Published on Jun 24, 2004
Van Halen recoded this live set during the tour supporting
For Unlawful Carnal Knowledge. At the time they were one for
the biggest arena fillers in the world. Live albums are among the
most difficult to critique. For one thing, most bands don’t really
sound that much different in their live recordings than the
original studio tracks. So essentially live albums frequently
become greatest hits collections. Which seems silly since they’ll
inevitably release a compilation of some sort, eventually. The
trick to a successful live album is to give the people something
different.
Live: Right Here, Right Now does not accomplish that.
The big mistakes that made
L:RH,RN a lackluster affair are as follows:
The songs sound pretty much the same as they do on the studio
recordings. Other than Eddie’s solos, they are primarily note for
note recreations.
They recorded almost the entire
For Unlawful Carnal Knowledge album, save one song. It’s
totally excessive to overload a live set with 10 tracks from one
album, especially one that was only marginally successful (in the
spectrum of their career). Sadly, the one standout track from
For Unlawful Carnal Knowledge, “Right Now,” gets a shabby
and uninspired treatment in the live version. I understand that
they recorded the tracks on the supporting tour, but this was mixed
at least a year later. Any momentum for
For Unlawful Carnal Knowledge had long since spun out, and
this material was included in lieu of much better songs from their
early years. Which leads to my next point…
They only do three songs from the David Lee Roth era! (four if
you count “You Really Got Me”). To almost completely ignore 6
albums, which includes much of their finest material, is criminal,
and a gross disservice to their fans. Worse, two of the songs,
“Jump” and “Panama,” are from the same album. It’s well known that
Sammy Hagar disliked doing the Roth era songs, but he knew that
when he signed up. That the rest of the band agreed to this is a
travesty. In contrast, they recorded 10 songs from their most
recent album. So in essence this album becomes an advertisement for
their recent studio disc.
There’s almost no spark of originality on this album. To be
effective and entertaining, a live album needs to capture some
essence of the artist that isn’t in evidence in the studio. This
works if your stage act is convincingly original. Van Halen’s live
act is not. These guys aren’t Springsteen, or Tori Amos, or one of
the many artists who effectively reinterpret themselves in a live
setting. They don’t play original or unreleased songs, or play
around with the arrangements to any noticeable degree. They don’t
share anything with the audience really, other than volume, that
can’t be found on their studio disks. These performances are not
particularly inspired or interesting. Even the opportunities to
stretch out are wasted. The possibilities of Hagar solo work are
abundant. Rather than chose a gem from Sammy’s back pages, like
“Bad Motor Scooter” or ” Reckless,” they drag out the tired “One
Way To Rock,” and butcher a fine Hagar ballad “Give To Live” with a
wimpy acoustic arrangement that’s as limp as last night’s
fettuccini.
Talent without inspiration is not pretty. Talent these guys
have, but inspiration was not part of the recipe for
L:RH,RN unfortunately. To me this album was a forbearer of
the downslide of the band that would culminate in the ouster of
Hagar and even less inspired studio material. If you are looking
for something original, this disc is not it. If you want a greatest
hits collection, this is not that either.