The VH Trade Site Forums Archives

[VHLIVE]

Mon 10.22.07 Auburn Hills, MI Palace of Auburn Hills

[guitard]

Check what kind of view you'll have from seat:

http://www.seats3d.com/nba/detroit_pistons/

[jack5150]

that is the coolest thing, I've seen tons of shows there and its really not as blurry as I remember:) thanks guitard.

[nast2112]

Section 120, row B. Looking forward to it.

Chris

[Mike Wick]

I'll be there

[VOODOO]

I just CON-F'N-FIRMED that I'll be at this show! Fifth row inside the ring, baby!! Hell yeah!!

[rhoadsfanz5150]

I'll be there! Section 118, Row 6, Seat 6. Hope to see some of you there! :thumb:

[VOODOO]

I've got a ticket 5th row inside the ring. If anyone is interested, PM me.

[Mike Wick]

Another great Show!! :thumb: :dance:
The sound seemed better at this show than at the Joe.
Did anyone record this ?

[rhoadsfanz5150]

Great concert! I even saw GGirl in the distance.

You Really Got Me-I never liked this song as an opener, didn't feel right, but it was good.

I'm The One-Smoking, smoking, smoking, they tore this song a new a**hole, very tight performance.

Running With The Devil- Wolfie hung it up really high (his bass), and Eddie played the solo's tight, with minimal wanking.

Romeo Delight-Slick

Somebody Get Me A Doctor-Again, tight performance, eddie nailed the solo tonight, it was sloppy in other nights

Beautiful Girls-Really good.

Dance The Night Away-Good performance as I could tell.

Atomic Punk- Eddie really nailed the intro, sounded like 78 all over again. Wolfie tried to show off, and "work the crowd" at the bottom of the S, on his way back to the main stage, he got a towel thrown at him, and got stuck on him for a moment!!!

Everybody Wants Some- Roth was messing with this chick in the front row during the entire show, she was decent looking, but seductive.

So This Is Love- At first I thought Wolfie wasn't even playing the intro to this, but he was doing it with one hand I guess, Dave than remarked that it appeared Wolfie had been practicing.

Mean Street- Sounded good from what I heard, tight overall, very few mistakes.

Pretty Woman-Good Performance for a decent song

Drum Solo-Alex was on fire near the end of it, pretty interesting.

Unchained- Eddie messed up the intro yet again, always comes in to early, happened other nights too. Messed up the rest of the song for me, he came in early, then went back, then played the same part.Argh...The solo in the song was good though...

I'll Wait-Not the strongest performance imo

I'll skip a few, getting late.

Guitar Solo- Like a roller coaster, at one point he said something like "Fix that louis?", or i'll know for sure on the bootleg. His guitar cable kept on wrapping around him like a snake, then for a second he pulled a Indiana Jones and whipped it angrily, I looked at my friend, because I was like, whoa, he's pissed. The intro was 1/2 good, 1/2 messed up. During cathedral, he was like, okay, I better start this over again. Then the 2nd half of cathedral he was messing with it, but it fed back like crazy, and tons of screeches hurt my ears. After 316 he did this sick improvised riff with it, it came before cathedral. He left out Spanish Fly, that other spanish riff, and some other stuff out of his solo. Overall, a solid job.

Ain't Talkin' Bout Love- Good performance, but Eddie should have changed his guitar, after he abused it during the solo. It was out of tune.

Jump-Eddies solo went well, we left after the solo to get out with minimal traffic.

Dave was on his game tonight, really made it a special night. Wolfie was like a blob, and stood out, but was OK. Alex played great as usual, and Eddie was really good. I loved this concert,loads of fun overall. It was like visiting Mecca.

Please tell me someone taped this, the sound was crystal clear, and the performance was one of the best on the tour.

[VOODOO]

Wow! We saw different shows in many respects! :D

I'll kinda buzz through with my thoughts:

YRGM - Done well. I thought it was funny when Dave started mimicing Ed's guitar instead of the usual "Ooos" or "mmms" he was saying, "wah wah wah wah" along with Ed's wah pedal.

I'm the One - It was pretty good, but Ed got lost at the end. He was sliding his hand up and down the neck, looking back at Alex and Wolf because THEY were playing it right and he had prematurly went to the end of the song. He did this at the end of Hot For Teacher as well later on in the night. He also came in early on Panama and Al yelled, "No!" and then counted Ed in for the opening riff. It was amazing to see Alex holding court and controlling the show. I was watching him during H4T and I could read his lips counting, "One two three four, One, two, three, four..."

Wolfie was a lot more mobile last night than in any of the other shows I've seen. He's getting used to it now and is getting more loose and playful up there. I agree that Ed needs to quit screwing around with him at times and play, because it screws up the songs, but then it's part of the show.

Romeo Delight, Atomic Punk and Little Dreamer were the highlights for me. I agree that Ed came through on these songs. It seems that as long as he doesn't try to play the solos like the original recordings, he does better. Atomic Punk sounded really good. The solo on Romeo Delight was spotty, but that song just rocks your ass off.

Mean Street was OK. The intro was a little better than he has played it on this tour, but still mostly noise and not clear tapped harmonics. He missed a lot of the licks going in to the solo. It's one of my favorite tunes and I was hoping to hear him nail it last night. Close...but no cigar.

The guitar solo was another mess. I heard him yell into the mic, too. He did something similar on Saturday at JLA as well. Kinda like he's blaming the soundguy because he's not able to play Cathedral. He tried Women in Love intro again and couldn't get it done. He didn't play with the feedback this time, but he spent too much time scraping the springs, plucking strings above the nut, slapping the body of the guitar, etc. People around me in the front were looking at each other like, "Is this what he's going to do for his solo?" Cathedral is just a waste of time. He couldn't nail it. Whenever he screwed up he turned on that damn wah pedal and what sounded like some sort of high gain distortion pedal. That's what started causing all of that feedback and noise. Then he turned them off and tried to finish the solo. He went into Eruption and couldn't keep it going. He'd screw up the change and then go into a different tapping pattern (that he used to do on the 5150 tour) and then he would go back into Eruption. He couldn't keep it going smoothly. It was pretty sloppy. I was about 15 to 20 feet away from him while he was standing on that ramp. I wish he would either come up with something new and interesting that he can actually pull off or just drop the solo.

The other thing that has been pointed out was that the sound was great at the Palace. I was dead center in front of Al's kit 5th row in the ring and the mix was fantastic. About two songs before Ed's solo the volume started to go up. By the end of his solo it was loud. ATBL was very loud. Jump was ear splittingly loud!

I am going to be very critical of Eddie, since he's the reason that I have gone to every Van Halen show I have been to. I don't care who's singing. I go to see Eddie. This show was more about the event and not Eddie. Being up close last night I realized this was more about Dave being back than anything else. The other reason Ed's performance bothers me is that Wolf is a rookie and he's holding up quite well given this is his FIRST tour and he's 16 friggin years old! Dave is bringing his A game and is kicking ass. Alex is a rock. Eddie is the only one who isn't giving the performance I expected.

Regardless, it was a great time, a great show and I feel fortunate that I was able to get at least one show up close and personal and really soak it all in. It was amazing.

[guitard]

VOODOO wrote: I am going to be very critical of Eddie...
There's nothing wrong with being critical of the man, especially when you clearly explain your reasoning. I'm guessing you're a guitar player (like myself). So your perspective is much different than that of the average fan's, and you naturally filter the guitarist's playing through a critical eye.

Ed is going to have bad nights, OK nights, good nights, great nights, and amazing nights. And it's probably going to be something like a 10/20/20/20/10 split on those. If you're especially interested in his playing, I think you just have to get lucky and catch him on one the great/amazing nights ~ and it appears that wasn't the case for this show.

I've watched the Charlotte solo (up close and very personal) around five times. It starts off OK...wonders into a bluesy rock riff thing that basically goes no where, trudges through the Cathedral stuff with the laser light show, and then just catches on fire and blisters for the last 3-4 minutes.

Hopefully someone has a high quality video cam rolling on the nights when Ed is in the zone ~ it's only going to happen a few times during the tour.

Randy

[hain23x]

this whole "Cathedral" thing is a mystery. What has changed this year that prevents Ed from playing it like year's past? Is it the guitar he's using? I don't want to believe that he just can't cut it anymore. I've heard all the recordings from this tour so far and I'm just amazed how the life is sucked out of that thing.

[VOODOO]

hain23x wrote: this whole "Cathedral" thing is a mystery. What has changed this year that prevents Ed from playing it like year's past? Is it the guitar he's using? I don't want to believe that he just can't cut it anymore. I've heard all the recordings from this tour so far and I'm just amazed how the life is sucked out of that thing.

Eruption has been a wreck as well. Women in Love intro is slop, the intro to Mean Street is slop. I mean, this isn't a one time thing. It's every show. We have every show to listen to and all of the trademark Eddie licks seem to be beyond his ability. Personally I haven't heard him play anything amazing during his solos yet on this tour. There have been a few songs that he has pulled off beautifully a couple of times, but nothing consistent.

Again, it's not that he's playing horribly. It's just not that classic Eddie Van Halen style, power and energy. Maybe it is his age and the abuse. Who knows? I was listening to III (yeah, I know!) last week and watching a couple interviews and I started to wonder if Ed is simply tired of playing those old songs. Maybe he doesn't play them as well because he's lost interest in them and wants to move on to playing totally new music. Obviously his bread and butter is with the Roth and Hagar catalog, so he did the Hagar thing in '04 and he's getting the Roth thing out of the way now. Maybe this year is the end of Van Halen and next year will be the start of yet another chapter of the Van Halen saga. Ed, Al, Wolf and Aric? The four VHs and all new music, new band, all Van Halen's? Anything is possible at this point.

[rhoadsfanz5150]

35+ years of drug and booze abuse and cancer does that to a person. He's in his own shadow at this point. His new amps are the reason why he's staying afloat. If he used a low gain marshall, it would sound much worse.