Eddie Van Halen died over a week ago.

Like many people I had three things go through my mind.

1. Damn.
2. He was too young.
3. Frickin’ 2020.

Van Halen was one of my favorite bands growing up – both the David Lee Roth and the Sammy Hagar versions.

Yes, I know that’s heresy to some fans, but that’s how I feel.

I’d heard of Van Halen but didn’t really know who they were their songs when I was wrapping up life at Riverview Elementary School when the band released an album titled 1984.

The song “Jump” was played on the radio over and over again.

And I loved it.

Yes, there’s a great irony that the band made famous by the unique and phenomenal guitar playing of Eddie Van Halen first came to my attention with a song that featured the keyboards.

I have a feeling that was true for a lot of people.

In the 7th Grade, I got to know Van Halen better through MTV.

Van Halen had a video out for their song “Hot For Teacher” that would play almost hourly.

For me, it is still one of the best music videos ever made.  See or yourself.

But just as I was becoming acquainted with Van Halen, David Lee Roth left the band.

They brought in Sammy Hagar as a new lead singer.

As I wasn’t all that familiar with the band, I had no problem with the change.

Others however felt very strongly about it in a negative way.

For them, there could be no Van Halen without David Lee Roth.

The Sammy version became known as Van Hagar.

That often-repeated objection to the new line up even made it into the book The Class of ’87.

Somehow the Sammy led version of Van Halen remained successful.

Becoming more familiar with Van Halen’s music, I started to consider each iteration as its own band.

While in college in 1991 I went and saw Van Halen at the Pacific Amphitheater in Orange County, California while they were touring to promote the For Unlawful Carnal Knowledge album.

The first show was on September 10th and it was amazing.

So much so, that I bought tickets to see them again on September 11th.

It was during that second show that I realized my hair was too short for me to be banging my head properly.

The next day I began growing my hair out.

It would be a year and a half before I would cut my hair short again.

My bangs reached my chin when I finally did go into Supercuts for a respectable haircut.

In 1992, my friends and I saw Van Halen on the same tour at the Forum in Inglewood.

The one thing that sticks out about that show was it had to be rescheduled from April until May due to the Los Angeles Riots.

Little would I know, but that would be the last time I’d see Van Halen play live.

My friends and I traveled to Las Vegas in 1999 to see David Lee Roth at the House of Blues.

His show was like Van Halen Light.

All but two songs he performed that night were Van Halen songs.

During the final song of the night, “Jump” Dave even jumped up and did the splits while touching his toes midair.

It was an experience I’m glad I got to experience and I’m glad we went to the show.

That proved to be a small taste of what seeing Van Halen back in the David Lee Roth days would have been like.

Some years later I saw Sammy Hagar doing a concert with bassist Michael Anthony who’d been replaced in Van Halen by Eddie’s son, Wolfgang.

I never did see Van Halen live again after those three shows in the early 1990s.

I’m glad I did and have been looking back fondly on those memories — while listening to a lot of Van Halen in recent days.

Van Halen was a band that had a lot of fun rocking out and entertaining its fans.

I’m grateful for that and that Eddie Van Halen’s guitar (and his keyborad playing) will continue to live on.

Thanks for the songs and the memories, Eddie.

**********************

As I have been doing, I challenged myself to come up with a playlist of 10 Essential Van Halen songs.

What I came up with splits evenly between the David Lee Roth and the Sammy Hagar lineups.

That may simply be a bias in me based upon when I got into Van Halen.

Still, I think this playlist accurately reflects what is the core of Van Halen’s musical offerings.

The post Remembering Eddie Van Halen appeared first on Brian David Floyd.