Dave says "Van Halen is finished."

[Terry]

I give Dave an A+ on physical conditioning. He's never slacked there. He just doesn't have the voice anymore nor the band. It's father time folks. It's not Dave's fault. He's aged. The Van Halen's are going we are old. We drank a oil tanker of liquor, smoked a plantation of tobacco and snorted Peru up our nose. Now we are paying for it. A tour would be fucking hell. We just can't admit it so we will hide and we never really liked Dave anyways so screw him. Dave is like, Oh yeah motherfuckers. Well I hurt too and I have to pop the blue pill now but I got the car keys and I'm stomping on the throttle until I blow out of a curve and plow through a bean field. Hopefully the Viagra has gone active by then.

With Dave, there's no doubt the work ethic is still there, as well as the energy and the desire to still entertain.

Closing in on 50 myself, I get the desire to keep working until you can't anymore...I understand it more with each passing year, much more so than I appreciated twenty, ten or even five years ago.

But, as you said, with the Van Halens it may well be the case of them wanting to depart the stage on a relatively high note, in terms of calling it quits with their heads able to be held up high in terms of not overstaying re: waning ability. Far as I saw/heard, the Van Halens were knocking it out of the park the last 2 Van Halen tours. They still had the ability to deliver the goods. I can't say the same applied to Dave for either of those tours, depending on how low one was willing to set the bar and how many concessions one was willing to allow for age and physical decline.

Doubtless, usually age will show in a more telling way for rock singers than guitar players...but for me it got to the point where Dave's voice and vocal approach had come to sound so goddamned awful live that the fact that he is a rock legend and the fact that he fronted the only version of Van Halen that ever mattered to me and the fact that I still enjoy listening to those Van Halen records...like, all of Dave's wacky rock star stories and everything else I mentioned just...wasn't compensating for how badly the guy has been singing for the last 8 years.

I gave more than enough concessions to the decline of Dave's abilities in terms of the live vocals and the winding down of his karate showmanship antics between 1999 and 2008. Mostly because the guy never failed to entertain me during those years, partly because I realized it obviously wasn't the 1980s anymore (or even the early 1990s)...at a 2006 Roth gig I saw, he was going for a high kick, visibly lost his footing, aborted the attempt and stumbled. Like, sure, it'd be neat to see him kicking if he still can, but not at the expense of nearly seeing him take a face-plant onstage if he can't. At that point, it becomes...a bit sad.

And that's kinda how the recent round of interviews and this upcoming Vegas stint comes off to me. For the last twenty years, one always heard various people saying "Dave still thinks it's 1985" or "Dave looks silly trying to act like it's still 1985 onstage" and the like. I thought such comments were bullshit then, because Roth was still entertaining to me. Last 7 years or so, Roth has just been slipping more and more into that realm of Sunset Boulevard territory, trying to...I dunno...recreate past glories. On a business level, I understand why, because nostalgia sells. It's not like outside of the diehards the world at large is waiting for a new Roth solo venture. And how many diehards are there left, who will pay money to hear or witness anything non-Van Halen related Roth wants to do? Enough to make touring as a solo act lucrative? Enough to make recording and releasing a solo album worthwhile?

As a longtime fan, I wish the guy the best in terms of continuing to perform as long as he wants to. As Vinnie Velvet said, wouldn't be too hard to imagine Dave seeing his contemporaries out there still doing it, so why NOT him?

What Dave is able to bring to the stage, in terms of conjuring up the CVH Experience...it's...not so much, anymore.

[ZahZoo]

There is something to be said for packing it in when you can't cut it anymore. Usually, the audience will let you know when the consensus is such by dwindling attendance.

That's a good point... although it only works if you don't apply a self-imposed packing it in prematurely without giving the audience a chance to weigh in...

The problem here with Dave and especially the Van Halens... there is so much more they could have been and even currently be doing musically. It seems they have created this self-imposed requirement that if it isn't a huge, full record release or a touring deal with 10,000+ seating capacity with the equivalent pay day... then it ain't worth leaving the house. That's utter bullshit...

Single song releases digitally without all the overhead... 2 night pay per view performances in any major venue on Earth... A simple performance in a studio or small stage recorded, videoed and posted on-line. Minimal post production... wouldn't cost a fortune to produce. The internet is your global distribution channel...

People would be eating that shit up... screaming for more and the band could do it comfortably without even all the logistics, fan interaction and nonsense. Plus people would pay happily for it... probably generating more profitable income than they see today.

Such wasted potential...