Nightfly Surprisingly, Van Halen never got around to releasing a live album when Dave Lee Roth fronted them in their classic late 70’s early 80’s line up. Now he’s back and with one new studio album under their belts since his return they’ve finally got round to it, thirty years after his original departure. As if to make up for lost time they’ve made it a double containing 23 songs and a drum and obligatory guitar solo.

Tokyo Dome Live In Concert contains pretty much all the songs you’d expect from the Roth era and 3 from their latest, A Different Kind Of Truth. There’s no mistaking it’s a live album and they’ve bravely chosen not to fix anything in the studio giving it a real warts and all live feel, with mixed results. It’s a bit ramshakled in places, particularly in the vocal department and even Eddie is occasionally a bit sloppy, though overall he turns in a good performance.

High points include a stonking opener Unchained, I’m The One, Somebody Get Me A Doctor, Mean Street and best of all a really driving Hot For Teacher. There are quite a few average moments though and a few turkeys such as a meandering Everybody Wants Some and Ice Cream Man. It would have been good to hear a few less predictable songs like Girl Gone Bad and House of Pain instead of the very mediocre And The Craddle Will Rock and I’ll Wait but overall it’s not a bad selection.

Whilst it’s good to have a Live Roth era Van Halen album at last and it’s much better, mainly down to the song selection than the Sammy Hagar fronted Live, Right Here, Right Now, Tokyo Dome is unlikely to become one of the classic must have live albums.