Synth glitch causes Van Halen to have a musical train wreck...

[Manedwolf]

Oh, this is painful. Used a prerecorded synth for the background chords in "Jump"...but it went a little too fast and too high in pitch. Poor Eddie! He's trying to do his guitar solo, but the key is nothing remotely as it should be, or anything that can be adapted to, and, well...

It just makes you wince as the attempts to adapt to a nonexistent key fail. On-stage hell for the performers, definitely. 

http://gizmodo.com/gadgets/train-wreck/synth-glitch-creates-on+stage-disaster-for-van-halen-313005.php

[Phyphor]

Clearly, a sound check was NOT done on this concert.



Nobody was even on the same key.

[280plus]

WOW!!  What you're seeing there is the sign of a true pro. Eddie (apparently) either can't hear his guitar or can't hear the synth and is just playing what he always plays even though it's not in the same key as the synth. He doesn't have a clue what it's sounding like. Seeing this makes me glad I didn't spend the $ to see them again. First off, I hate DLR, he's a friggin has been. THEN, NO MARK ANTHONY?? It just ain't right without him. I'll bet he didn't sign on because he figured Eddie and DLR would eventually get into it and the whole TOUR would turn into a train wreck. Plus I'm REALLY pissed at Eddie for divorcing Val and forcing us to watch HER has been ass try to make a living hawking the get skinny stuff with Kirstie. What a crew... 

And besides, don't charge me a lot of $ to come and see you sync with a recording. That's just bogus.

[280plus]

Yes, that's how I feel. 

[Perd Hapley]

My sister married a Van Halen nut.  Oh, the pain.   

[Manedwolf]

WOW!!  What you're seeing there is the sign of a true pro. Eddie (apparently) either can't hear his guitar or can't hear the synth and is just playing what he always plays even though it's not in the same key as the synth.

From what I've heard of them, could he have been too stoned out of his mind to realize?

About all I know of their catalog is that song and mention of Eddie van Halen in regards to guitar techniques, not a band I follow. It's just that I know that most musicians I know of would have just stopped, said "Okay, F that, next song is..." and launched into something else if there was a failure of equipment.

[280plus]

Nah, he looks relatively sober. He just can't hear that he's not in tune with the synth. Or maybe he's out of sync actually. I'll go back and listen again, maybe I can figure it out. Still, unless there's some crazy guy playing a JD bottle looking bass, I ain't happy. 

[280plus]

Apparently I should have read the stuff underneath. He's in sync but not in tune with the synth. I still get the impression he can't hear what's going on though. I don't think he's trying to compensate, he's just playing his part. Somebody's head must have rolled when it was all over. 

Speaking of recordings at concerts. I can recall all the way back to the Queen concert where the operatic chorus for "Bohemian" was a playback. I pretty sure I caught ZZ Top filling in rhythm guitar that way too. I'm not crazy about it personally.

[Hawkmoon]

On-stage hell for the performers, definitely.

One might hope that enough such incidents might bring back live performances ... but I won't live that long.

One of the best concerts I ever attended (many years ago) was a John Denver concert. He had played two other cities in the two nights previous, it was winter and lousy weather, and the guy was obviously and visibly tired and suffering. But he sang. He didn't lip-synch, he SANG. There were several places during the night when his voice cracked, but he SANG.

Ya know, the voice cracking didn't detract from the performance one iota, because even with the vocal flaws, you could still feel how he felt about what he was singing. Lip-synching doesn't convey any emotion whatsoever.

[armchair warrior]

I'm no real fan of DLR,BUT, he was a trooper.He kept singing
and didn't sound bad at all.
Eddies guitar sounded like a bagpipe!
Huh?
Oh, maybe I'm tone deaf.

[Mabs2]

I never really cared for DLR that much, then I saw the video for Jump.
Now I want to stab his eye sockets.

[Balog]

Who's DLR?

[Bogie]

David Lee Roth.

If he hadn't been the front man for Van Halen, they woulda gone nowheresville, like all the other guitar bands in the late seventies/early eighties...

[280plus]

Yea, for a while there you had guitarists all trying to play like Eddie and front men all trying to be DLR. It was a scary time... 
 
I saw them as Van Hagar and with the Extreme guy but never DLR. They must be coming around too. All the radio stations are staging massive assaults of VH music. I'll be glad when they're gone.