Xray the Enforcer Posted October 6, 2020 Share Posted October 6, 2020 Post your favorite Van Halen songs and air guitar your way to glory. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Red Tiger Posted October 6, 2020 Share Posted October 6, 2020 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Xray the Enforcer Posted October 6, 2020 Author Share Posted October 6, 2020 that's a good 'un. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mormont Posted October 6, 2020 Share Posted October 6, 2020 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
kairparavel Posted October 6, 2020 Share Posted October 6, 2020 This But also this Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dbunting Posted October 7, 2020 Share Posted October 7, 2020 Definitely on the Mt. Rushmore of all time guitar players. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Gertrude Posted October 7, 2020 Share Posted October 7, 2020 I was an MTV girl, so I think I love this song based a lot on the video - especially the band as super awkward back up dancers. Still, I love it. Van Halen was a big part of the soundtrack of my teen years. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Xray the Enforcer Posted October 7, 2020 Author Share Posted October 7, 2020 5 hours ago, Gertrude said: I was an MTV girl, so I think I love this song based a lot on the video - especially the band as super awkward back up dancers. Still, I love it. Van Halen was a big part of the soundtrack of my teen years. This is my go-to karaoke song -- yes, complete with Diamond Dave antics like jumping off tables, which is why I usually step up to the mic near the end of the evening in case we all get chucked out Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Gertrude Posted October 7, 2020 Share Posted October 7, 2020 3 hours ago, Xray the Enforcer said: This is my go-to karaoke song -- yes, complete with Diamond Dave antics like jumping off tables, which is why I usually step up to the mic near the end of the evening in case we all get chucked out And just when I thought I couldn't love you any more ... :p Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mormont Posted October 7, 2020 Share Posted October 7, 2020 I'm conscious that my selections are all Dave Lee Roth era. Don't get me wrong, Sammy Hagar was a pretty great frontman and an excellent fit for Van Halen, but y'know, Dave Lee Roth was... Dave Lee Roth. (I once had a ticket to see him at the Edinburgh Playhouse, in his solo days, with his band at the time being Steve Vai, Billy Sheehan and the Bissonette brothers. And I got sick two days before, too sick to go. I will go to my grave ruing that illness.) Anyway, I was just listening and thinking how the genius of EVH is how deceptively easy it all sounds. Like, the riff he's playing in the verse is pretty simple, then you notice him throwing in a little fill or twist at the end of a line and you're like 'hey, wait a minute...' And it flows. Like, every note seems like the only natural progression from the last, like he's just sitting back and letting it happen. So amazing. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Trebla Posted October 7, 2020 Share Posted October 7, 2020 "5150" was like one of my life soundtracks. I can't hear a song from it and not think of being in junior high, watching MTV, and hanging out with my friends. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
kairparavel Posted October 7, 2020 Share Posted October 7, 2020 I owned nearly all of the Van Hagar albums as they were released. They were part of my high school to early adulthood soundtrack. The three eras were really three distinct bands, all if whom featured EVH on guitar. (That last one was pretty terrible though. ) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Durckad Posted October 8, 2020 Share Posted October 8, 2020 I'm seconding "Panama." I love that song. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sainttriple7 Posted October 8, 2020 Share Posted October 8, 2020 Atomic Punk and On Fire off first record. Van Halen 2: Dance the Night away was perfect blend of pop and hard rock. D.O.A has one of the most badass riffs ever. Mean Street, Unchained, So this is Love, Panama. So many great songs. I love the way Eddie locked in on the drums. Eddie could make the guitar scream but he could also make it whisper. Music lost a titan. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
karaddin Posted October 8, 2020 Share Posted October 8, 2020 Not a song, but I think this story deserves to be seen by anyone that had missed it Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
maarsen Posted October 9, 2020 Share Posted October 9, 2020 On 10/6/2020 at 11:43 PM, dbunting said: Definitely on the Mt. Rushmore of all time guitar players. According to Alice Cooper, Eddie went to Glen Campbell to learn from someone better. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mr. X Posted October 10, 2020 Share Posted October 10, 2020 Van Halen was probably the first band I ever declared (or would have declared, had (A) anyone asked and (B) the grade school version of me been someone who openly declared anything) as "my favorite band." This was grade school--maybe 6th or 7th grade? Rock radio was part of my life for as long as I can remember. There were two Philly stations, WMMR (which straddled the line between classic rock and "modern" rock) and WYSP (which was straight up classic rock) that were almost always on in the car if my dad was driving. So Van Halen had been in my head all along. But then came Boy Scouts and camping trips and sitting around the campfire with a kid named Matt who was a year or two older than me. He was a massive Van Halen fan who was somehow always up on band gossip and rumors of new songs and albums in those pre-WWW days. I have this weirdly vivid memory of him saying, "I read that Eddie has a trash bag full of tapes with demos of new riffs." Demos? Riffs? My vocabulary gained some essential terms from that one sentence. Music fandom was nothing new to me, though experiencing the sort of passion mixed with encyclopedic knowledge of a band from someone near my own age, as opposed to my dad, was utterly novel. I was hooked. I bought all the tapes, from the debut to 5150, their latest release at the time. I even went and bought a bunch of Sammy Hagar's solo albums. My sister and I watched our dubbed copy of Live Without a Net so many times that we could quote it at each other. I still yell "NEW HALEN!" in my head every time I drive through Connecticut. I went so far as to recreate EVH's Steinberger guitar out of scrap wood, yarn, model airplane paint, and electrical tape. It took another five years or so before I played an actual guitar, and I still can't finger tap to save my life, but you can safely bet that I rocked the shit out of that mockup. Time passed. My favorite band tag shifted from Van Halen to REM to Metallica to the Descendents to Jawbreaker and others. I learned to play drums and guitar and spent the better parts of my late teens and twenties playing in a whole bunch of bands you've never heard of. I never wanted to be a rock star. I just wanted to be up in front of people, playing music, making the sounds I wanted to hear in the world, and having someone else share in the moment. I wanted to know the joy of making music that radiated from Eddie in all the live videos. It took years for me to discover punk rock and learn there was a path to that experience that didn't require labels or agents or arenas or technical wizardry. But it was Van Halen in general and Eddie in particular who made me want to be in a band in the first place. (Oh, and given the combination of when I got into Van Halen and how obsessed I was with military aircraft at the time, there's an argument to be made that "Dreams" is the more appropriate video for this post, but "Dance the Night Away" has been my favorite since I first heard Van Halen II, so that's what you get.) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jerol Posted October 11, 2020 Share Posted October 11, 2020 (Because I am as old as dirt) I saw them on the Women and Children First tour. Dave was a little too pandering to the audience for my taste, the long drum and bass solos were tiresome, but when they locked in on a song or when Eddie did his solo bit, that was special. I wish they'd release some live shows from those early tours, when they were young and full of piss & vinegar. Rest in power, Eddie. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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