A Question for the masses...

[5151 Parrothead]

Here's a DLR question that I'd love see how you all answer:

OK, obviously a hypothetical situation...

You've been good, and God has granted you a choice.

a)You can rewind time, back to 1984-85, and you can change history, in that David Lee Roth never left Van Halen, and then immediately be returned to today, the only change being that Dave is still fronting Van Halen in 2004, and never left. Keep in mind, that this means that in this new 2004, Sammy Hagar was never a member of Van Halen; Gary Cherone was never a member of Van Halen. Therefore, nothing that happened in the Hagar and Cherone eras ever happened. None of the songs or albums as we know them from 1985- today exist. Nothing that any of them did from '85 to today ever happened. This means no Cabo Wabo Cantina, no Eat 'em and Smile (band, or album), no 'Your Filthy little mouth', none of Dave's solo albums ever existed. We can probably also extrapolate this out to presume this would mean that things like The Atomic Punks never formed, since there's no "Early" Van Halen... it's all just "Van Halen". Anything that Van Halen did from '85 on never happened, since that would have happened with Sammy or Gary. Nothing that happened with Dave since '85 ever happened, since he never left Van Halen, to do his solo work, or anything else.

OR

b) Just leave it alone... leave everything just as history as we know it has played out.

[smaz]

Leave it as it is. Dave quit at the right time. I think VH's style may still have changed, and therefore wouldn't be too great. And also, no solo stuff..........

[lms2]

Wow, thats sort of a trick question. I mean... gosh, most of us here would do about anything if the guy had not split up... but I have long been of the opinion that it was the right thing at the time. Too much success too soon. Had they not of split up in 85... it would have happened in 86, or 87 or one of them would be dead, or ....

I have to go with not changing history. I just wish the sisters and mikey would learn from history as we are meant to.

[DavidLeeNatra]

Originally posted by lms2
...or one of them would be dead, or ....

I have to go with not changing history. I just wish the sisters and mikey would learn from history as we are meant to.

amen...leave it as it is...

[rustoffa]

Is it butter or parkay?

Don't mess with mother
nature?

Tough call.

[lms2]

So did you vote?

[rustoffa]

No.
I wanna be the swing vote later that doesn't vote.

[SoCalChelle]

Tough question...I'll have to give it some thought....

[TOM_5150]

I'll take Dave staying with VH anyday. Those guys were just warming up after 1984. Post 1984 would of been bad ass!!

[sambo]

tough... but if Dave never left then chances are I would never have heard of Spammy, and I'd would have saved some $$$ from my anger management sessions I attended somewhere around 1985 and a relapse in 1996.

So I'll stick with Dave never leaving..

[Matt White]

Give me VAN MOTHERFUCKING HALEN!!!! I'd EASILY take the "DAVE never left" scenario. FUCK, no question. Keep the BEST AMERICAN HARD ROCK GROUP ALIVE?!?! FUCK!!!!
Spammy Hagar would be running a BEER CART at LAKER games!!!!!


DAVE OR THE MOTHERFUCKING GRAVE BABY!!!!!!!

[scottydabodi]

EEAS by Van Halen? A Little Ain't Enough by Van Halen? The DLR Band cd by VAN HALEN?!??!!! NO QUESTION! KEEP FUCKING DAVE!!! Gimme the Goddamn Delorean from "Back to the Future", I'm goin back in time!!!

[Panamark]

No Brainer.

Keep Dave.

I actually think 5150 would have been a good album had Dave been allowed to finish it. We would not have been subjected to shit like "Dreams" and "Why Cant this be Love" As Dave says "Dave knows when its Love"

I think we would have 10 classic albums now, instead of six.
And of course, some real Rock and Roll shows !
Not some old fat fart running out of breathe and signing everything
he can, just so he can catch his breathe again..

[Bill Lumbergh]

Of course my initial gut reaction is that I wish Dave never left. But after some thought, I'm kinda leaning the other way. Ed was moving more towards the pussified side of things, and Dave never would have stood for that. Things certainly would have become more and more toxic.

[bueno bob]

I'm taking the Leave History approach, myself. Ed was slowing down, taking things over and reforming Van Halen in his own image come 1985...he had a BAD case of synth diareah (sp?) for some time thereafter, and even HAD David stayed and weathered it out, I'm not sure the results would have been too pretty...imagine the music of "Feels So Good" set to the lyrical bend of "Just Like Paradise"...imagine Van Halen doing "Hot Dog and a Shake"...

It might have been pretty ugly.

The upside to choosing the Rewrite option, however, is that TODAY David would be fronting Van Halen and Van Halen would almost certainly have figured out for certain what was going to work for them and what wasn't...and if 1996 was any indication, at that point, after the whole keyboard craze had died off, we'd have had some BITCHING music to keep us occupied! But we may well have had to deal with some junk in between...I can't say for certain, but the likelihood was damn possible...

Tough as it is to call, I had to go with leave it alone, just for the whole angle of "What Happened In The Real World May Be Better Than What Would Have Happened In the Fantasy".

I can promise you one thing, though, we'd have ONE FUCK of a great Van Halen outfit today, eh?

[Mezro]

I could live with Dave finishing up 5150 and then leaving.

Mezro...If Dave did stay we would have never gotten EEAS, ALAE and DLR Band...tough fucking call...

[CROWBAR]

ABSO-FUCKING-LUTELTY!!

DLR should have stayed

[Big Train]

Is it better to burn out, or to fade away?

I say burn out. It would have been best if he stayed and they worked through it ,made a bad album or two, then came back harder (as they attempted with FUCK). It's their legacy to piss on. With Sammy, it's been riding the ghost for TWENTY YEARS...., three times as long as the original lineup lasted. I'd rather have a mediocore Classic VH album than the best Van Hagar album anyday.

[Terry]

Nah. Too many variables in that scenario.

Considering the way the music was going in 1984, Dave left at the right time. I think Ed was changing his style, had grown somewhat disinterested with strictly playing rock guitar by that point, and to think of Dave singing over the instrumentation that comprised "Dreams", "Why Can't This Be Love," "Finish What You Started", etc., brings a shudder down my spine. Am not one of those who says, "Van Hagar only sucked because of Sammy. The music was ok, even if the vocals and lyrics weren't". Bullshit. That band stunk on ice all the way around, and Ed going soft contributed more to that insipid sound than Hagar at his most boring, shrill and predictable.

Classic Van Halen went out pretty much on top (not the hugest fan of 1984....the album or the tour). Van Hagar started off by inheriting what the classic lineup had built and worked their way downwards.

About the only thing I'd change in Van Halen's history is having the 1996 reunion produce more in terms of classic material and a tour. An album in 1996 of 12 new slamming originals from the classic lineup followed by an extensive tour that smacked of plenty of rehearsal time put in would have been a way for Van Halen to end their career on a positive note. How many rock bands that reform after years apart can even put out new material worthy of previous releases? Van Halen could have broke the mold of shoddy reunited material.

In retrospect, the aforementioned proposition doesn't seem too fantastical, and is beyond what the band can hope for now, regardless of Roth coming back or not. Van Halen blew it. Let Ed, Al, Sam and Mike continue grinding their version of the band into the ground. Classic Van Halen is timeless music which transcends the efforts of 3/4 of the lineup to erase it from memory. The more Ed and Al wage the uphill struggle with a take-it-or-leave-it attitude to the fans, the larger the classic era and legend grows.

[DLR_EngineRoom]

Originally posted by 5151 Parrothead
Here's a DLR question that I'd love see how you all answer:

OK, obviously a hypothetical situation...

You've been good, and God has granted you a choice.

a)You can rewind time, back to 1984-85, and you can change history, in that David Lee Roth never left Van Halen, and then immediately be returned to today, the only change being that Dave is still fronting Van Halen in 2004, and never left. Keep in mind, that this means that in this new 2004, Sammy Hagar was never a member of Van Halen; Gary Cherone was never a member of Van Halen. Therefore, nothing that happened in the Hagar and Cherone eras ever happened. None of the songs or albums as we know them from 1985- today exist. Nothing that any of them did from '85 to today ever happened. This means no Cabo Wabo Cantina, no Eat 'em and Smile (band, or album), no 'Your Filthy little mouth', none of Dave's solo albums ever existed. We can probably also extrapolate this out to presume this would mean that things like The Atomic Punks never formed, since there's no "Early" Van Halen... it's all just "Van Halen". Anything that Van Halen did from '85 on never happened, since that would have happened with Sammy or Gary. Nothing that happened with Dave since '85 ever happened, since he never left Van Halen, to do his solo work, or anything else.

OR

b) Just leave it alone... leave everything just as history as we know it has played out.

Me thinx that if Dave never left VH, the band's autobiography would have turned out like something off the Fair Warning album. The fighting would've continued until who knows what. It's better that he left, Hagar deserved 'em when they started to be lazy and suck...

[DLR_EngineRoom]

Originally posted by Terry
Nah. Too many variables in that scenario.

Considering the way the music was going in 1984, Dave left at the right time. I think Ed was changing his style, had grown somewhat disinterested with strictly playing rock guitar by that point, and to think of Dave singing over the instrumentation that comprised "Dreams", "Why Can't This Be Love," "Finish What You Started", etc., brings a shudder down my spine. Am not one of those who says, "Van Hagar only sucked because of Sammy. The music was ok, even if the vocals and lyrics weren't". Bullshit. That band stunk on ice all the way around, and Ed going soft contributed more to that insipid sound than Hagar at his most boring, shrill and predictable.

Classic Van Halen went out pretty much on top (not the hugest fan of 1984....the album or the tour). Van Hagar started off by inheriting what the classic lineup had built and worked their way downwards.

About the only thing I'd change in Van Halen's history is having the 1996 reunion produce more in terms of classic material and a tour. An album in 1996 of 12 new slamming originals from the classic lineup followed by an extensive tour that smacked of plenty of rehearsal time put in would have been a way for Van Halen to end their career on a positive note. How many rock bands that reform after years apart can even put out new material worthy of previous releases? Van Halen could have broke the mold of shoddy reunited material.

In retrospect, the aforementioned proposition doesn't seem too fantastical, and is beyond what the band can hope for now, regardless of Roth coming back or not. Van Halen blew it. Let Ed, Al, Sam and Mike continue grinding their version of the band into the ground. Classic Van Halen is timeless music which transcends the efforts of 3/4 of the lineup to erase it from memory. The more Ed and Al wage the uphill struggle with a take-it-or-leave-it attitude to the fans, the larger the classic era and legend grows.

Whoa.....nicely put! Great post!

[TwoFoolsAMinute]

Even though my world would have an empty place in it without EEAS. I believe that VH would have put out so much shit in that time that it would kick major asss all over the place. Dave and VH!

[tjvhou812]

i don't know what's dumber, parrotthead or his pole

[Hecubus]

I say keep him in the band. Any music that EVH wrote would have the Roth stamp instead of the Hagar stamp. Keyboards or no, I wonder what Dave could have accomplished with the 5150 music.

As stellar as I think his solo stuff is, I'd trade EEAS & Skyscraper (even the DLR Band) to have him around to "inspire" Eddie to write.

[Lady Cab Driver]

Rewrite history hands down. We know how this played out and so far it hasn't been pretty. I think it would be cool to see the other side of the coin. Roth and VH make beautiful music together! If it ain't broke don't fix it.

[Splooge]

Fak....way too deep for a hamster.

[SoCalChelle]

bump