JBJ has been like that for a while. Reminds me of Frankie Valli in the early 80's, when everyone thought he was going deaf.
Almost went to the induction, but it was a 2 ticket limit when they went on sale to HOF members. There were five or six of us who wanted to go. I ended up going to see the Darkness instead.
Writing In All Proper Case Takes Extra Time, Is Confusing To Read, And Is Completely Pointless.
Well I guess at least it proves it was live...
It probably sounded a lot better if you were there and it was loud and not through a phone mike.
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.
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......
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.
"If you want to be a monk... you gotta cook a lot of rice...”
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.
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.
No! You can't have the keys to the wine cellar!
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.....
Eat Us And Smile - The Originals
"I have a very belligerent enthusiasm or an enthusiastic belligerence. I’m an intellectual slut." - David Lee Roth
"We are part of the, not just the culture, but the geography. Van Halen music goes along with like fries with the burger." - David Lee Roth
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?
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.
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.
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!
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.
How long is that now?
I prefer it to the Casey Jones look but both are kind of odd.
Suffice to say, I'm not hearing what you've been hearing as of late re: Dave's live vocals.
I mean, it's good that you enjoyed the show you saw in 2015. Honestly. I wouldn't want a paying audience member of any concert (even a band I have no use for) to experience a substandard show.
Maybe Dave did have a good night in Montreal in 2015 to your ears.
For me, Dave's vocal approach significantly lessened my enjoyment of the 2012 gig I saw: roughly 50% of the time he was singing, Roth sounded shitty. That approach was audibly evident all over the Tokyo Dome album, and was all over the several 2015 gigs I watched on youtube prior to tickets going on sale for my area. From what I heard of that recent clip, that strained yelp is still central to Roth's vocal strategy.
All Roth has to do is drop the yelp and simply sing the tunes in key. I'm not asking for much out of the guy. I have no expectations about him leaping around onstage anymore. I have no expectations that he's gonna start letting out his old trademark barefoot on hot coals shrieks. I do expect he's going to sing the tunes as close to in key as he possibly can and not yelp his way through tune after tune, ruining the lead vocals with his off key yelling. Which is to say, if the band wants any more of my money, that's the expectation Roth will have to meet.
It doesn't matter, because Van Halen with Roth at the helm in terms of the legend is such that the shows don't have to be particularly good anymore to remain lucrative: there's no shortage of people willing to pay to see what I no longer will. And that's fine. If people are enjoying what the band are doing - and are enjoying what Roth is doing vocally - go see the shows and have a good time. Long as things remain the way they are vocally, I'm out.
Yeah, well, to hear Dave at times tell it, he was the genius behind all of that CVH marketing. You never do hear Dave mention the names Noel Monk or Pete Angelus with any type of frequency in terms of sharing the credit. Left to his own devices, essentially managing himself, we got YFLM, the Vegas stint, Strumming with Van Halen, Van Halen lullabyes for toddlers, etc.
As for Ed and Al, it doesn't take a sense of business genius to license the red/black/white EVH Franky Stripes and allow them to be slapped on everything under the sun...much the same as when Ed finally called all the shots in the wake of Hagar's 1996 departure, we got Van Halen III for our troubles.
Hi Terry,
I think you are confusing him with me he attended the Toronto show in 2015 lol "Maybe Dave did have a good night in Montreal in 2015 to your ears." You did have to answer to the same kind of comment a few years ago that I made but to my defense I have never attended a VH "Event" as Dave puts it, sober...Anyways Dave getting old Ed getting old and we are all getting old. So memories is all we have now.
Cheers!
STIL
Now who`s that babe with the fab-u-lous shad-ow?
"All Roth has to do is drop the yelp and simply sing the tunes in key. I'm not asking for much out of the guy. I have no expectations about him leaping around onstage anymore." I agree, this is all we are asking for.
Last edited by So this is love; 04-22-2018 at 07:15 PM.
"Long as things remain the way they are vocally, I'm out." Well maybe its time to have a get together with some of the good people at this site such as Vain, 78/84 and others if VH ever tour again and it FLA.
I think the black and gold along with a blue and gold ones showed up in 2007... they replaced the pin stripped suit from the radio days.
The Carhart bib-overalls showed up during the Strummin With the Devil era... he should have stuck with that look exclusively. That venture at least got Dave back to singing in key, with proper melodies and none of that ear-cringing yelp crap...
Might as well YELP!
Bon Jovi at the RNR HOF was Terrible! Thanks to those that mentioned it. I googled it and was mortified.
Breasts,
Nice to see you around, Doctor!
Maybe they shouldn't have mentioned it, so you wouldn't have been mortified?
Couple pages of discussion is pretty good for a 3 song Gala™ gig...
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