Tokyo Dome CD Reviews

voodoo: apparently the lighting guy was asleep at the wheel during Ed’s solo spot and Dave yells, “Spolight, asshole! Wake up!” Heh…I didn’t remember seeing that while watching the video.

Yeah, and then a few seconds later the spotlight is back on Ed.

I think this guy pretty much sums it up nicely.

http://www.delcotimes.com/arts-and-entertainment/20150409/rock-music-menu-van-halen-releases-live-album-comes-under-fire

For a band that has been incredibly media weary for the past decade and a half, Van Halen spent some major time in the spotlight last week.

Monday and Tuesday saw them on “Jimmy Kimmel Live!” for a series of live performances. Wednesday, they appeared on “The Ellen DeGeneres Show” to do a couple songs, and guitarist Eddie Van Halen gave a rare interview to The Washington Times.

All of it has been to promote a new record, “Tokyo Dome Live in Concert,” the first live album with original frontman David Lee Roth, and a 39-date summer tour, which hits the region Aug. 27 at the Susquehanna Bank Center in Camden, N.J.. That’s a call for rejoicing, right?

Not exactly.

Fans have been overly critical of a number of things, with the main contention directed at Roth and his refusal or inability sing the songs in the right key, properly or at all instead of talking his way through them. Incredulously, for a band that spent much of its career having enough drama to rival any daytime soap opera, some are calling on them to get a new singer — a fourth — or bring back original Roth replacement, Sammy Hagar, for a third time.

Speaking of Hagar, even he’s gotten into the act, speaking to the Las Vegas Review Journal this week and saying about the live album, “Every time they do something, I’m like, ‘Oh my god, can these guys do anything worse to their reputation and to the level of the music of the band?’ They’ve got some pretty rough vocals. Standing back, I’m just going, ‘What the (expletive) are these guys thinking?’”

Now, it’s no secret that Rock Music Menu is a fan of Van Halen, finding something positive in all incarnations. Even the Gary Cherone period had some great live shows. But I’m no apologist, and can call things out when they are just downright bad. Like those three new songs done with Hagar for the two-disc best of collection in 2004? Atrocious, especially lyrically. The Cherone album prior was fairly terrible, too.

But since Eddie and his brother, drummer Alex, reunited with Roth in 2007 and dismissed bassist Michael Anthony in favor of Eddie’s then-teenage son, Wolfgang, they’ve been under a microscope of negativity. First, it was because there was no new material to go with the reunion.

“A Different Kind of Truth,” the first VH album with Roth since 1984, came out in 2012, and despite it being musically on par with the classic six-pack of the Diamond Dave-era, there was massive discontent because much of the material was inspired by the band’s earlier demos. No matter that nearly every other rock outfit of note, including Aerosmith and AC/DC, has done the same thing in recent years, for some reason it was blasphemy that Van Halen did it.

Less than two years after the tour in support of the new album ended, fans were back to complaining — loudly — via message boards and social media about the lack of news, material and/or live dates coming from the VH camp.

When the two-disc “Tokyo Dome Live” release was announced, it became, “Why isn’t it a record of new material?” When Eddie told The Washington Times the group was initially going to release long-sought-after demos from the Pasadena, Calif., quartet’s early days, but decided not to because of the quality, there was uproar. When the Kimmel appearance was announced, it was, “Why not Fallon?” And the reaction to going on a daytime show geared toward middle-age women and hosted by a lesbian? It wasn’t pretty at all.

Granted, Roth didn’t help matters when, at the outset of the Kimmel performance, he split his nose open spinning a baton and had to halt the show — which had shutdown Hollywood Boulevard — so that he could get it quickly bandaged up. Things went much smoother on “The Ellen DeGeneres Show,” but at that point, the busted beak was all anyone could talk about.

As for the live album itself, yes, there are some tracks where Roth’s voice is less than spot-on and he does riff a lot instead of singing. But people seem to have a selective memory about the frontman’s live reputation — he’s never been a good singer. His shows were always about the performance, the verbal banter with the audience, the “Air Dave” toe-touching splits off the drum riser. At 60 years old, the latter is not happening anymore, so maybe this is the first time folks are noticing he’s never had a great voice in the first place.

The flipside is that the band, most notably Eddie, is playing phenomenally. The guitarist hasn’t been this spot-on since the 1995 to support the final album with Hagar, “Balance.” Check out his blazing solo “Eruption” from the Kimmel show and you’ll see how ridiculously on fire he is these days.

Hopefully, that carries over onto the tour, which kicks off July 5 and goes through October, and it gives the so-called “fans” a little less to complain about.

To contact music columnist Michael Christopher, send an email to rockmusicmenu@hotmail.com. Also check out his blog at http://www.delcotimes.com

I do believe that Roth’s singing has sunk….but I think he could make it work by doing things a little differently by working with the band, then going off, or driftling off, into his own little singing world and not following where he could be with the band.

Eddie Trunk does not listen to old Van Halen bootlegs from ’78-’84. If he did… he would not say “Dave was never a great singer”.

Maybe Dave didn’t sing all the words exactly as they were recorded on the albums, but his voice was just as good live as it was on the albums.

You know why I like this album?

Because it’s brown.

http://swtimes.com/features/entertainment/review-live-album-delivers-without-prerecorded-track

Posted April 9, 2015 – 5:30am
Review: Live Album Delivers Without Prerecorded Track

For the Record
Van Halen
Title: “Tokyo Dome: Live In Concert”
Format: 2 CD set
Label: Rhino Entertainment/Warner Bros.
Genre: Rock (contains adult language)
Grade: B+
Other available formats: 4 Vinyl LP Set and 4-CD Set

By Scott Smith
Times Record – ssmith@swtimes.com

Politics, sports and religion aren’t the only topics that can split society right down the middle.

This week, it’s Van Halen’s new live album, the 25-track “Tokyo Dome: Live In Concert,” that is summoning divided votes and much-heated, occasionally obscene sparring on the Internet. And the infighting among the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame band’s supporters is stretching far past the dawn-of-time, David Lee Roth versus Sammy Hagar argument.

Some fans, astonishingly, are complaining that Van Halen — Roth (vocals), Eddie Van Halen (guitar), Alex Van Halen (drums) and Wolfgang Van Halen (bass) — didn’t riddle “Tokyo Dome” with post-studio doctoring. In 30 short years, the world has gone from a place that metaphorically crucified rock bands for using any kind of prerecorded background synthesizer track to demanding that any given performer sound exactly like his or her studio recording.

Some disgruntled fans of Van Halen are appalled at the in-concert sound of “Tokyo Dome,” but isn’t a live album supposed to offer something different, something special? To this writer’s ears, “Tokyo Dome” delivers. Yes, Roth occasionally rushes or lags behind the tempo, and he sometimes lets the supporting vocals of Eddie and Wolfgang carry him here and there, but Roth has always done that. Cue up Van Halen’s still-talked about spot at the 1983 US Festival on Youtube, and witness Roth in a much wobblier state than what is heard on “Tokyo Dome.”

As a singer, Roth’s limitations aren’t hidden on “Tokyo Dome” (Van Halen purportedly didn’t overdub any of the new album’s songs). Roth isn’t Freddie Mercury or Paul Rodgers, but the eternally smiling Roth never pretended to be anything other than a charismatic, party-seeking front-man.

Recorded on June 21, 2013, in front of 40,000 fans, “Tokyo Dome” lets Roth’s personality — think a rock-and-roll version of Willy Wonka — go on full-tilt display, but it’s the instrumentalists who really cook. Eddie Van Halen’s furious riffing and still-jaw-dropping guitar soloing still sound phenomenal on the new album, his fretboard-loving fingers seemingly unweathered by Father Time.

Essentially, Van Halen sounds as strong on “Tokyo Dome” as they did in Tulsa back in May 2012 — super loud, inspired and with a couple of flaws. The chugging six-string work that signals the beginning of set-opener “Unchained” is invigorating, as is the sweaty run-through of “Runnin’ with the Devil.”

Yes, Van Halen co-founding bass player Michael Anthony’s background vocals are missed — Anthony and former singer Sammy Hagar both were dismissed following Van Halen’s 2004 tour — but Wolfgang’s capabilities across four strings reveal “Wolfie” inherited some of his old man’s music-making magic. Throughout the gig, Wolfgang’s bass alternates between in-the-pocket grooving to embodying short blasts of lead bass in the vein of bass masters Geddy Lee and Chris Squire.

Most of Van Halen’s goodies are found on “Tokyo Dome.” “Hot For Teacher,” “Panama,” “Hear About it Later,” “Ain’t Talkin’ ‘Bout Love,” “Mean Street,” “Everybody Wants Some!!” and the Eddie mini-masterpiece “Eruption,” as well as the more recent “She’s the Woman,” “Tattoo” and “China Town,” proudly are accounted for on the recording. Even Van Halen’s covers of Roy Orbison’s “(Oh!) Pretty Woman” and The Kinks’ “You Really Got Me” retain their grit and likable nature without disrespecting the original writers.

Thankfully, Van Halen did go all revisionistic-crazy and overdub “Tokyo Dome.” Those few weaker moments give the album charm and begs a question: Why in the world would anyone fork over a small fortune to pay for tickets and expect to hear a band sound exactly like a CD? That would defeat the entire purpose of sitting or standing in a darkened venue and experiencing the unpredictable magic that’s found within “live” music.

if ure wanting …78 -82 sound its not there and not going to be ….looking back on the memories…is the best we can do………