40 Year Debut Anniversary

[ZahZoo]

We're quickly approaching 90 days out from the 40th Anniversary of Van Halen's iconic debut album and the world would soon add Diamond David Lee Roth as a household name in the global conscientiousness...

I wasted about 30 minutes searching the interwebs... as typical with these jackasses... there were no signs of intelligent life. Not even a weed sprouting in the rock-n-roll garden despite an abundance of fertilizer!!

You'd figure with this significant date approaching it's got to be worth recognizing in a loud manner... Why do I feel like the only applicable sentiment would be a classic Survivor™ quote from Jeff Probst... Head on back to camp, I got nothin for ya...

Thoughts..?

[Von Halen]

I’ve never heard of Jeff Probst, but it wouldn’t surprise me in the least, if this anniversary comes and goes without a word from these idiots.

I’d love to see them continue their streak of being the dumbest, most dysfunctional fucking rock band on the planet.

[Terry]

We're quickly approaching 90 days out from the 40th Anniversary of Van Halen's iconic debut album and the world would soon add Diamond David Lee Roth as a household name in the global conscientiousness...

I wasted about 30 minutes searching the interwebs... as typical with these jackasses... there were no signs of intelligent life. Not even a weed sprouting in the rock-n-roll garden despite an abundance of fertilizer!!

You'd figure with this significant date approaching it's got to be worth recognizing in a loud manner... Why do I feel like the only applicable sentiment would be a classic Survivor™ quote from Jeff Probst... Head on back to camp, I got nothin for ya...

Thoughts..?

Jeff Probst is an ass clown whose name doesn't even deserve to be muttered in the same breath as that of Van Halen circa 1974-1984.

[Terry]

Beyond that, the type of recognition for that anniversary that would mean anything to me would be in the form of putting out previously unofficially released, newly restored CVH audio and video.

It's of no consequence to me if the band members have any present comments on the anniversary of the release of the first album four decades ago, as I have no real interest in hearing from Van Halen in an interview context. I've read plenty of interviews already.

I could sort of understand the rationale the Van Halens had of not looking backward or not emphasizing the past twenty years ago, in terms of them wanting to move the music forward. For the last 14 years, though, the band have been undertaking what were by and large nostalgia tours, with a minimum of semi-obligatory new material produced and performed.

My own feeling of that is, if you're gonna be a nostalgia act, don't half-ass it. If you're going to reform, don't go 3/4s of the way there. If you're going to embrace the past, do so fully. With Van Halen, they've sadly been content to half ass it and get at best 3/4s of the way to an acceptable result. That mentality, mindset and approach aren't components that turned me onto the band all those years ago, but are a seemingly irrevocable feature of the band such as it has existed for the last 14 years.

It's not a thrilling turn of events, but it's where they are now.

I'll always raise a glass to what they once were. It's not even worth a tip of the hat or a nod in terms of what they are today, though, which is contentedly stuck in Mundaneville.

[ZahZoo]

Jeff Probst is an ass clown whose name doesn't even deserve to be muttered in the same breath as that of Van Halen circa 1974-1984.

Well yeah... just a game show host. He ain't no Bob Barker or Monty Hall...

I figure this 40th anniversary thing is a worthy thing to celebrate. Few rock bands left alive to celebrate that many years... Not like they got something better to do...

[Terry]

Well yeah... just a game show host. He ain't no Bob Barker or Monty Hall...

I figure this 40th anniversary thing is a worthy thing to celebrate. Few rock bands left alive to celebrate that many years... Not like they got something better to do...

The CVH lineup first got together in...what 1974? 1975?

Thereabouts.

I think their first ten years together, 1974 to 1984, certainly were something worth celebrating. And the cool thing about that is I don't have to wait until 2018 to do it: I still listen to the WB records, and old live boots from the club days, and the Simmons demos. It all still resonates with me like a motherfucker.

I have little to no use for what the band did from 1985 to 1995. Thought the 2 new Roth tracks in 1996 showed promise.

The last twenty years of the band have barely been worth remembering. Some decent to good work on ADKOT. A lot of uneven live work since Roth rejoined.

When CVH were active, for me the band was right up there with The Stones, The Beatles, The Who, Led Zeppelin, etc.

The band have been limping along for the last twenty years, more out of inertia and a lack of creative energy than anything else.

At least Van Halen III and the tour was an attempt to move forward. Post-Cherone, the band has been good for little other than retreads. Roth was great on the 2007/2008 dates. Ed has performed well for the last two tours. ADKOT was a good effort with mixed results. But even ADKOT was released nearly 6 years ago now.

I'll continue to celebrate the first ten years of the band, and basically discard the last thirty years.

[Va Beach VH Fan]

Hold on, you mean the band doesn't interact with their fans?

I mean, there are some straws that one could grasp at for some signs of life - DLR's new agents, EVH's new online store, and hey, Mikey's miniature bass is available now!

Like I said, straws....

In addition to that, one would "think" that if VH were going out on some 40th anniversary tour in 2018, some arena bookings would start to leak out... But as I mentioned on FB, back before the ADKOT tour, which started in February, we didn't hear a peep about tour dates until they released the dates in January....

It's also possible that a potential tour wouldn't be as long as fans would expect... Maybe it would only be 3-4 months, starting in June/July.... If that were the case, then it's more plausible why arena dates haven't leaked just yet.....

Who the fuck knows, I'm just throwing out possibilities....

[Terry]

It wouldn't surprise me if the band toured next year.

They've basically been touring once every 3 to 4 years since 2007, and 2018 will be 3 years since the last tour.

It probably would, as you say, be only 4 or so months. The 2007/2008 tour was lengthy, but in a few stages with a month or so break in between if I remember correctly. The 2012 tour originally was pretty ambitious in terms of length, but the extensive US legs got shelved after Ed had his health problems and Dave had his troubles with...the 'blowers'...then they did some stuff abroad in 2013.

2015 was...what, 3 to 4 months, I think?

Which is really all the band needs, anyway. A Van Halen 'World Tour' basically consists just of the US, and how many different American venues does the band need to play these days to constitute a tour? 40? 50? And they don't need to do 5 nights a week anymore. Four months, 16 weeks, 3 gigs per week average, there's your 40 to 50 shows. Van Halen can tour whatever time of the year and put asses in seats: they don't have to just do summer months unless they're doing amphitheater-type venues.


OR...


The band can NOT tour in 2018, Ed and Al can continue to record jamming/'noodling' sessions at 5150 and never release them, Dave can wander around his farmland with his trusty sheepdogs at his side, and Van Halen could do fuck-all next year...with no explanations given.

I'll give 2:1 odds on the latter.

[FORD]

Really would like a summer tour from them, if they're going to tour at all. I need to see Van Halen at The Gorge, goddamn it. And that ain't happening in the winter.

[Igosplut]

Maybe I never reached the heights of success that these guys did, but at least I didn't spend the last 30 years fighting about the first ten...What a waste....

[Von Halen]

I don’t know why the fuck anybody would even want them to tour in 2018. Are you really that desperate to hear Roth butcher the songs even more than he already has?

[Terry]

I don’t know why the fuck anybody would even want them to tour in 2018. Are you really that desperate to hear Roth butcher the songs even more than he already has?

Without a doubt.

In 2012, I thought maybe the night I saw them Roth was having an off-night. Closer examination from other nights of that tour via youtube demonstrated Roth was having a fairly typical night when I saw them in 2012.

Nothing I have seen subsequent to the 2012 show I saw had given the slightest indication that Roth is approaching the vocals any differently, or that he is sounding any better. On the contrary, he sounds like he's getting worse.

I checked out the early 2015 shows via youtube before tickets went on sale for my area, and Roth still sounded terrible. Roth sounding terrible has become the recent/new norm for the band. And that's fine for the band and the Van Halens if they accept it, and it's fine for the fans who are still willing to pay money to see it.

Roth was so off-key with his strained yelp in 2012 that it frankly put a damper on the show for me: it simply sounded goddamned awful. Even more depressing was that the Van Halens themselves were in solid form, displaying a well-rehearsed/practiced set of classic Van Halen music, and there was Roth onstage with them often making it unlistenable whenever he was singing. It was THAT bad at times.

I don't have any interest in spending nickel one of my money or a single moment of my time expending the energy to get tickets to see the band live as it is today sounding the way it does now. Fuck that.

I love what Van Halen did when Roth was in the group the first time around. The second time around has been largely a letdown, and not worth the investment. We all knew eventually the time was going to come for Van Halen with Dave where they couldn't pull it off anymore, and for me that time came four years ago. A bummer, to be sure. I always got a kick out of Roth's performances. Even as recently as 2005 and 2006. I thought he did a - for him - TREMENDOUS job on the 2007/2008 tour. One of my personal all-time favorite rock front men. But it is over. It...is...over.

[Von Halen]

Should anyone think he may have improved his approach, please go watch the screeching and yelping he did recently, at that corporate, or whatever the fuck it was, gig. Hell, even the band that wasn’t VH backing him, showed him up.

[Kristy]

Psssssssst. Assholes.

High school is well over with. It's been over 40 years. Don't you think it's time you moved on with your miserable lives?

[Von Halen]

Why would we do that?