Review by Don Weaver - dew@saturnnet.com

"Let's get ready to rumble!!!" were the first words heard from Dave as he took his place center stage. Roth's time in the limelight varied very little from the previous shows.

I have seen Van Halen many times with Hagar and Cherone but was not old enough to see "Diamond" Dave. I was actually impressed with the show overall. The guy is really a goof who has never gotten over himself. Which is good here. If he ever really made it out of adolescence there would be no Dave.

He jumped, spun, kicked and showed that he puts effort into making a FUN show. He did sing better than I've heard in early live recordings and nearly impressed me a few times! The martial arts demonstration with mic stand during "Jump" tells you he is at least as much show as go.

Now about the band. Bart was introduced after hacking his way through the first half of "Eruption" as the "new kid on the block". First off he was pretty good most of the time and even excellent at others (Little Guitars) but a few times he really missed it. He was a little robotic and only once attempted to improvise during a number but quickly abandoned this pursuit as though he wasn't comfortable with it. I really felt they purposely kept the mix "muddy" to cover up for him a few times.

The backing vocals mostly sounded wrong, sorry. Again, it was overall a great time that I am happy to have not missed. The only thing unusual was when some guy jumped on stage and started clowning around. Security pulled him off and as Dave watched he said something like, "I hope he jumped on stage to have a good time. If he came on stage to suck my dick, then he should go to the Gary Cherone show". Not my high point personally, but kinda funny anyway.

I do wish to see Roth as a member of VH at least once in concert and I think I have a solution. Dave has made a career out of being an opening act of late, so why change that? He could open for Van Halen. Ed, Mike, and Alex could come out just to play as the band. While the current line up could come out and do their thing after! This would require no studio time with Dave while still performing old stuff and writing new music that they really want. I know, dream on...

Hot For Teacher
Panama
Little Guitars
Dance The Night Away
Mean Street
Runnin' With The Devil
Eruption
You Really Got Me
So This Is Love?
Yankee Rose
Tobacco Road
Ain't Talkin' 'Bout Love
Unchained

Jump

DLR Solo: 02
Van Halen: 12

Total: 14

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