Eddie Van Halen discusses “Tokyo Dome Live In Concert”, Van Halen’s first live album with original frontman David Lee Roth, in a June cover story for Guitar World magazine on newsstands April 28.
“We realized that we have never made a live album with Dave,” says the guitarist. “Since we had already released a studio album with Wolfgang playing on it, it also made sense for us to do a live album with both Wolf and Dave. Another reason why we put out a live record was to give people the experience of hearing us play our classic songs live.”
When it came time for the project, Van Halen had plenty of source material to choose from.
“We have a Pro Tools rig out by the front of the house and have recorded every show since the beginning of the 2007 tour when Dave first got back in the band,” Eddie explains. “But we never originally intended to put out a live record. We just recorded our shows to archive them.
“We have so much material that it was too overwhelming to listen to about 150 shows and pick the best one. I didn’t even bother listening to any of the past shows, outside of a few jams here and there. We played pretty much the same set every night, although we changed a few songs here and there. We played the classics. That’s what people want to hear.”
Eddie says the band left the choice of material to Roth, for a few reasons.
“Because the performances by Alex, Wolfgang and myself were pretty consistent from one night to the next,” he begins, “we decided to leave it up to Dave to pick, and he happened to pick Tokyo.
“Performing live is a lot harder on a singer. Wolfgang and I sing backup vocals on the choruses, so we know how much the vocals can vary from one night to the next.
“When your voice is your instrument, you can be affected by a lot of different things. If you sleep with the air conditioner on or the bus ride is too long, you can wake up the next day with a messed up voice. That’s the main reason we decided to let Dave pick.”
“Tokyo Dome Live In Concert” recently debuted at No. 20 on the US Billboard 200 album chart with opening week sales of 31,000 copies.
Van Halen will launch a North American tour in Seattle on July 5.
See also:
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