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RIP Edward Lodewijk Van Halen

Discussion in 'Sports and News' started by Splendid Splinter, Oct 6, 2020.

  1. DanielSimpsonDay

    DanielSimpsonDay Well-Known Member

    UFO exempted, of course.
     
    I Should Coco and Captain_Kirk like this.
  2. cyclingwriter2

    cyclingwriter2 Well-Known Member

    Sammy Hagar wrote a lot in his autobiography about the last reunion tour with the band, and that basically Eddie was a wreck. One night he pulled out a tooth with some pliers and that as soon as Eddie did his hair in a samurai bun, the show that night was essentially over. Eddie would just use whammy bar and people would go nuts. However, it didn’t seem like it was malicious. More that he had no idea how to pull Eddie back from the abyss.
     
  3. Tighthead

    Tighthead Well-Known Member

    I think Eddie was still doing stints in rehab into his fifties. It sounds like some of his partying was a solo endeavour.

    Chuck Klosterman and Bill Simmons did about an hour podcast on EVH yesterday. I always like Klosterman’s perspective, and he mentioned Eddie’s demons being fairy dark, more than the general public realized.
     
  4. Neutral Corner

    Neutral Corner Well-Known Member

    Alex Winter on How Eddie Van Halen Was the Guiding Light of 'Bill & Ted'


    "We tried to get Van Halen into each one of the movies. [Laughs]. We asked him, but he said no. A very Spinal Tap moment. [Laughs]. He was a famously private person and he wasn’t, you know, the front man. He was extremely charismatic and he was always very genteel, but he always turned us down. And then the third movie [2020’s Bill & Ted Face the Music], the guys wrote a whole scene around him. We spoke at length to the Van Halen people, and he declined and said it was for personal reasons. We didn’t obviously have any idea what that was, but it was pretty clear now what it was. It’s just devastating. Completely aside from any of our goofy stuff, it’s just a really sad, sad loss.
     
  5. Junkie

    Junkie Well-Known Member

    I can't argue with that. The best of the Roth years just didn't take place very often. Live, there was no comparison. Roth couldn't sing a lick. A great voice for their music, but Hagar was a far better performer and he and Eddie seemed to have chemistry onstage that Roth and Eddie didn't seem to have.
     
    2muchcoffeeman likes this.
  6. DanielSimpsonDay

    DanielSimpsonDay Well-Known Member

    No kidding. Roth, even in his prime, got by on stage presence, Eddie's wizardry, and the thousands of beers consumed by the crowd.

    Roth - Frontman
    Hagar - Performer
    Cherone - Singer

    Although there was no way the mix could survive EVH's issues and this guy also being a strong personality, I still think Sebastian Bach instead of Cherone could have been really, really good.
     
    Last edited: Oct 8, 2020
    OscarMadison likes this.
  7. Junkie

    Junkie Well-Known Member

    I saw them with Cherone. May have been the worst show I've ever seen. By anyone. I never saw Van Halen again after that. The way they mailed it in that night, and the way ticket prices went, I wasn't dropping that kind of cash for that kind of shit. The 86-93ish Hagar shows, however, were all unreal. As someone said up-thread, they were genuinely having fun and Eddie was at the peak of his powers than.
     
  8. Inky_Wretch

    Inky_Wretch Well-Known Member

    FWIW, if you have access to Sirius/XM, channel 27 is now a Van Halen tribute channel.
     
    playthrough likes this.
  9. DanielSimpsonDay

    DanielSimpsonDay Well-Known Member

    Shame, too, because Cherone is really talented. I think Extreme was done and if you're offered the chance to front VH, I mean...fuuuuuck, you gotta do it. I just don't think his heart was in it from the start. The guys in Extreme had their differences but going from that to Alex trying to manage Eddie, the two of them hating Michael Anthony and having to play a character on stage that you're not, it sounds like misery from the jump. I've seen Sammy too impaired to perform well but goddamned if he doesn't give his all. He *never* mails it in.
     
    cyclingwriter2 and Junkie like this.
  10. 2muchcoffeeman

    2muchcoffeeman Well-Known Member

  11. BartonK

    BartonK Active Member

    I noticed several years ago on a long roadtrip that you didn't really hear Van Halen as much on radio (classic rock or active rock) as you used to; just "Jump" or "Panama" on a best of the '80s, '90s and today station. They were a great, great band, but I think their ultimate legacy's been sullied by the last 25 years: the revolving door of lead singers, the way Anthony was treated, the years-long stretches where you'd hear nothing from them. Contrast VH with Bon Jovi, who have kept on touring, kept putting out albums, had a radio hit here and there. I bet the average kid in their 20s knows more Bon Jovi songs than Van Halen songs, and Van Halen was light years ahead of Bon Jovi back in the late '80s / early '90s.
     
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  12. poindexter

    poindexter Well-Known Member

    I was never a big Van Halen fan, but I always liked Little Guitars. Someone posted a youtube link to Little Guitars from Largo, Fl in 1982 - that was the worst, most gawdawful concert song I've ever heard.
    Just my two cents.
     
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