Official 6/1 Los Angeles Meetup/Review Thread

[Light Em' Up!]

These West Coast shows kick my ass. Being 2 hours ahead in my time zone and a few beers in, makes it hard to stay up to task despite the adrenaline rush of all the shows.

Really wish I could figure out what the problem is that I am suddenly having with Twitter. I have googled it, and I am doing all the steps as I should, but they still don't embed properly. Was so pissed when I could post that pic of Dave, but thought it was such a bad ass picture, I just uploaded it instead.

[sadaist]

So...when they play hometown like this do they all stay at their homes? I'm surprised they don't schedule LA in the middle of the tour so they get a couple days at home to decompress a bit. Or do they stay in hotels as normal so as to not break the whole tour groove thing? Sometimes just sitting on your own couch with your own TV and thumbing through your mail feels good and can recharge the batteries big time.

[sadaist]

Different angle. Still searching for DTNA




Gotta ad here....motherfuck do they sound perfect on this song. Dave sounds great, Eddie sounds great......dang.

[Va Beach VH Fan]

http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/review/van-halen-concert-review-staples-center-los-angeles-david-lee-roth-eddie-van-halen-332330

Van Halen at Staples Center: Concert Review
12:27 PM PDT 6/2/2012 by Erik Pedersen

What David Lee Roth has lost in vocal range he compensated for with his much-missed stage shtick. Add a smiling and reinvigorated Eddie Van Halen, and the sheer entertainment value in undeniable.

The (mostly) reunited band pleases the hometown crowd with classic songs and vintage David Lee Roth antics.

Five years into its reunion with frontman David Lee Roth, the 2012 version of Van Halen can’t simply play off the novelty factor anymore. And despite vocal shortcomings and some dodgy set-list decisions, Friday’s homecoming concert at Staples Center showed that this band can continue to be a touring force if its members so choose.

Much has been made about the sudden decision to postpone more than 30 dates on the current North American tour, including (gasp!) rumblings of animosity. But the quartet that features three late-fiftysomethings merely said its schedule was underthought and therefore overbooked. Regardless, this show went on -- and it was so much pure fun that fans have to be looking forward to more.

The most glaring difference between Friday’s gig and Van Halen’s Staples show in November 2007 was the return of Roth as showman centerpiece. A half-decade ago, he was tentative about deploying the old shtick, opting to focus on his vocals rather than his stage persona and ceding the spotlight to reinvigorated guitar legend Eddie Van Halen. But that was then, this is now -- and Vintage Concert Roth is back.

No, there wasn’t any Jack Daniel’s swilling, midair leg splits or (sadly) those trademark wailing vocal fills. And Roth’s onstage gymnastics mostly have been replaced by soft shoe (he used a roughly 6-by-8-foot hunk of buffed wood for spins, twirls and slides, though there were several impressive high leg kicks). But what the crowd got instead was good ol’ Chatty Dave. He told stories, made jokes, tossed in comments -- and generally seemed to enjoy himself.
“It’s a homecoming -- the full-circle kind of effect,” he told the crowd in the town the band broke out from in 1978. “So many people I haven’t seen in a long time. ‘Dave, Dave, Dave – it’s me. I’m a girl now.’” He later name-checked Malibu, Venice Beach and the Valley.

Roth’s old antics turned off plenty of people back in the day, but that was part of the classic act. And Friday night’s most throwback moment was the resurrection of Randy Dave for the first time here in nearly three decades: “Is that a video camera?” he asked a young lady down front. “You wanna make a sex tape?” Riotous.

Call it compensation: All that helped turn the focus away from Roth’s obvious vocal limitations, by far the roughest aspect of this show. He basically talked his way through the songs -- for those who’d counter with, “Well, that’s what he always did,” there’s no comparison -- though he occasionally reached back for a little extra. An example of that came during “Oh, Pretty Woman,” which featured probably Roth’s best singing of the night, as if he knew he couldn’t fake it when covering the Tortured One.
Whether any in the crowd were truly bothered -- or surprised -- by Roth’s lack of range is debatable. They lapped up his ad-libs, well-rehearsed or not. To wit: “I’m gonna brag a little bit: 42 days clean and sober,” he said, adding after a perfectly timed pause: “No, not in a row. Since Hannukah.” Later, during the intro to “Hot for Teacher,” he deadpanned: “I’m Mr. Roth, and I’ll be your substitute teacher today. If you’re barely a beginner, you’re in the wrong song.”

But it wasn’t just the singer who leapt into the wayback machine. Brothers Eddie and Alex Van Halen don’t seem to have lost a step: the guitarist the epitome of sheer effortless virtuosity and the drummer a study in steadiness. Eddie seemed inspired by the chance to rip though the Roth-era oldies. The only replaced link in the chain is Wolfgang Van Halen, Eddie’s 21-year-old son, who took over for Michael Anthony on bass in 2006. As on the previous tour, he mostly kept to himself, adding thick licks and strong backing vocals.

A more minor gripe about the concert is the set list, at least compared with the previous tour. Sure, it was fat with stone classics and a few choice album cuts -- how was “Romeo Delight” not an FM smash? -- but apart from new four songs from the band’s current album A Different Kind of Truth, there was only one vintage Van Halen number they didn’t play at Staples in 2007. And really, “Atomic Punk” and “Little Guitars” cut for “Hear About It Later”?

And for a band touring behind a genuinely good comeback album, it’s easy to argue with their choice of which songs to perform from it. "China Town" and "The Trouble With Never" are a shade north of perfectly adequate, but “She’s the Woman” is forgettable, and “Tattoo” isn’t as catchy as the group likely thinks it is. With all the old-school Van Halen tracks on the new album – think the rippin’, concert-ready “As Is” or “Outta Space” – “Tattoo” simply is an obvious lead single, as if they thought it might be a crossover hit. They could have attacked rock radio with a vintage Eddie shred-a-thon. You know, the kind of song that was absent during the dark Van Hagar years.

The main set ended with Eddie’s knob-twistin’, whammy-barrin’, jaw-dropping’ nine-minute guitar solo. It was bookended by “Eruption,” which got the cellarazzi going, with phones illuminating the hall as fans taped a live rendering of perhaps the most famous studio-recorded guitar solo in rock history.

“I’m still not used to this,” Roth said midway through the show. But Van Halen’s fans are, which begs a question: Where does the band go from here? Do they attempt another record? Just keep touring? Call it quits?

Maybe a hint came as they played “You Really Got Me,” the Kinks classic that became Van Halen’s first single. Roth and Eddie stood for quite a while absolutely nose to nose, separated only by their smiles. Perhaps it was just acting, part of the show; this was Hollywood, after all. Or maybe – just maybe – peace has come to Van Halen.

Set List:
Unchained
Runnin’ With the Devil
She’s the Woman
Romeo Delight
Tattoo
Everybody Wants Some!!
Somebody Get Me a Doctor
China Town
Hear About It Later
Oh, Pretty Woman
You Really Got Me
The Trouble With Never
Dance the Night Away
I’ll Wait
And the Cradle Will Rock…
Hot for Teacher
Women in Love
Beautiful Girls
Ice Cream Man
Panama
Eruption/Guitar Solo
Ain’t Talkin’ ’Bout Love
Jump

[Va Beach VH Fan]

http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/music_blog/2012/06/van-halen-at-staples-center-arena-rock-in-its-natural-habitat.html

Van Halen at Staples Center: Arena rock in its natural habitat
June 2, 2012 | 12:49 pm

Arena rock was made for moments like this: a killer sound system with amplifiers stacked high onstage and hanging from support beams, all aimed at a hometown crowd. A master drum kit placed on a glowing pedestal; a microphone stand at the center of an acre of stage, awaiting a lead singer itching to scream.

All that was missing at Van Halen’s eagerly anticipated return to Los Angeles on Friday night at Staples Center were the Bic lighters, feathered hair, and a fleet of Trans Ams cruising up and down Figueroa. Well, that and a sense of cohesion.

This rock scene was laid out before the four-piece, born in Pasadena in 1972, like a feast, one that was four decades, a handful of break-ups, three lead singers, three bassists, and some legendary animosity in the making.

This was the first L.A. stop on the band’s highly publicized, expertly marketed -- and recently scaled-back -- reunion tour. Van Halen and its original lead singer, David Lee Roth, appeared at Staples to remind a hometown population how and why they erupted from the Sunset Strip to become one of the biggest arena rock bands in the world.

But aside from a few oversized rock 'n' roll moments -- an impressive late-set guitar solo from co-founder Eddie Van Halen, an odd but engaging Alex Van Halen drum solo, some funny Roth quips, and the sheer thrill of witnessing four really good musicians/performers onstage offering up hit after glorious hit -- Van Halen’s grand return never really felt like it got going. It was instead interrupted at nearly every key moment by lesser songs from the band’s recent album, “A Different Kind of Truth."

They played four from the new record in a set of 22 songs, but those four, along with a number of overly long, pointless end-song extensions, served as speed bumps that slowed down a band which at its racing-striped prime would have squealed across with burn-rubber abandon.

That abandon seems to have mostly vanished in the rearview mirror for the obvious reason that no one can sustain such a decadent lifestyle before crashing and/or burning. But the best of Van Halen's songs are so powerfully constructed that they’ll prevail as long as Eddie’s fingers can handle them and Diamond Dave can yowl out a string of syllables.

Anyone who grew up on rock radio in the 1970s or '80s knows this, and the band offered them: “Hot for Teacher,” “Dance the Night Away,” “I’ll Wait,” “Panama,” and, of course, “Jump,” as well as their classic covers of the Kinks’ “You Really Got Me” and Roy Orbison’s “Oh, Pretty Woman.” The best of them was "Ain't Talkin' Bout Love," which was so convincing a performance that it rendered a lot of lesser stuff pointless.

They tore through “Runnin’ With the Devil” early in the set, it seemed solid evidence that the recently announced tour postponement wasn’t due to the kind of internal strife that has crippled reunion efforts in the past. The smiles onstage seemed genuine.

Last week, in fact, Roth released a video assuring fans with his most salesman-like eye twinkle that everyone was “getting along famously,” but that, “as usual, we bit off way more than we could chew when it came to scheduling.”

And his stage maneuvering on Friday seemed specifically designed to dispel the rumored strife. He did a lot of wide-smiled gestures at Eddie’s many guitar solos, pointed to bassist (and Eddie’s son) Wolfgang like he’d just witnessed a virgin birth, and offered kudos to Alex on the drums with a sense of wonder. There was nary a glare to be seen.

But despite all the hype, the concert on the whole felt lackluster; the crowd, while at capacity, was eager to remain seated (though the floor-seat dwellers remained standing for most of the evening). New songs came, much of the crowd sat down and took a few slugs of beer, and then the songs were over. "China Town" has no place on a set list that excludes "Jamie's Crying." "Somebody Get Me a Doctor,” one of the lesser songs from "Van Halen II," featured an unjustifiably drawn-out ending.

The sluggishness wasn’t for lack of effort. Roth was his joyously affable self, a character who a century earlier would have been a circus ringleader or a traveling elixir salesman, but who from 1972 until his departure from the band in ’85 became one of the world’s most celebrated and imitated rock stars. At Staples he didn’t swing from ropes, and limited his scissor kicks to key moments, preferring instead to do a variation on the soft-shoe on the parquet floor.

Eddie still has the chops, even if the big-screen close-ups of his fingers while soloing revealed a few worrisomely gnarled knuckles. This didn't seem to affect his playing, and watching his extended solo, which occurred near the end of the set and featured a few different stylistic accents, was enough to make a fan hope that once this tour concludes he puts his arena rock days behind him and pushes outside of his comfort zone with an instrumental guitar album.

His son Wolfgang inherited his father's abilities, and on Friday repeatedly showed that even though nepotism helped him get the job, his heavy duty lines -- and ability to lock into a groove with Uncle Alex -- can silence the doubters.

And for Diamond Dave? His late-set solo acoustic lead in to "Ice Cream Man," accompanied by film footage of his dogs wrangling sheep and cattle on Roth's farm, seemed the result of a contract negotiation to help him launch whatever he’ll be doing once this Van Halen engine runs out of steam. That he hasn't leapt into the world of reality TV is a testament to his intelligence, even if he'd be a blast on "Celebrity Apprentice." If nothing else, he's a charmer, and this paycheck can earn him enough money to negotiate more acreage and livestock, even if it doesn't revive his singing career.

Despite all the talent, and those songs, Friday night offered evidence that nostalgia by definition seldom moves a person forward, rarely satisfies in the long run, and can only sustain a certain number of concerts before weariness sets in.

[Light Em' Up!]

[chi-town324]

great review! pretty spot on i would say

[Light Em' Up!]

Tattoo

[Light Em' Up!]

LOL!!!

[sadaist]

WOW! Best guitarist ever to be in Roths band bar none.

[Light Em' Up!]

WOW! Best guitarist ever to be in Roths band bar none.

Smart ass!

[Light Em' Up!]

You know, I was looking for your damn video of DTNA when I stumbled across that video, so you better just watch or yourself! LOL!

[TwoFoolsAMinute]

I take it there were no surprises last night.

[SNIPER]

I take it there were no surprises last night.

Surprise!

[VAN HLN CA]

Johnny Cash Night-Perfection Blackout ...

From the later start to all 4 walking out in all black you knew something was different tonight. Honestly pegged this as being a by the book walk that was going to just be tight great performance, more to appease scrutiny and dissolve any questions of ability and varried quality. Same set as Denver and other than that there was Nothing this show would resemble the last four months or '07/8 for that matter.
LOUD, Metallica loud, rattle the organs style and clean as silk sound.
HOT, no other way to put it. While walking concourse wife says its muggy in here, it was only time the ice musta melted as people panted from the heat, worth every inch of the soaking. I don't sweat easy and basically wore wet towl like the rest of barn.
CROWD, usually you get a combo of dead tools and Fair amount of Balance washouts. Last tour people were dormant and dead for the most part with the LA too cool thing. Entire floor and bowl on feet 95% the time, there was that elusive spirit not happening most tour and Last round, found in L.A. Of all places. The Spirit was like 1981, wasn't drunk at all this was the magic connection only found at a CVH concert that can only happen with This Band and an audience being ONE. They were 1000% immersed in the most fun they and fans have even recalled in 30 years, so much so my wife went from mediocre fan to diehard and it only took 20 years to get there. The bant was basking in this intangible magic crackle and they were all having the times of their lives. Think this had to blow their minds too, they were so taken in the good time the expressions on them were that Holy Fuck WOW look, Ed was the one that showed it the most, hoping got some decent pics. Don't know how any videos going to really define this as being there is so much part of the description. For my wife to be changed by a VH show is only way to really touch the intensity, it was an experience never thought I'd feel again, the best time to try and see the band joy is end of ATBL. Jumping, Hugging, Running, Screaming last seen in 1984, they didn't want it to end and you didn't want it to end and seemed they were about to unleash a surprise, certain if not for programmed light sound etc. would have gone for more, this as new Stay Frosty graphic rolled by. Moving Magic like Wolf only ever heard about until last night.
QUALITY, An Old School VH Cleansing! Minor Dave rough tips but as a band, Flawless hope to God this has enough crew footage for DVD, it's the GRAIL! New video effects for solos not seen any other youtubes, more than amped for next Sat as the other songs will be involved and it's time to remove TWN for Blood and Fire, we are ready for the premiere of Light Up the Sky and times right for Stay Frosty after ATBL to clock an even 2 hr. show.
WOLF, thanks for Everything without you this would not be in any reality!
CONCERT, if next Sat is last time in L.A. so be it they just reclaimed rightful ownership as the Mighty VAN HALEN, indisputably so. All straight in your face VH, no colored cloths or props, just blistering ass kick.
What an Honor, Treat and Privelage to be a part of June 1st, 2012. Wolf had his Kings bass as the walls of Staples echo further greatness that by this time next weeks show may be Stanley Cup celebration and our beloved VH just raised their banner they used to own at the Forum. One week from now will be round two and I may just leave it at that and skip OC and S.D.
TODAY,Feeling that VH afterglow just like the old days......no words can justify last night, it took 30 years but it was the Show. At this day and age only way they can be better is hearing and mixing the setlist. Sinners Swing, Light Up the Sky, Take Your Whiskey Home and You Guys have great disc, unleash those and expose these folks to the musical genius too many haven't even heard......Thanks VH, best there's ever Been!

Time to see if got any good pics, look at YouTubes and see what critics interpreted. Will post any good pics or vid if worthy, now it's Kings and Kopitar