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Page 8 The Selina Journal Sunflower Sunday, January 25,1961Van Halen draws consistent critical pansVAN HALEN BAND — From Halen, Edward Van Halen andleft are Dave Roth, Alex Van Mike Anthony.By BYEON REIMUSPop Scene ServiceVan Halen 1s first two albums sold more than 7 million copies combined, remained on record charts for more than two years, and were followed by a worldwide concert tour that played to more than 2 million people.Yet this California-based rock group, labeled by one magazine as “the band you love to hate,1' is almost consistently panned by music critics. In an interesting twist of logic, lead singer David Lee Roth claims Van Halen's enormous success is one of the very reasons critics don't like the band.“Many music critics now have kids of their own, Roth said during a recent interview in New York, “and they’re terrified that their Uds may turn out to be like us.“Let's face it, critics listen with a different set of ears then most people. When you get so many free albums and go to so many free concerts every year, how can you tell when something is new and different? As far as I'm concerned, our success is one of the reasons critics don't like us. Van Halen has gone its own happy way, without much radio airplay and publicity in the beginning. Our music broke its own ground. We pulled ouraudience together piece by piece, while playing on bills with other groups. The results speak for themselves. Obviously, critics have bad little or no effect on our record sales or concert attendance.“You have to have a sense of humor about bad reviews, otherwise it isn't rock ln’ roll. We make mainstream music. Lab or class stuff. Most critics never understood that kind of music anyway, he said.All of the above is not to say that Van Halen, currently on the tail end of a nine-month concert tour of the U.S., Canada, Europe and South America, has been without some critical acclaim. A majority of the raves, however, are directed to lead guitarist Edward Van Halen, who was just voted the Best Rock Guitarist in the 1980 Readers Poll of Guitar Player magazine for the second year in a row. Rocker Ted Nugent reportedly called Van Halen “a fantastic guitarist, while Pat Travers, another heavy metal picker, added: “I don't think there's anyone better for saying more, getting a better sound.On the road, Roth, Van Haien, brother and drummer Alex Van Halen, and bassist Michael Anthony, create that sound using 700,000 watts of light, 40,000 watts of sound and 50 tons of equipment. With so much success, why does Van Haienstill spend an average of 10 months a year on the road?“The whole thing comes down to how much you want to play. We love it, and it shows. In two years, we traveled a total of 230,000 land miles on a bus, and that doesn't even include air travel. We like to play rock and roll, and as long as people knock down the doors to come and see us in every city, we’ll be there,’’ said Roth.In spite of the record industry’s slump, Van Halen’s last album, “Women and Children First, quickly proved to be as loud, strong and financially successful asthe first two. Their concert tours continue to be sell-outs as well.“I don’t think the downturn in the music business has anything to do with the prices of the albums or concert tickets, Roth concluded.“There are a lot of boring bands out there, that’s the problem. Audiences want all or nothing. Lots of bands are a downright disappointment on stage as compared to how they sound on records or viee-vera, he said.Following a few weeks break from touring, the band began work on recording a fourth album in December.
Newspaper Details
Salina Journal
Salina, Kansas, US
Sun, Jan 25, 1981
Page 21
Full Page
Clipped by
Salina P.
KS, USA 03 Sep 2022
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