Wow, I've never heard a band screw up this bad. I guess now I'm glad I didn't see Van Halen when they came through town. I don't want to remember Eddie like this:

What a Complete AND TOTAL HOT ASS STANKY MESS!!!!

What the hell happened there?! I have some of the shows of this tour on DVD and Eddie was playing well. This is a disgrace!

OMG! What the hell?!

Several theories abound.

Allegedly, Eddie had banged his guitar and that threw it out of tune. So where the hell was the guitar tech? EVH must have 20 guitars on standby.

Another theory is that EVH was so fucked up that he didn't realize the song was in C#, and he was playing in C.

And then some people think the keyboard part - which was a pre-recorded track - got played at the wrong frequency, which changed its pitch.

I go for the "EVH was fucked up" theory. Not only was he off-key, he was offbeat a lot, too.

Ugh, a true low point in an otherwise great career.

RodeoSchro said:

#3 Is the winning answer.
The song is originally in "C".
That keyboard track is playing it in "C#".

Eddie gets a pass to a degree.
The question is, couldn't he (or any of the crew) hear that there's a problem?


tA

Tribal Disorder

http://www.soundclick.com...dID=182431
[Edited 8/12/08 19:40pm]

theAudience said:

I heard it right off the bat..I was like Eddie's not in the right key. Shit happens. but back to TA's original point someone including the tech's that there was a problem.

i saw them when they came here in Columbus and they were fantastic.

wtf is this fuckery

theAudience said:

But could they just cut mid-song? My sense is there is no way they could not hear it, but maybe they didn't know what to do once they had started?

I would think that with as much money as these bands were generating, they could at least have just handed him a duplicate guitar or something.

IAintTheOne said:

heartbeatocean said:

You know, as many times as i've seen or heard of "electronic aids" going haywire during a live performance, a band with as much stage time as Van Halen should've had a backup plan.

A pro act could've played it off by simply being honest with the audience, stopping the tune and telling them, "We're having some technical difficulties, we're gonna do a Take Two on this one."
They appeared to have a crowd full of supportive fans who came to praise Caesar, not to bury him and i'm willing to bet would have understood.



From a different perspective, this is another prime example where you can make the argument for employing a LIVE MUSICIAN!
A keyboard player, even if they decided to hide him backstage (it's been done before), would've been aware of what key he was supposed to be playing the tune in.



tA

Tribal Disorder

http://www.soundclick.com...dID=182431

they kicked ass in seattle!!!!!
this must've beeb in buffalo or something!!!!!

they kicked ass in seattle!!!!!
this must've beeb in buffalo or something!!!!!

they kicked ass in seattle!!!!!
this must've beeb in buffalo or something!!!!!

they kicked ass in seattle!!!!!
this must've been in buffalo or something!!!!!

theAudience said:

Yeah, that's what a pro would have done - a pro that wasn't high out of his mind. I think EVH was high. I'd be incredibly surprised if there weren't five or six people, including the guitar tech, trying to get his attention and give him a new guitar.

Watch Eddie. He has NO IDEA he's in the wrong key. No idea at all.

The bass player's in the right key. David Lee Roth is in the right key (I guess). EVH is in his own world.

I saw them twice in concert - X-boyfriend was a BIG fan - back in the day


They sucked both times

there is just no excuse for that shit. This is the first time I've ever seen DLR look like the responsible, down to earth guy. I felt embarrassed for him, and yet a little proud at the same time!

woogiebear said:

That post was not funny enough for you to post it 4 times.

And hey now, I'm FROM Buffalo. A lot of acts start their tours in that area, and some of them never sound better because they're still getting it together and there's more of a chance of something spontaneous happening.

I have seen something like this happen before. On a fairly major gig I was working on (I probably shouldn't mention the artist's name) there was a half-hour long period towards the end of the soundcheck when one of the keyboard players had his Access Virus get stuck a semitone sharp. Even the time-honoured trick of "switch it off then switch it back on again" didn't help.

(I suspect it was some weird stuck pitch-bend MIDI strangeness)

We were filming the show for DVD. Thankfully the keyboard recovered, but no-one seemed to know how or why. Just as well, because the entire shoot would have been a bust, and it wasn't as if we could film another gig as it was the last night of the tour, and to cap it all it was also the anniversary of the release of this artist's most famous album.

But wow, the look of panic on the keyboard player's face... for half an hour too... I thought he was going to wee himself.

Poor old Eddie, bravely resorts to playing one-note lines a semitone sharp as best as he can. I'd love to have been a fly on the wall backstage after that gig, I'll bet there was some colourful language flying about.

popelife said:

E-wreck-tronics...

What's still so mysterious about the key glitch in that VH clip is that (although hard to hear) the bass player seems to be alright and DLR (of all people) is rolling with it.

Yeah, probably some serious cussin' & fussin' went down after that gig.


tA

Tribal Disorder

http://www.soundclick.com...dID=182431

RodeoSchro said:

This is what happened.

theAudience said:

Agreed. Though hardly professional (and that's an understatement ), the punk rock orchestra I played in used to do this often. No biggie.

And I've heard Michael Tilson Thomas cutting off the entire symphony to bawl out the audience for making too much noise. It's been done. But then again, there were no machines.

theAudience said:

But wouldn't it have been DLR's call to cut the song short? Or he was just hoping EVH would pick it up and compensate? There must have been a person operating the keyboard machine, right? I'm confused.

Ouch! I couldn't listen to the whole thing.

Gives a whole new meaning to "might as well jump".

Oh fuck.

heartbeatocean said:

I am not sure whose call it should have been, but remember these guys have been around a long time...true "professionals" would know what to do in an emergency situation.

I say, shame on all of them.....people payed a lot of money to go hear what they obviously thought would be a quality, well orchestrated show.

tA and I have been around in this business long enough to know, sh*t happens, and sometimes the musicians/engineers can work through it so you can finish, sometimes ya just gotta let loose of your pride re-start....

Since they started the show with a lot of drama and fanfare, it would have been difficult to build up the momentum they wanted from the audience again.....they had already entered the arena, so perhaps there could have been other option (silence EVH's guitar perhaps?).....I don't know.

Brendan said: