The band Alex Van Halen didn’t enjoy watching live: “Why pay for a ticket?”
The live stage has always been the natural habitat for any great rock and roll band. Even though it takes a lot of energy to put everything together in the studio, managing to play everything to an audience and still manage to hold your own is the make-or-break moment for any iconic rock act. While Van Halen helped turn the rock world on its head in the 1970s, Alex Van Halen thought that what they were doing was in direct contrast to what he heard from progressive icons like Yes.
Then again, progressive rockers always had a tendency to be more dozy onstage than their contemporaries. Sure, they were masters of their instruments and made grand visions, but without the fantastic light shows and theatrical elements, Pink Floyd boiled down to just a bunch of guys standing still and playing their instruments.
That’s not how Van Halen thought of themselves, though. They had stepped up their look a little bit when playing clubs in Los Angeles, but there were just as many moments where they turned themselves into a borderline circus attraction, complete with David Lee Roth’s infamous raps with the crowd or Eddie blowing minds with his tapping phrases that didn’t even need a mic to get people excited.
But that kind of training wasn’t something they were born with. They had to work their asses off to both play, sing, and run around the stage that much, and having a mentor like Gene Simmons of Kiss meant that they were going to be a force to be reckoned with when they graduated to the arenas and stadiums of the world.
But in terms of prog rock, Yes was still fairly by the numbers. While they could still put any amateur musician to shame every time they got behind their instruments, would anyone really care about how Steve Howe worked as a live performer if he didn’t have the chops to back him up?
For Alex, this kind of show was nothing but boring, saying, “When you go see Yes, it’s more like sitting down, an evening with Yes, and they duplicate the record, I mean they duplicate the record, which sometimes makes me wonder why pay $9 or $10 for a ticket, you know, and have to sit there, barely able to see, lousy acoustics, when you could much rather sit at home with a nice stereo?”
Granted, it’s very impressive to listen to since the album itself has the potential to blow you away, but whereas all Rick Wakeman had was a cape, Van Halen were the perfect package. Every member of the group was engaging during the show, from Michael Anthony swinging his Jack Daniel’s bass everywhere to Alex’s fierce playing style to Eddie playing mind-altering licks without a care in the world.
Yes still carved out a place for themselves among the musical greats, but compared to Van Halen, they forgot one fatal flaw. No matter how many times you nail a guitar part or craft the perfect drum break, it’s about bringing the theatricality whenever you translate that from behind the glass to in front of the masses.
