DLR Not In The Building
This business went in the crapper when the executives started believing they were bigger than the acts, that the audience was interested in THEM, not the performers.
And why be interested in the acts, they were just tools of the machine. Picked on their looks, singing the songs of hacks, the music lost its soul, its religion, its sense of theatre, its VAUDEVILLE HISTORY!
Van Halen was no James Cameron production, no slick artifice, it was just four guys from Pasadena working their way up from beer parties to the TOP, testing limits, getting better every step of the way.
We all agree Eddie Van Halen is a genius, but without David Lee Roth Van Halen never would have broken through. Sammy may have a better voice, I love "Best Of Both Worlds", but without DLR there IS NO Van Halen, no notice. A band without a frontman is…the NICE?
You need a singer, someone who can enrapture the audience, someone who can make the audience pay attention. That person in Van Halen’s case was David Lee Roth. Better David Lee Roth with ANYBODY behind him than ANYBODY in Velvet Revolver or Audioslave (is there a difference, aren’t both made up of has-beens who can’t work on their own?)
Stunningly, David Lee Roth can still work on his own. Granted, to an ever-dwindling audience. But people still want to be touched. Want to remember when they were in high school, and DIDN’T GIVE A FUCK! Van Halen was music for people enmeshed in the system who wanted a WAY OUT! That’s what music used to provide. Back when it was a culture of notes, not pricks with $5,000 suits and multiple assistants.
This is the last nail in the coffin for the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. This is the final joke. When you don’t even let the INDUCTEES perform.
Why not? Because it’s on TELEVISION? Doesn’t that prove the point? That when you start worrying about the audience rather than the music you’ve lost the thread?
Back when Van Halen reigned, the ultimate goal was to get backstage. To hang with the band, whether male or female. It not only made your night, but maybe your life. To get that close. To the talented who played by their own rules.
That’s what the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame induction ceremony was. A private party. That the public LONGED to attend. Back when there was no question the inductees were legends.
An edited show for VH1 was bad enough. A live broadcast? Why? Is this any different from the Paris Hilton sex tape? A staged event, distributed for publicity?
The R&RHOF needs cash. It needs to perpetuate itself. When it’s the MUSIC that’s important, that will outlive this lame organization run by men and women who never had the adoration of tens of thousands of fans, who never held them in the palm of their hands, who never knew the POWER of being a star.
You can be rich, but that doesn’t make you a star.
And the biggest star amongst this year’s inductees has now been refused the right to perform at his own party. Isn’t that like not allowing the President to attend his own inauguration?
Let every table at the Waldorf-Astoria be adorned with a bowl of brown M&M’s. And when it comes time for Van Halen to be inducted, let everybody THROW THEM AT THE DAIS!
That’s the rock and roll spirit. Throwing out decorum, knowing that a big star plays by his OWN RULES!
If only the pricks who made this decision had one iota of David Lee Roth’s star power. If only they realized they’re what’s killing not only the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, but the record business too.
If Michael Stipe had any balls he’d refuse to attend unless DLR could come and perform too. What, Paul Shaffer gets to play all these years but David Lee Roth CAN’T?
