IZOD Arena Ed Meltdown

[Panamark]

If I was Eddie and my road crew wasn't on top of this,
man I would be so pissed off..

Imagine giving up alcohol, trying to play the gig of your
life and some fucked up equipment gets in your way...
If Eddie didnt kick anyone in the head, he is surprisingly
well restrained :D

I think they should hook him up with an A/B stompbox
that routes to a backup bank of old Plexis and MXR
pedals !!! LOL.. (Just in case )

Fuckit, use the Plexi's on A and the current setup
as the backup......

[naturochem]

Originally posted by Panamark

Fuckit, use the Plexi's on A and the current setup
as the backup......

I'll second that fuckin idea...

If he could get an endorsement deal for the Plexi's, I'm sure those EVH's would be boat anchors!! :D

[Loons The Great]

Is Van Halen throwin' quarters around like they're manhole covers? Are they hiring the cheapest laborers possible?

Did they run out of midget assistants? Wuz de crew on heavy narcotics?

Was King Edward royally pissed off because Valerie wuz in de house??

Are the moniter monkeys Haggar The Horrible fans determined to t'row a monkeywrench in de mighty Van Rothin' wheel of destiny?

Was Dennis Anthony working the sound in New Joisey?

Did the sound jockey have a joe dirt mullet and Mariah Carey vocal capabilities? Well well well,,,...

[Nitro Express]

Originally posted by naturochem
I'll second that fuckin idea...

If he could get an endorsement deal for the Plexi's, I'm sure those EVH's would be boat anchors!! :D

Yeah and give Rudy Lerien a call. These new techs don't seem to be cutting it.

[jharp84]

Meltdown?? Was that mean??? Juice

[Hummarstra]

Dr Chip. Are you still there? Somebody check his pulse? He might not still be alive after the beating he's taking. LOL.





Just kidding, Dr Chip.

[scottydabodi]

Originally posted by KING OF THE HIL
Van Halen
Meadowlands Izod Center
East Rutherford, New Jersey
United States of America
November 3, 2007

Notes: I was going to call this one "Meltdown at the Meadowlands," but after I heard the sound quality, not to mention the fact that it is incomplete, I decided to pass on the formalities such as titles, artwork, etc. The show is in the category of forgettable (or unforgettable..depends how you look at things). I guess the high point of the evening's drama was Eddie Van Halen stomping around like a 3-year old because his guitar cable kept getting tangled (as he yanked on it violently)...no wait...it would have to be him screaming..SCREAMING at the tech guys on the side of the stage for the better part of the show...no...the part where he flipped the monitor over, because it was either too loud, or he didn't like what was coming out of it..no...maybe it was when he picked said monitor up and threw it across the stage...NO..I got it..it was when he proceeded to pick up the monitor and throw it OFF the stage. That was it.

I'm not making any of this up.

There were some other noteworthy occurrences..like during one of Ed's fits, where he was switching guitars.."and the Cradle Will Rock" starts..only problem is..Ed is not holding a guitar..but it starts nonetheless, with the swoosing flanged guitar..that's he's not playing..it's pre-recorded..so is the rhythm part..I'm pretty sure it's a keyboard, but I never noticed it, because he was usually playing. This show seemed to measure up to the KC show everyone was talking about..except Dave was great. I gained a newfound respect for him tonight, as he was the consumate professional as his bandmate stomped, sneared and screamed through 90% of the show, during which he paid little attention to his playing, stopping at times, screwing up at others. After the monitor toss, he pretty much threw and swatted at anything and everything in his path.

I feel bad for Wolfie too. I can tell this is all getting to him fast. He looked like he wanted to be ANYWHERE else for pretty much the entire show. At times I caught him staring at Ed with this "what the f*ck??" look on his face. At one point, after one of his meltdowns, I guess Ed realized that yeh..there are like 10,000 people watching this, he tried to do his goofy dancing and jumping pikes, then he goes over to Wolfie's side and picks up a straw cowboy hat, puts it on, then tries to put it on Wolf, only Wolfs backs up, slaps the hat away, then proceeds to kick it off the stage into the crowd.

This thing is unravelling..fast. After the monitor throwing incident, Ed came back up and looked almost possessed. Very sad indeed. Sad for everyone involved. Sad for the fans that shelled out $500 to be in the VIP circle. Actually, it was sad for any fan who shelled out even $1 to see this charade tonight. Saddest of all for the multi-millionaire guitarist whose band is making 1.5 million per show that he can't put everything aside for 2 hours a day, play his music and act like a swell guy.

In any event..here it is. The recording matches the performance. BTW - I'm not on the whole VH-bashing bandwagon either. I'm just really disgusted at the show Ed turned in last night. I considered not going to MSG next week, but figured I might as well, and hopefully go out on a high note.

You sure you saw the same show I saw?
90% of the show Ed was flippin??
Definately not what I saw.
Ed played fine for MOST of the show, with gear problems bothering him for a small portion of it... It's really strange how everyone is blowing the temper tantrum out of proportion, making out to be like Ed was a raging lunatic all night long. Not true. Yes, has been a total mental case for years(see "Hot for Teacher" video), but to exaggerate the freak out beyond the 10 or so minutes is pretty ridiculous. I hate Ed more than anyone of you all, but he rocked for 90% of the show at Izod. And I was f-ing SOBER too.

[scottydabodi]

Originally posted by Panamark
Fuckit, use the Plexi's on A and the current setup
as the backup......

BRILLIANT!!!!!!!!!

F-ING BRILLIANT!!!!

[scottydabodi]

I couldn't have said it better myself....

Originally posted by Va Beach VH Fan
Just got back a few hours ago from Jersey...

Had a great time along with my 14 year old son. Met up with Carmine, his son and his buddies at the Meadowlands Sheraton a few hours before the show and grabbed some high priced burgers....

The ongoing construction next to the Izod Center (I still want to call it the Brendan Byrne Arena) made most people park at the parking lots at Giants Stadium... The crowds going to the show weren't bad, but after the show it was a slow walk through the overpasses, not to mention making it out of the lots.... Of course, found out at the end of the overpasses that the whole crowd was slowed down by the 20 or so bootleg T-shirt hawkers....

Eye candy was quite impressive for the most part, New York never disappoints in that regard...

To be honest, the kids were more pumped up than Carmine and I were, we knew the setlist. But this show was their first (my son's third), and they were pretty damn excited...

As usual, we purposely stayed out in the concourse during the Marley set...

Carmine and his crew and us went our separate ways since he had sect. 110 seats (close to Wolfie), and due to my procrastination, we were in 232 (uppers next to Ed).... Our seats weren't entirely bad, although we had a side view of the video screen....

But as it turned out, we had primo seats for the highlight of the night, as you can imagine what that was....

Last night, for me, was all about my son... At 14, he's an honest to goodness Van Halen fan, not a son that was being dragged to the show by his old man, and dragged 360 miles at that... He knows the words on just about all of the Roth era songs...

And I tell ya, he did not disappoint.... He was hootin', hollerin' and singing just as much as I was, if not more, and a helluva lot more than the lameasses in my section.... In retrospect, I think a lot of people in that section didn't get tickets immediately, and therefore, maybe not the biggest Van Halen fans, but casual fans... And that was reflected in their casual attitude, a lot of older couples, a lot of sitting other than than big hits....

No use going into the setlist, exactly the same as the other shows...

OK, here's the deal with Ed's monitor. As I said, my seats were looking down right at him, and when I saw that he was starting to have problems (yet again on this tour, more on that later), I looked directly at him for the remainder of that song and into Dave's Ice Cream Man intro....I've read all of the other reviews, not only here but DDLR and the Links, and some of these guys are really exaggerating....

During Jamie's Cryin', Ed was having major problems with his monitor... Specifically what, who the fuck knows, but some people have said that he was making a "throat slashing" gesture during the song.... He was NOT making that gesture, he was continually pointing DOWN to the monitor.... During the last part of the song, Ed dragged the monitor off of the actual stage over to the platform near the edge.... When the song ended, but before the stage lights went down, he picked up the monitor and tossed it off of the stage down to the arena floor... Some people have said he threw it AT the tech, but no, it went to the floor, and was about five feet away from the techs (I'd like to know if the guy who actually gives Ed his guitars after songs is his main tech, or just another roadie, and if his main tech in at his soundboard)....

Dave then grabbed his acoustic guitar and started his story before Ice Cream Man, but you could clearly see offstage down on the arena floor that Ed was furious at the techs on his soundboard (I'm assuming that's what it is). He then went backstage to get ready for Ice Cream Man.... I've read people say that Ed had a "meltdown", that's bullshit.... He's arguably the greatist guitarist in rock history, and like any other professional, he's a perfectionist... He's pissed, he's frustrated, and he wants to have a great show in front of 20,000 people... And lets face it, he's had problems with that damn rig for damn near every show on this tour !!!

Also, once again, the sound is just too damn loud and too damn muddled.... I know people have said that it's always bad at that Arena, but damn, this crew is now creating the perception the band is doing a poor job because of their incompetence !!! The band is absolutely kicking ass, but if the sound is shitty, and if Edward fucking Van Halen has a shitty guitar tech, then you have people, like last night, that walked out of there saying it was disappointing, not because of the band, but because of the crew !! How long can the band take this lousy performance from these so-called professionals ??

Some of the other items I noticed;

- Some idiots in the section next to us three times threw their plastic beer bottles high in the air down to the lower bowl... What kind of assholes do that ???

- The upper level seats really give you an indication of just how many people are recording these shows... I'm not exaggerating when I say that there were times that there were hundreds of cellphones recording at one time... It almost looked like they were lighters there were so many...

- Wolfie is really loosening up. One of the unfortunate things at the Greensboro show was that Wolfie blew the "come on Dave, give me a break" line, and I mean he blew it bad.... Well, last night, after Dave did his "you'll get some leg tonight for sure", Wolfie slowly sauntered over to Dave's mike, and said, "Dave", with a couple second dramatic pause, "give me a break"....

- Dave did his best to keep the flow going in light of Ed's continued rig troubles. He recognized the problems Ed was having, and kept the crowd's attention as best he could....

- During "I'm the One", there was no hugging at all, just a bow from the band, and then continued on....

- Valerie was there, but I didn't see her, too far away.... Too bad, I've had a crush on her from her "One Day at a Time" days....

Originally posted by PlexiBrown
The NJ concert was great. The Eddie situation was exactly what Va Beach VH Fan said. Eddie wasn't happy with his tech in Greensboro either. Eddie's playing was great during the songs but I thought that his solo was not so hot. Very uninspired. Also, The crowd at Greensboro was louder and more into it then the Jersey crowd was. MSG should be kick ass though!!

[PlexiBrown]

The Eddie "issue" in Jersey was no big deal. I thought that it was actually pretty funny. He calmed down after that and seemed to be pretty happy to me. EVH is nutty. Did anybody actually think that he would go through the whole tour without a little craziness here and there?

[DR CHIP]

There is a fine line between loving a band to a fault and being honest with oneself....

Ed was flat out disappointing...period

I sat next to a guy who had flown in from England to see the show and he was disappointed at Ed. Did the show suck, absolutely not. A VH reunion (even minus Mike A) is still better than nothing and to get to see DLR in front of 20,000 people instead of the 800-2000 I have been seeing him in front of for a while now was fantastic.

My point is still my point. Ed had a meltdown, temper tantrum, diva moment whatever you want to call it. He acted like a child in front of 20,000 people period and on top of it all played a really sloppy and shitty solo. I still stand by my original post and trust me I can handle a little heat! My point was NEVER to create a mess in the main, but to report what I saw and convey to the people that would care about it in the first place. I don't think anyone can ever say I have been a trouble maker or an instigator in the years I have been a member, hell I was a member on the previous version of this board!!!

Maybe we all agree to disagree, but in my opinion Ed had a meltdown and he really struggled on the guitar in many ways....

PEACE

[Panamark]

Was the English guy sitting next to you "DR FISH" by any chance ???

[scottydabodi]

Originally posted by DR CHIP
There is a fine line between loving a band to a fault and being honest with oneself....

Ed was flat out disappointing...period

I sat next to a guy who had flown in from England to see the show and he was disappointed at Ed. Did the show suck, absolutely not. A VH reunion (even minus Mike A) is still better than nothing and to get to see DLR in front of 20,000 people instead of the 800-2000 I have been seeing him in front of for a while now was fantastic.

My point is still my point. Ed had a meltdown, temper tantrum, diva moment whatever you want to call it. He acted like a child in front of 20,000 people period and on top of it all played a really sloppy and shitty solo. I still stand by my original post and trust me I can handle a little heat! My point was NEVER to create a mess in the main, but to report what I saw and convey to the people that would care about it in the first place. I don't think anyone can ever say I have been a trouble maker or an instigator in the years I have been a member, hell I was a member on the previous version of this board!!!

Maybe we all agree to disagree, but in my opinion Ed had a meltdown and he really struggled on the guitar in many ways....

PEACE

No one is saying you're a troublemaker, or clogging up the Main, but to make it seem like the 10-or-so minutes of trouble Ed had is overshadowing the 1 1/2 hours of rockin these guys did is really out of proportion... no matter what some English dude says.

[Panamark]

Scotty makes a good point..
I saw DIO at his prime in the mid 80's, they had
technical difficulties mid gig, RJD was visually
unimpressed, yet the rest of the show was suh-weet !~!
The five minutes of malfunction did not dwell on me
at all.

If I was a Rockstar I would be so pissed off if anything
in the sound system fucked up..
I would probably sack the road crew afer one mishap :p

[jgdrag]

Originally posted by Panamark
Scotty makes a good point..
I saw DIO at his prime in the mid 80's, they had
technical difficulties mid gig, RJD was visually
unimpressed, yet the rest of the show was suh-weet !~!
The five minutes of malfunction did not dwell on me
at all.

If I was a Rockstar I would be so pissed off if anything
in the sound system fucked up..
I would probably sack the road crew afer one mishap :p

Fuckin right!!