Original vid at • Van Halen Live - 1984 ...
During Dave’s solo spot on Van Halen’s 1984 tour, he performed a choreographed routine that involved an impressive array of martial arts moves, all while swinging a large, scarf laden saber, twirled at an incredible speed. In some cities, like in this video from Montreal, Ed accompanied him on an Oberheim OB-8 synthesizer, playing an original piece of music, part of which would eventually morph into “Mine All Mine” off OU812. (On some shows, like the Monsters of Rock show in Donington, this routine was accompanied with a drum solo by Alex instead.)
I've attempted to recreate this rare piece of music as closely as possible on my OB-8. Believe me, I know I'm no Ed. I just thought it would be a fun project. I mixed in crowd sounds to try and simulate what a professionally released version of this concert may have sounded like.
I didn’t do a performance video of this because, frankly, it was just too difficult. I learn everything by ear, and trying to memorize all the notes in that clicky bit in first half would be quite the task (which was probably improvised that night anyway.) There’s other technical factors, involving the difficulty of matching the tempo of an analog based arpeggiator, so what I ended up doing is a combination of performance and “programming”, where I would find the proper midi notes, and then slide them to where they needed to be to match Ed’s performance.
I got the idea to do this from a user comment, so thank you to that person!
I’m setting this video to release on the 40th anniversary of this concert! April 19th, 1984. Were you there? You are old like me! (I was not there, sadly. But I am old.)
Thumbnail photo credit by Rudy Childs. Check him out at www.rudychilds....
P.S. To all my fellow VH nerds pushing up their glasses to comment, "Um, actually, Ed played an OB-Xa in 1984, not an OB-8...." you are partially correct. He did record the album 1984 on an Xa, but for the tour, they used OB-8s. (Along with a Minimoog, which Michael Anthony used to play the bass lines during "I'll Wait" and "Jump.”)
Thanks to all the people who have uploaded the Montreal show to RU-vid! I believe I took this particular video from @vanhalenstore.com. (Even though I have the VHS of it in a bin somewhere which I bought from the back of a guitar mag in the 80s. See earlier comment about being old.)
If you have made it to the end of this verbose description, I deem you cool. You’re welcome.
27 сен 2024
