By Andrew Bansal
March 30th 2015, Hollywood Boulevard, Hollywood CA: Los Angeles hard rock/heavy metal icons Van Halen announced a massive North American summer tour last week, along with their first ever U.S. television appearance featuring original singer David Lee Roth on the ABC late night talk show ‘Jimmy Kimmel Live!’ The performance was held outdoors on Hollywood Boulevard on Monday March 30th, as the street was closed off between the intersections of Highland and Sycamore, with the television broadcast set to be distributed across two episodes of the show on the nights of March 30th and 31st. Free general admission tickets to the concert were released online last Wednesday night, and this event supposedly ended up with the highest number of ticket requests in the history of the show. A 5000-strong crowd lined up in the early afternoon, waiting to enter the concert premises. First-timers, like yours truly, were particularly excited at the prospect of seeing the band in such a unique setting. Unfortunately, aside from bragging rights and bucket list fulfilments, Van Halen’s performance and the event as a whole did not turn out to be worth anyone’s time and effort, and served as a negative advertisement for their upcoming tour. Most of you probably saw it on TV, but here’s more of a first-hand, behind-the-scenes perspective which includes aspects of the event not visible on TV.
After waiting several hours, ticket holders were allowed inside and separated into two sections, ‘priority’ which started from the front row of the barricade facing the stage and extended back till about half the block between Highland and Orange, and everything behind it being the ‘general’ section where the majority of the audience stood. The weather was nowhere near as brutal as it was for the last major rock concert in this setting, the unforgettable Paul McCartney gig in September 2013. The security let people bring their own food and drinks inside, and water bottles were handed out at the entry point, which was a pleasant surprise.
Even on a Monday afternoon, most of Los Angeles’ hard rock/heavy metal community had turned up to support their heroes in Van Halen. As the evening drew nearer, the excitement level was rising. But this excitement was soon to be turned into restlessness, firstly due to being subjected to watching the Jimmy Kimmel Live studio taping on the giant screens in front of us. This talk show has never been funny, and this was by far one of its most painful episodes to endure, but us rock and metal lovers can be thankful for the fact that the show garners TV ratings high enough to attract high-profile artists to play free promotional gigs as part of the show. Folks sitting at home can easily skip the talk show and cut to the live performance, but us attendees in the audience do not have that option. The things we do for the love of rock ‘n roll.
Secondly, after the end of the studio taping, there was quite a long delay before there was any sign of the band appearing on stage, and Don Barris, that bald dude who always comes out to rile the crowd up prior to any live act on the Jimmy Kimmel Live stage, was at his worst on this occasion. No rockers or metalheads have ever found this guy entertaining, and his repeated teases of “We’re getting closer” left the crowd so annoyed that whenever he yelled “audience time!” to cue applause, it really meant “no audience time” as his requests were accompanied by pindrop silence, boos, middle fingers and a combination thereof. He had completely killed the crowd’s excitement, and the appearance of the band at 7:45 was almost an anti-climax as a result.
David Lee Roth and the three Van Halens Eddie, Alex and Wolfgang took their positions and began the show with ‘Panama’, which they had to stop and restart as in a true Spinal Tap moment, Roth hit his nose with his microphone and it started bleeding. He left the stage and following repairs, he came back out with a bandaged nose to re-attempt singing ‘Panama’. They went on to play seven songs in total, considerably shorter than the gigs played by other artists on this stage, Paul McCartney even at his age playing well over an hour in 2013, for example. But it was perhaps for the best that they only played a seven-song set, as David Lee Roth was rapidly losing his voice after the first two songs. His stage presence and energy was beyond excellent as he still seems to possess the exhuberance of yesteryear, but the voice itself is not among his strengths at this point. To the band’s credit though, they did not downtune their songs, and Roth’s bandmates performed their roles to the best of their abilities. It was truly an honor to listen to the legendary EVH guitar tone, and he laid down all the solos to perfection. Besides him, Wolfgang Van Halen is the best part of the band in its current incarnation, and the combinination of the two for the backing vocals is extremely solid, saving David Lee Roth the blushes for the chorus lines, at least.
That being said, a sub-par vocalist is sufficient to ruin even the best of bands, and for that reason, this performance was a bad representation of the Van Halen name. Attendees here cannot possibly have any reason to complain, as the show was completely free of cost, but when it comes to their summer tour, I would strongly advise against purchasing any kind of tickets, unless you have never seen the band before. And even if you’re in that category, I would think twice before making a show on this tour my first ever Van Halen live experience, because I strongly disagree with the notion of being satisfied with seeing a watered-down version of a band than not seeing the band at all. Based on the quality of this performance, I’m afraid to say it’s not even worth seeing them once if it costs any money. I have tremendous respect for Van Halen’s music and legacy, but at this point of their career, Van Halen deserve only our respect, not our dollars. Say ‘No’ to Van Halen’s summer tour, and go see the Scorpions and Queensrÿche instead for a guaranteed top-quality live show.
Set List:
01. Panama
02. Runnin’ With The Devil
03. Hot For Teacher
04. Eruption / You Really Got Me
05. Dance The Night Away
06. Unchained
07. Ain’t Talkin’ ‘Bout Love