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I just got back from the Van Halen show at the palace. Let me start this off by saying that I was lucky enough to get free tickets for the 2004 show, and I thought the band was great. I was partying and throughly enjoyed the show. I thought the band was very good. Sunday night, as luck would have it, my manager sent out an Email that he had two suite tickets in Compuware's suite at the Palace available so I jumped on it... I was excited to say the least. Unfortunetly, tonight was a different story. I walked out during Eddie's "solo". More on that later... The good? DLR... His voice was great and he had twice the energy of the rest of the band put together. For the beginning of "Ice Cream Man", Dave came out with his guitar to tell a story and I'll tell you that even though I was at the other end of the arena, it felt like I was sitting around a campfire listening to Dave's tale of teenage parties and smoking pot in a blacklit basement. Great frontmen know how to turn a packed arena into small club. Also, how cool is it to see VH with Roth in front playing arguably their best material? That party rock stuff is what rock n roll is about... And VH invented that.
Unfortunately, the set was marred by timing issues and Eddie's subpar playing... For example, during I'm the One, Alex fell out of time right before the break and it was nearly a trainwreck. This happened a few other times as well. Eddie was definitely off. He struggled with quite a few songs, making mistakes during the verses, almost as if he forgot how to play them. The solos were spotty at best. To me, it appeared that Edward is back on the bottle... it was like he was in slow motion, and his energy wasn't there at all. His solo was a complete disaster, to the point were I was squirming in my seat... I was that uncomfortable. He struggled through Cathedral, then played a bit of Eruption stopping midway through the tremelo picked theme to slowly hammer aimlessly, then step on his wah and do whammy dives... basically make noise. I couldn't take it anymore... I motioned to my brother and we got the hell out of there. I was embarrassed and sad for him... what a shame. I hope it was just a bad show. Maybe it was me? I didn't drink a drop and I noticed around me that most people were boozing it up and seemed like they were enjoying themselves. Going in, I was skeptical... I haven't been blown away by the youtube clips that I've seen either. I wanted to be completely blown away and inspired by this concert and it wasn't even close... quite the opposite. I have NEVER seen a national level act play so poorly overall. As for Wolfie, I think he did a decent job. The kid is 16 and he has big shoes to fill. His backing vocals sounded great (I think there was a little studio magic going on but never the less...), and he played Mike's parts pretty faithfully.
Also, I think that the fact that this whole tour is a money driven affair puts me off. When you charge $100/ticket you had better bring your A game. What makes this worse for me is that Friday, I saw a local 80's band called Halloween in a small club near my house. Those guys show up, put up an elaborate graveyard stage set by themselves, then procede to get onstage and LEVEL the club for a crowd of maybe 50 people, then tear their set down, pack their gear and go home. Cover charge was $5 bucks... hell their drummer lives AND works in Ohio and drives up to Michigan to play. Too bad Van Halen doesn't have the same respect for the fans that made them what they are.
Instead of getting rid of Micheal Anthony, the management should get him back in there boot EVH and get Bart Walsh or Russ Parrish to fill in on guitar... that way you know you'll be in for a faithful reproduction of past VH rather than a shell of it.
I suppose I should mention the gear... Eddie played one of the new black Wolfgang's with a "4" stencil painted on it in grayfor most of the set, two Art Series Charvels (one was red, black, and white and the other was yellow with black stripes), and the Frankenstein. Wolfie played the blue and white striped bass, a black and yellow mini bass (during Little Guitars), and a black Gibson Thunderbird bass with white pickguard and EMG's.
Unfortunately, the set was marred by timing issues and Eddie's subpar playing... For example, during I'm the One, Alex fell out of time right before the break and it was nearly a trainwreck. This happened a few other times as well. Eddie was definitely off. He struggled with quite a few songs, making mistakes during the verses, almost as if he forgot how to play them. The solos were spotty at best. To me, it appeared that Edward is back on the bottle... it was like he was in slow motion, and his energy wasn't there at all. His solo was a complete disaster, to the point were I was squirming in my seat... I was that uncomfortable. He struggled through Cathedral, then played a bit of Eruption stopping midway through the tremelo picked theme to slowly hammer aimlessly, then step on his wah and do whammy dives... basically make noise. I couldn't take it anymore... I motioned to my brother and we got the hell out of there. I was embarrassed and sad for him... what a shame. I hope it was just a bad show. Maybe it was me? I didn't drink a drop and I noticed around me that most people were boozing it up and seemed like they were enjoying themselves. Going in, I was skeptical... I haven't been blown away by the youtube clips that I've seen either. I wanted to be completely blown away and inspired by this concert and it wasn't even close... quite the opposite. I have NEVER seen a national level act play so poorly overall. As for Wolfie, I think he did a decent job. The kid is 16 and he has big shoes to fill. His backing vocals sounded great (I think there was a little studio magic going on but never the less...), and he played Mike's parts pretty faithfully.
Also, I think that the fact that this whole tour is a money driven affair puts me off. When you charge $100/ticket you had better bring your A game. What makes this worse for me is that Friday, I saw a local 80's band called Halloween in a small club near my house. Those guys show up, put up an elaborate graveyard stage set by themselves, then procede to get onstage and LEVEL the club for a crowd of maybe 50 people, then tear their set down, pack their gear and go home. Cover charge was $5 bucks... hell their drummer lives AND works in Ohio and drives up to Michigan to play. Too bad Van Halen doesn't have the same respect for the fans that made them what they are.
Instead of getting rid of Micheal Anthony, the management should get him back in there boot EVH and get Bart Walsh or Russ Parrish to fill in on guitar... that way you know you'll be in for a faithful reproduction of past VH rather than a shell of it.
I suppose I should mention the gear... Eddie played one of the new black Wolfgang's with a "4" stencil painted on it in grayfor most of the set, two Art Series Charvels (one was red, black, and white and the other was yellow with black stripes), and the Frankenstein. Wolfie played the blue and white striped bass, a black and yellow mini bass (during Little Guitars), and a black Gibson Thunderbird bass with white pickguard and EMG's.
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