fucked up to play well. Truth be told, I'm not gonna make allowances for it now. I gave the band two shots to pull it off live over the last decade: the band weren't 100% up to it.

I suppose I COULD not take the thing so seriously and just lower my expectations accordingly, but fuck it. I shouldn't have to. Not when it comes to Van Halen.

I will say Roth pulled out a great series of performances on the first reunion tour, Eddie played great on the last two tours and I liked ADKOT: when ADKOT worked well, it certainly DID rekindle what I loved about the band all those years ago. I passed on Live From The Tokyo Dome (one listen for free online was MORE than enough) and I passed on the 2015 tour...there's just nothing left going on with the band for me to get excited over in anticipation of anymore. What's left? One last greatest hits tour with Mike Anthony? Even if the band reconvenes and does manage to put out another decent album, we'll get maybe two songs played live and the rest of the set will be the same old same old, only sung badly far as the lead vocals go.

[Nitro Express]

If VH really liked to perform live they would be out there on the road now. The bottom line is they don't love it. They love dicking around in the studio. VH are studio rats. End of story.

[Va Beach VH Fan]

You guys bring up some good points....

Some days, a lot of them over the last couple years, I think they should just schedule a press conference and call it a day....

They obviously have no interest in doing anything other than noodling as Nitro said..... They don't have the energy nor camaraderie nor financial need to tour anymore, you could tell at the Hollywood Bowl shows they were done....

They've completely gone against the grain with just about everything since their half-assed reunion in 2007, where instead of getting Mike back into the fold, EVH had his 16 year old son play bass.... Which, I will repeat, was 100% done so that EVH could play with his son, and he used some bullshit excuse about Mike and Hagar.... For as great as seeing them onstage again in 2007 was, it could have been so much better....

And they fucked it up even earlier in 2007 in the RRHOF ceremony.... That was an absolute embarrassment....

They refuse to do anything for their fans... My god, look what Jimmy Page has been doing.....

And now this year, in what SHOULD be an automatic slamdunk celebration of their 40th anniversary of the greatest debut album in music history, not only do they refuse to do anything, they remain absolutely silent, unless you count one fucking Tweet from EVH......

Like I said, just close up shop and put us out of our misery.... Maybe send another Tweet to let us know, though.....

[ZahZoo]

The silence and literally nothing from the band on their 40th Anniversary of their debut was a disappointment...

It brought back some really fun memories for me of an amazing period of fantastic music, simpler times and just an era packed with fun and debauchery!! What should of been a celebration, it seemed it was just a gawd-damned embarrassment for the band... WTF?

[TitanTopper]

If VH really liked to perform live they would be out there on the road now. The bottom line is they don't love it. They love dicking around in the studio. VH are studio rats. End of story.

Yet, they don’t record and release shit!!

[Nitro Express]

Yet, they don’t record and release shit!!

They only release stuff to the public if they need money. Looks like the bills are paid and they got it made in the shade so the fans get nothing. If your last name ain't Van Halen you don't mean shit in their world. The music is for them. If they need money then they will come out and share some of it.

[Nitro Express]

The silence and literally nothing from the band on their 40th Anniversary of their debut was a disappointment...

It brought back some really fun memories for me of an amazing period of fantastic music, simpler times and just an era packed with fun and debauchery!! What should of been a celebration, it seemed it was just a gawd-damned embarrassment for the band... WTF?

Van Halen ain't KISS. They don't care about their brand or even view it that way. They make music and someone else has to sell it for them. Of course nobody wants to bother because they are a pain in the ass to work with. No VH are just a bunch of studio wankers. It's what they always were. It was Roth that got them to jazz things up and it was Roth that sold that band and then it was Sammy. With just the Van Halens you get nothing. They just wank around in the studio. They don't know how to market for shit.

[daveroth]

I'd be able to concede that perhaps the onstage monitors weren't functioning properly (as to not being rehearsed, I'd say were that the case it would be more of a weak explanation than an excuse) if it weren't for the fact that when I saw Roth in 2005 and 2006 he was approaching California Girls - and quite a few other tunes in the sets - with that same yelping vocal style. He stopped doing that with the first Van Halen reunion tour, but in 2012 he was back to doing it again: I thought the Tampa 2012 gig might have been an anomaly in terms of Dave just having an off night (that'll happen to the best of 'em every now and then), but the other 2012 shows I saw online and the 2015 stuff I saw online were more of the same.

I'd agree he doesn't sound much worse than he did 3 years ago, but that's not really saying a lot.

Whatever. I'm just being a nitpicky cunt about it in terms of bitching about how bad Dave sounded in a few clips I watched for free, but the other side of that coin is I'm glad I wasn't paying to see it live.

I was less than thrilled that Ed was drunkenly half-assing the show I saw in 2008...a show which Dave (along with Al) fucking carried.

Ed got his shit together in 2012. Dave just...I dunno. I can't tell if he's singing the way he is to make it sound like he's trying hard, or if he's bored singing the tunes the way they were recorded...the net result just plain sounds bad. I suppose I wouldn't be so critical if I thought this was the best he was capable of now, but I think he can sound much better with much less effort.

Maybe get Wilford Brimley to sing uncredited offstage for him?

Hey terry, to me it seems Dave just has to get his vocal chords in shape (i.e sing more). I saw them in Toronto on their 2015 tour, and being a young fan i could not have asked for a better show. Dave was great, easily rivaling his '07-'08 performances. And, at the point in the tour when I saw them, they had already done over half of the tour; so Dave's voice was nice and trained up. Here's Ain't talkin' 'bout love from that show.https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mF5LG3wreGg The guy who uploaded it, also uploaded the entire gig. I suggest you check it out, Dave was just at the top of his game that night. It was an awesome night that i'll never forget!

[Nickdfresh]

Van Halen ain't KISS. They don't care about their brand or even view it that way..

Well on some level, thank fuck for that! Who needs cheapened whores?

[ZahZoo]

Van Halen ain't KISS. They don't care about their brand or even view it that way. They make music and someone else has to sell it for them. Of course nobody wants to bother because they are a pain in the ass to work with. No VH are just a bunch of studio wankers. It's what they always were. It was Roth that got them to jazz things up and it was Roth that sold that band and then it was Sammy. With just the Van Halens you get nothing. They just wank around in the studio. They don't know how to market for shit.

I agree on the lack of marketing ability, skills and knowledge... add to that I also believe Ed and Al, plus Dave to a certain degree lack the ability to get a damn thing done without a manager and the support of a record company type of team to push them to complete any credible body of work. Throughout their careers... someone else did all the work, while the band showed up, plugged in, performed and their bank accounts magically filled up.

Before someone shows up here gushing over what a business genius Diamond Dave was... I've always questioned Dave's taking credit for being the motivated business force behind Van Halen and even his solo career. Behind all that greatness was management teams busting their asses to make sure nothing got fucked up along the way. Just look at the disasters and miles long trail of wreckage Dave has left in shambles the last 15-20 years of managing his own catalog, media and legacy...

Without any viable management... look at what we, the fans, get...

There was a time I held hope that posthumously someone would step in and breathe life into the vast musical catalog of recorded live shows and unreleased studio material... but that pipe-dream has faded if you were to look at the web of defunct LLC's and contracts among so many various parties who'd have a legal interest in all of that material. None of the original band member's estates are worth enough to pay attorneys enough to untangle the legal mess tied to the music... and release any of it.

[twonabomber]

If VH really liked to perform live they would be out there on the road now. The bottom line is they don't love it. They love dicking around in the studio. VH are studio rats. End of story.

Ed loves selling striped trinkets. He's got striped leggings for sale now, for chrissakes.

[ZahZoo]

http://www.vhnd.com/2018/04/14/pics-...featuring-dlr/

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