Van Halen

Live: Right Here, Right Now

good live album by one of the best bands EVER

Review Score:

(8/10)
Well, this mammoth double live album finally arrived in 1993 after VH fans had waited for so long. I am also going to point out that I like Sammy and Dave equally, so don't expect me to get into that Sammy vs. Dave thing.
But many still feel (myself included) that this album could have been even better. There are a few problems which almost ruined an otherwise excellent performance by the band. First of all, the sound quality is somewhat poor, with the instruments warbling and echoing too much at times. The loudest thing on here is Alex's crash cymbal. Why the heck is it so loud? Also, the song selection could have been better, unless you are a huge fan of every song off For Unlawful Carnal Knowledge. To be honest, I really felt that if the band replaced Man On a Mission, Spanked, and In N Out with, say, Runnin With the Devil, And The Cradle Will Rock, and Dance the Night Away from the Roth era, this would easily be a five star album. Also, Sammy could have done without suddenly doing Cabo Wabo right in the middle of You Really Got Me, or stopping Panama so he could try to "rap" to the audience.
How about the upside to this album? Well, we can start with Eddie, of course. Although 316 does go on for a whopping 11 and a half minutes, his guitar work on here is simply amazing, as with all of the other songs. He also includes Eruption within this track, it is at the very end of it. Alex's drum solo is another highlight (despite the crash cymbal), and even Michael Anthony gets a chance to do a BASS solo. Give him a thumbs up for trying but he's just not a good bass player. Live versions of the few Roth tunes on here sound great, despite the fact that I really don't think Hagar wanted to sing them at all. When Its Love and Dreams sound fabulous. Despite it's highly overplayed studio counterpart, I liked the live version of Right Now. And I also loved the fact that Poundcake, in my opinion one of Van Halen's most underappreciated songs, is played on here with the drill and everything. Runaround is another good track. And of course, the mother of all VH songs, Jump, is on here, although with the aforementioned poor sound quality the synthesizer can't even be heard throughout much of the song.
So there you have it, a bunch of Van Hagar stuff and not enough Roth era tunes on here. No disrespect to Sammy, but I think that more Roth era songs would have made this a better album.

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