Over the past few decades it has become quite a common practice in the music industry to fix mistakes in the studio made by the artist in a live performance when working on making a live album. Some times whole performances are entirely rerecorded; like for Judas Priest's 1979 album Unleashed in the East where all of Rob Halford's vocals were entirely done in a studio due to equipment failure. However, with Van Halen's recent release Tokyo Dome Live in Concert the band decided to keep everything as it was heard that night; warts and all.
In a recent interview with Guitar World, Eddie Van Halen says:
“There are mistakes. After it was mixed I listened to a few parts and went, ‘Okay, I fucked that up.’ But that’s how it sounded that night so we just left it. It’s like a photograph of that evening and we didn’t Photoshop it. When you fix parts or mistakes, it’s not a real live experience any more.”
Eddie has expressed great disdain for when bands over edit and redo things to their albums; creating an unauthentic live experience just so that they can pick up some more cash. A major disappointment to Eddie was Cream's Wheels of Fire album, saying “That ruined it for me. I thought it was one performance.” Rainbow did the same thing in 1977 with their On Stage album. At least when Guns N' Roses did that with their Live Era '87-'93 album they were straight up honest about it.
As for whether or not a new Van Halen studio album is in the foreseeable future, Eddie says “We don’t ever plan that far ahead. That’s how the live album came about. The best things aren’t planned far in advance – we like to keep it loose."
While some aspects of the Tokyo Dome Live in Concert album may have been a bit rough around the edges I at least respect the band for giving us the real authentic Van Halen concert experience. It's a refreshing change of pace compared to so many bands who redo almost everything in the studio when producing a live album. Props to you guys, Van Halen. You just earned more of my respect.
No comments:
Post a Comment