By Mike Scott
David Lee Roth brought his “Don’t Love Me, Rent Me” tour the River Cree Resort in Enoch just on the edge of Edmonton recently. Two things are evident from this past performance: The shine on “Diamond Dave” has faded a long time ago and two, he doesn’t seem to care.
From the onset this started out to be a show that was going to dispel the bad reviews he has been getting lately. Kicking off the night with Panama, Dave seemed to be in fine form with energy to spare. He was posing for the cameras in the pit, cheekily strutting around like he was 40 years younger (he turns 72 later this year) and flexing his gaunt frame like he was at a muscle show, waving and pointing to fans in the front row and basically thriving in the spotlight he’s spent the last 5 decades basking in. But it didn’t take long to start to go downhill. The creep factor was ever present. We don’t need to see a septuagenarian shaking his ass at us and making kissy faces to the women.
Vocally he seemed to be struggling from the onset as he relied heavily on the four-person backing vocal group that covered all the high notes for him and most of the vocals as the night wore on. He seemed to have had one good scream during Panama and when he pulled the mic away from his mouth, the scream continued. Nice try Dave.
Walking into the venue I ran into a few people I knew. Surprised to see them there, the common theme was, “I can’t wait to see what kind of shit show this is going to be.” Even my wife who joined me thought, “why not. Let’s go for a good laugh.” The show itself wasn’t selling well at all with just a hundred or so seats sold a few days before the event. River Cree Events sent out an email offering free tickets to see David Lee Roth. Even with those “free” tickets given away (you just had to pay the Ticketmaster services fees) half the place remained empty. I was going to say I felt sorry for these few folks who forked out $100 plus for tickets, but those are the ones who seemed to be having fun. Twenty percent of the crowd was really into the show. The rest of us tolerated it for as long as we could. I left somewhere around the 90-minute mark having had enough. And when we got up from our seats near the front, I noticed that the hall was quite vacant. Guess I wasn’t the only one who had enough.
The backing band was solid having worked for 17 months preparing for this tour that started in April and wraps up late August. With Al Estrada on guitar, Sean McNabb on bass, Francis Valentino on drums, KC Knight on keys and a solid four piece backing vocal team rounding out the ensemble, they gave everything they had to try and make it enjoyable for most. Especially for those who were there to see the “shit show.” The band wanted to make it memorable in some manner. And they did. Musically they were solid. Estrada channelled EVH in fine fashion. When Dave went off on his many tangents, the rhythm section held there own keeping the beat going during DLR’s many rants. It was about one hour of music and singing and one of asinine stories that had no place in the show. They ripped through a solid selection of Van Halen songs from the DLR era including a few surprise tunes like Atomic Punk, Mean Street and D.O.A. For some reason Dave left out songs from his solo career. Given the amount of old tour shirts featuring past outings, you’d think he’d throw in a couple for good measure.
The Good: He still pulls off being a showman; of that there is no doubt. He seems like he’s genuinely having a good time and appears oblivious to the fact that its bad.
The Bad: He should just stay home. His voice is terrible.
The Ugly: His creep factor was at an all-time high. Ranting, “now the ugly girls sing. Now the pretty girls sing. All the ugly girls get in for free, and the pretty girls get in for half price” “There’s no I in team but there’s a U in pussy.” Cringe worthy words.
As I mentioned the shine is off. Speaking with people after the show, some were saying to give him a break due to his age. I’ve seen many bands well into their 70s recently and none were as bad as DLR. He gave off creepy old man vibes. However, nobody told Dave that this stuff is wrong and if they did, he doesn’t seem to care.
I first saw Dave solo in 1988 with Steve Vai on guitar and Billy Sheehan on bass. The Skyscraper tour was an excessive one with 3 story high letters that spelled out DAVE and saw him riding a surfboard across the crowd. I was quite intrigued to see how time has treated Dave since then and sadly; it hasn’t been kind. But one thing for sure. He’s still over the top with ego.
