More or less what the Red Rocks show was like with one exception. I thought Eddie played brilliantly and really energized the audience. Seems the onus was on him to not only carry the band but Roth as well and there were times when Eddie looked upon Dave with contempt. Roth was irascible when Eddie upstaged him and that alone ruined that show for me. I guess if you were one of the lucky ones who saw them play back in '78-'82 (maybe '84) you'll have great memories of them but in 2015 hearing Roth sing was like going to a dentist without any anesthetic.
First saw them in Philly in ‘84, 2 nights in a row. They filmed the concert and crowd scenes for the Panama video there, if you look really hard you still won’t see me. They were probably at their apex then, but it was the David Lee Roth show with a slamming band. I remember how both shows were identical, set list, ad libs, Dave’s “jokes”, forgetting the same lyrics at the same point. Loooong breaks between songs for you know who to pontificate…..still one of the best concerts I ever attended.
Haven’t seen Ace Frehley live in a long time, but there’s plenty of YouTube’s that are recent where he is really good. Back in his heyday, brief though it may have been, I think he did a great job. His solos fit the song and they were well executed. Ace made me want to pick up a guitar, and then others came along who made me not want to put it down.
From what I can remember of the 1984 show I saw, Eddie and the band weren't the loudest band I'd heard live, in terms of sheer volume.
The venue I saw them in was the same venue I saw upwards of two dozen shows in from 1983 to 1985. The loudest band I ever saw live was Deep Purple on their Perfect Strangers tour: my ears were literally ringing for days afterward.
The second loudest was Black Sabbath on the Born Again tour: the bass in particular was deafening.
Scramby eggs and bacon.
Very interesting.
I couldn't see Eddie drinking during the Tampa 2008 show, but it became apparent to everybody as the show went on (and particularly when his solo spot came up toward the end of the show, so the arena is just totally focused on Eddie, and Ed's image is being displayed close-up and larger than life on the large video screen) that Ed was either drunk or fucked up on something. He wasn't stumbling down fucked up, but he was toasted.
That 1984 show was probably the biggest I ever saw at the Providence Civic Center in terms of stage production. In the 2 to 3 years I was going to shows there in the 80s, Van Halen 1984 DEFINITELY had the most lights and the biggest stage/ramps erected. I didn't really perceive it to be the David Lee Roth Show with a slamming band, because everybody got to do a solo spot - Eddie in particular had a very lengthy guitar solo spot - but, yeah, Roth did a LOT of inbetween song raps. He did a joke about picking up a woman and taking her back to his hotel room, where she proceeded to take off her wig and put it on the nightstand table. Then she took off her false eyelashes and put them on the nightstand table. Then she took off her high heels and put them on the nightstand table. Then she took off her padded bra and put it on the nightstand table. She got into the bed, and David got up. She asked Dave where he was going, and Dave replied "I'm going over to fuck the table."
I saw them a couple of months later in Baltimore in 2008 and as you say he wasn't a mess but he was below par. He was just about adequate but you didn't feel like you were in the presence of a guitar god, he ducked the difficult bits and his solo spot was a bit meh. Roth was just about the best I've ever seen him.
A lot of technically proficient players will bore you to tears. You have to be entertaining or everyone except for the biggest guitar nerds will hate you.
That was really kind of Tampa in a nutshell: Ed was JUST ABOUT adequate...his solo spot sort of devolved from him trying to do Eruption and not really pulling it off in terms of it being fluid (and, I mean, Ed not being able to do Eruption?) and then doing the trilling speed picking and sort of stumbling with that, and eventually he just started hitting harmonic whammy bar dives...and the crowd had this hushed, sort of confused vibe watching Ed not being able to play as well as he could, or should, or whatever.
Roth, by contrast...I mean, I had seen him play in 2005 and 2006, and at both those gigs he wasn't exactly phoning it in but he was hardly...he couldn't have been accused of trying too hard at either of those shows, either, you know? The contrast between those two shows and what he did fronting Van Halen in 2007-2008...I've doubtless said it before, but Dave really upped his game. He wasn't treating the reunion like some half-assed victory lap with a guaranteed jackpot regardless: you could tell Roth had put in the preparation and was making the effort. Which is what you as a fan expect anyway, right? But I've noticed at more than a few shows I've been to in the last twenty years - most of which were older, established bands - that sometimes these living rock legends don't TRY very hard anymore. Either because they can't or they don't have to, I dunno.
He did what I later found out was the typical Roth quips. "Look at all the people here tonight!" "You all here are the rowdiest bunch of motherfuckers!" "I forgot the fucking words!" I didn't know when I saw the concert that Roth tended to use those same lines night after night, because the only live stuff I'd seen or heard up to that point was the 3 Oakland Fair Warning videos and the edited/abbreviated US Festival set that was aired on cable tv a few months after the US Festival.
But I do remember that nightstand table joke. Mostly because he took a long time telling it...and I remember when he told the punchline about half the audience laughed and the other half groaned.
I was about to say that...like, I have a memory of listening to KISS Alive at an older relative's house in 1976. I was listening to it on headphones, and those lead parts just sort of...sang. And this was...I mean, back then it was a couple of years before KISS were on tv with any frequency...I'd see pictures of them in rock magazines or whatever, but mostly I remember staring at the KISS Alive album cover and listening to them. I hadn't even started playing guitar back then...I was 6 years old in 1976. But I remember listening to that album over and over again, hearing the explosions at the end of Black Diamond, and listening to the lead guitar parts.
I recall Paul Stanley around the time of the Revenge album saying that Ace had a lot of natural talent and a Jimmy Page-quality to his playing that never really blossomed, and I think to a degree that may be true. I can't say that I've even heard any of Frehley's stuff post-1980s, mostly because I haven't. But Frehley took bits and pieces of what Clapton, Page, Beck and Hendrix were doing...I can hear those influences in his playing. Ultimately, Ace is definitely representative of that 1970s blues pentatonic-based rock, and that style has limitations. But in the long haul I find these days I'd rather hear rock guitar that sings as opposed to just being this blinding display of high-speed technical ability.
That Black Sabbath Born Again show was the first loud rock concert I ever went to, at the princely age of 13, so I suppose it was natural that the volume sort of stunned me.
The Deep Purple Perfect Strangers tour was a year and a half or two years later, and I had been to a bunch of concerts between the Born Again show and the Perfect Strangers show, so I was used to loud rock shows...or so I thought. Deep Purple were fucking LOUD.
Ace's solos on all those classic 70s KISS songs are stellar.
And yes, there's not many guitar players that can make their solos actually "sing" and make the listener even sing along to them.
Ace did that in spades (no pun intended).
The solo on Rocket Ride is just so awesome. Never get tired of hearing it.
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Could have been worse... loudest concert I ever went to was Bon Jovi in the Tacoma Dome in 1989. So loud it was distorted and I couldn't tell what song they were playing most of the time. Never was a big fan of the band, went with friends, and basically because the chicks would be there. For that reason, the show was much easier on the eyes than the ears.
I saw VH in 84 three times. One show I was right up front. Ed played part of his guitar solo sitting on the edge of the stage right in front of me. He was in his own world totally off into solo land. Kind of cool seeing him play probably 8 feet away.
Anyways those shows were good but Ed was doing shows. He seemed substance worn and there because there was a show to do but you could tell he lived playing.
Anyways who I saw the last tour was a different guy. He was having the time of his life. The guy was happy and I don’t think he made a single mistake the whole show. Maybe I saw him on a good night who knows but I was sober, Ed was sober and he played great.
Anyways it’s about entertainment, not music. If your music entertains no one, nobody cares. A simple reality so many people don’t understand.
The Purple show was loud, although when the band were playing the songs the mix was good enough where it wasn't distorted.
It was when Blackmore did his solo spot...and all he really did was a bunch of feedback tremolo stuff, but it sounded like it was louder than when the entire band was onstage playing together.
I mean, Vinnie Vincent and Bruce Kulick and Tommy Thayer are all technically proficient players, but all of them were a bit too polished to me...even Ace's mistakes still sounded great, you know? Like, those other three guys, you knew they were never gonna hit a bum note. Even though I've heard it a zillion times, when I listen to She off of Alive! and that solo bit at the end Ace does...Ace had that screw up quality where to this day I listen to him doing his sort of slow Chuck Berry bends up the neck and I STILL think he's gonna blow it! And then he starts speeding up the lick when he gets toward the top of the fretboard, and it's like you're just waiting for Ace to fuck it up...even though you've heard it a million times.
I saw them in an opening band slot in 1985, before Slippery When Wet came out, and wouldn't have believed it then if somebody had told me within a couple of years they would have been half as huge as they ended up being. But, Jon Bon Jovi was a good-looking guy. The little girls in the audience were squealing for Bon Jovi and Sambora even back in 1985 BEFORE Slippery When Wet came out.
David Lee Roth put it best. You don’t want things too perfect. You want your jeans faded with a few holes in them. You want the silver a little tarnished. There’s an art to making mistakes and Ace was a master at it.
Our daughter loves Ace Frehley. She discovered him on her own. She got me back listening to Ace stuff. But she said he’s just cool. Our daughter is a classically trained pianist by the way. She took years of lessons. She knows music but she loves ol’ tarnished Ace Frehley. She saw him open for Alice Cooper and loved it.
The loudest I ever got was at a small venue in Savoy. Northern French death metal band called Loudblast nearly ruined my eardrums.
The riffs were cool, but I always find the vocals and mean attitudes fucking ridiculous, so I never listen to that kind of stuff,
except Slayer's Seasons in the Abyss maybe once every three years.
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