Previews and Reviews - David Lee Roth - Van Halan reunion tour

Previews and Reviews

By Steve Chess
The Weekly Recorder
May 19, 2008

The long awaited and much heralded David Lee Roth/Van Halen reunion tour is finally underway and on Wednesday, April 30th, made a stop at Mellon Arena. The childish Rock and Roll excesses of their callow youth largely behind them, the band seems intent on maintaining a level of professionalism in their current configuration. Van Halen’s 2007 induction into the Rock and Roll Hall Of Fame seemed to be an inevitable milestone for the band. To many(most) musicians, the band is really the brothers, Eddie and Alex. To the guitar geeks(term of endearment) the parade of vocalist front men seems almost incidental. Despite health problems and failures in personal relationships, that essential core of the band(the brothers) has remained solid. Eddie Van Halen’s pioneering two hand tapping guitar technique has influenced several generations of guitar players across the full spectrum of genres...including Classical(Dominic Frasca - Eddie Van Halen For Eggheads). Bass player, Michael Anthony has been replaced by Eddie’s seventeen year old son, Wolfie (Wolfgang, for Mozart).

Opening for Van Halen was the young R&B artist, Ryan Shaw. This fellow has obviously studied the masters of previous eras and interprets his chosen material armed with one of the finest vocal instruments to come along in a while. His interpretation of Otis Redding’s, “Try A Little Tenderness,” is nothing short of spectacular. It would be surprising if one were not to hear of greater things from Ryan Shaw in the future.

Van Halen opened their show with their first hit to chart(back in the seventies), “You Really Got Me.” The Kinks cover tune has since become associated as much with Van Halen as with the Kinks. The driving, major second riff was enough to enliven a crowd looking for an excuse.

There was a circular “runway” extending in front of the main stage and David Lee Roth would periodically use it to get a little more up close and personal with audience members. A martial arts devotee since the age of twelve, Roth, now 53, would frequently integrate classic martial arts moves into his stage choreography. He even spun a chromed staff as if fighting multiple imaginary opponents. His voice seemed to wane a little in both intensity and range, as the evening wore on. Eddie and Wolfie managed to take up some of the vocal slack, but the absence of bass player Michael Anthony’s high harmonies did leave a void that wasn’t totally filled.

The performance of “Somebody Get Me A Doctor” proceeded with predictable grace until Eddie’s outro gave a preview of the virtuosic mastery to come. “Dance The Night Away,” “Atomic Punk,” “Mean Street” and “Panama” with their often sophomoric themes and the somewhat incongruous ages of the deliverers, were performed with such technical ferocity and musicianship that the band was able to pull it off convincingly.

Halfway through the show, Alex Van Halen took a drum solo that was performed as though by a Twenty-first Century incarnation of Jazz drumming icon Buddy Rich. Using his acoustic and synthetic drum kit Alex went through meter changes, syncopations and contrasting dynamics that made for a drum solo that one didn’t have to be a percussionist to enjoy.

Speaking of solos, Eddie Van Halen took a guitar solo between ‘Panama’ and ‘Ain’t Talking About Love’ that was nothing short of high art. To the casual listener it might have sounded like just any good Rock and Roll guitar solo. It was not. He began by milking a carefully controlled feedback from his eight double stacked amplifiers. Then while playing an intricate passage he transitioned to his pedal board to sparingly integrate digital effects to fashion a tone to accommodate the fingerboard antics. Both hands tapping, natural and synthetic harmonics, manual volume swells with onboard knobs, whammy bar, all of these factors coalesced to build through numerous visceral crescendos and eventually morphed into a pretty, almost symphonic coda.

After the last song of the regular set, the encore (“Jump”) seemed bring an energy the was strangely anticlimactic. There was a huge burst of confetti and the performance was just fine, but the energy blocking just seemed a little off. No Problem. The brothers once again proved to any doubters that they still have ‘it” and perhaps have taken it to another level.