Why Van Hagar Pales In Comparison

[ZahZoo]

I agree.

I said it earlier in this thread. For whatever reason, Ed got very lazy post-1984.

5150 the song is probably the only standout riff from that album. Otherwise its just wankery and not up the same standard Ed had delivered on the six pack.

Roth has mentioned the tension that existed and drove him and the Van Halens... I believe that catalyst was lost when they parted ways post 84. For the most part, I think that element had worn out Ed by that point. He needed a break from it.

Working with Hagar lowered the creative bar in many ways for the band. His simpleton song writing structures were easy to please Ed and didn't challenge him to adapt to complex melody based compositions.

Also throw in the loss of Templeman producing... Another element was a combination of the success of Jump and their fame bought Ed a broader creative freedom with keys and pop influences. Roth wasn't very supportive of that range of musical compositions... Hager helped fuel it.

[Seshmeister]

It’s a lack of inspiration. How inspired are you going to be hanging around Sammy Hagar all the time? Hang around Sam too much and you start eating too many cheese sandwiches, you gain some weight and start picking your ass.

You may be onto something. Joe Satriani became bland and insipid in Chickenshit. Hell that guy Vic in his band is still struggling to play even the easy Van Hagar solos after 25 years trying...

[Rikk]

Only 15 million? I say 6 bajillion…..occupying every spot in the top 10 at the same time. I mean, look what they did when they finally reunited,ADKOT…..dwarfed Rumours, annihilated Thriller, buried The Eagles Greatest Hits……..

It's posts like this, ignoring pretty much anything like the fact that it was over a decade after records stopped selling in great numbers (except so much of the crap that comes out of Nashville now or things like Lady Gaga)...pretty much ignoring the fact that ADKOT came out decades after the 1984 craze was over...that lead me to shrug my shoulders and just conclude that you are some guy sorta stalking a David Lee Roth fansite and trying to get people worked up... It's pathetic.

I don't understand the appeal of Bon Jovi...or Journey. I can't imagine any emptiness in my life that would cause me to sign up and post obnoxious posts on said bands.

I would have to be really devoid of anything meaningful in my life to waste my time stalking said sites just to work up longtime fans of said bands.

I post here because when I was eight, I saw the JUMP video and became a VH convert. At the age of 10 or 11, I finally heard something from 5150 and thought, "This isn't the same. I don't really like this the same. Where's Dave?"

I still listen to classic Van Halen with great regularity. I put the first six albums and A DIFFERENT KIND OF TRUTH up there with Led Zeppelin or a handful of other truly great bands.

Heater or whatever the hell your name is, you seem to know an awful lot about a band you don't really like.

In the old days, I would have called you a sheep.

Now, I'm tired...the drive is gone...

You bore me.

[Rikk]

True but damn Dave was really singing his heart out on that tour. One of the best shows ever.

He was truly making a statement during that era. Not just on the record but the show itself.

I still love the excellent quality boot of that tour...Detroit is it? Montreal? Anyway, the EEAS show that's now on YouTube is great quality and a fun watch. And unlike the 5150 tour, they play a ton of the 6-pack live. The setlist on the 5150 tour, with Hagar even getting fans to sing JUMP, was nothing but a fuck you to old school fans of the band. I will admit, they do a really solid version of the song 5150 on the LWAN concert video, Eddie doing a great solo. But they literally acted like there was no band before Hagar joined. I just can't believe they didn't think that the old-school fans would get pissed off.

When Van Hagar succeeded, it wasn't because all the old-school fans were so happy with the change. It's because a lot of new fans jumped onboard and found Van Halen suddenly palatable where they didn't before. And that's where the war between two fanbase factions originated.

In the long-term, the Dave-era won the war. The 2007-2015 reunion absolutely destroyed the 2004 reunion with ticket sales, media...general popularity. I almost never listen to radio anymore...but when I do turn it on, I heard the 6-pack on the radio all the time. I do listen to Sirius, and they play classic VH all the time. I rarely hear the Sham stuff ever...and if I do, it's pretty much WCTBL, RIGHT NOW or maybe DREAMS. That's it.

And why did the Dave-era win the war? Because their fans were far more passionate, rabid...they STILL care decades later. The Sam thing was popular at the time...but it didn't have staying power.

BOTTOM LINE: If Van Halen recorded four albums ever in their whole career (5150, OU812, F.U.C.K. and BALANCE), they would not be remembered with the same aura of legend, they would very likely not be in the Rock and Roll Hall of Shame and they simply would not be talked about very much.

Sham rode the wave of the legend of a great band.

[Rikk]

Some of those late 70s "Disco Dead" albums were borderline cringe worthy. Glad they reversed that direction and came back strong in the 80s.

Yep...although, I will say that ESTIMATED PROPHET ('77) is still my all-time favorite Dead song.

They were on a pretty unbeatable run between SKULL & ROSES, EUROPE '72, WAKE OF THE FLOOD, MARS HOTEL and even BLUES FOR ALLAH.

It's funny how much better some of the solid material from TERRAPIN STATION, SHAKEDOWN STREET and GO TO HEAVEN sounds live, especially in those peak live years between 1987-1991.

[Nickdfresh]

Of course you do. Nickdfaggit

Go finger your asshole to Kid Cock!

[Nickdfresh]

It’s a lack of inspiration. How inspired are you going to be hanging around Sammy Hagar all the time? Hang around Sam too much and you start eating too many cheese sandwiches, you gain some weight and start picking your ass.

Yeah, or you just drink more to tune his obnoxious douchebaggery out:

Sammy Hagar admitted to “goofing off” sometimes when it came to writing lyrics for Van Halen tracks.

The singer explained that having fun with Eddie Van Halen was more important than delivering strong words during his early days with the band. “I think I write better lyrics now than when I was in Van Halen,” Hagar told Guitar World in a recent interview. “I mean, some of those songs were great; but a lot of times, I was clowning around because Eddie and I were always goofing off so much.”

He continued: “Back then, Eddie and I were doing these crazy acrobatics where I would sing crazy lines, and he'd go nuts on the guitar. When I was in Van Halen, at least in the early days, it was all about having fun.” Hagar added that his latest album, Crazy Times, didn’t include any “silly lyrics,” emphasizing: “I hate to say I did that in Van Halen, but I did.”

Asked if he’d ever “needed to make things up” if inspiration abandoned him, Hagar said: “I wouldn't say I like doing it, but I've done it my whole life when I’ve needed another song or two to flesh out a record. It’s something where I’d write a love song that’s not necessarily coming from the heart, but you gotta do it. You make up some cool rhymes, remember when you were madly in love, and then you get a song.”

The Red Rocker recalled how Van Halen assembled 5150 and OU812, his first two albums with the band. “With those, we jammed, and boom, it was done,” Hagar said, before explaining that For Unlawful Carnal Knowledge was his favorite of the catalog. “I think it's even better than 5150 because the writing, vocals, and the way the band was playing tops it."

Sammy Hagar Admits to ‘Goofing Off’ While Writing Van Halen Songs

[Nickdfresh]

I still love the excellent quality boot of that tour...Detroit is it? Montreal? Anyway, the EEAS show that's now on YouTube is great quality and a fun watch. And unlike the 5150 tour, they play a ton of the 6-pack live. The setlist on the 5150 tour, with Hagar even getting fans to sing JUMP, was nothing but a fuck you to old school fans of the band. I will admit, they do a really solid version of the song 5150 on the LWAN concert video, Eddie doing a great solo. But they literally acted like there was no band before Hagar joined. I just can't believe they didn't think that the old-school fans would get pissed off.

When Van Hagar succeeded, it wasn't because all the old-school fans were so happy with the change. It's because a lot of new fans jumped onboard and found Van Halen suddenly palatable where they didn't before. And that's where the war between two fanbase factions originated.

In the long-term, the Dave-era won the war. The 2007-2015 reunion absolutely destroyed the 2004 reunion with ticket sales, media...general popularity. I almost never listen to radio anymore...but when I do turn it on, I heard the 6-pack on the radio all the time. I do listen to Sirius, and they play classic VH all the time. I rarely hear the Sham stuff ever...and if I do, it's pretty much WCTBL, RIGHT NOW or maybe DREAMS. That's it.

And why did the Dave-era win the war? Because their fans were far more passionate, rabid...they STILL care decades later. The Sam thing was popular at the time...but it didn't have staying power.

BOTTOM LINE: If Van Halen recorded four albums ever in their whole career (5150, OU812, F.U.C.K. and BALANCE), they would not be remembered with the same aura of legend, they would very likely not be in the Rock and Roll Hall of Shame and they simply would not be talked about very much.

Sham rode the wave of the legend of a great band.

The real pity is that there are not more soundboard or FM sourced tapes of live Van Halen from Fair Warning era on, and of course a ProShot vid would be great. I think the clock has run out of other finds like the one from the UK where a father found his deceased, former-roadie son's stash of live tapes that are the several live SB boots from 78' when they opened for Sabbith.

I've heard a rumor that the 1984 show at the Buffalo Memorial Auditorium was recorded using the Sabres broadcast cameras like Largo was, but I could never come up with anything, I even asked one of the former broadcast directors who also worked for Hockey Night in Canada and he knew nothing of it....

[Vinnie Velvet]

The real pity is that there are not more soundboard or FM sourced tapes of live Van Halen from Fair Warning era on, and of course a ProShot vid would be great. I think the clock has run out of other finds like the one from the UK where a father found his deceased, former-roadie son's stash of live tapes that are the several live SB boots from 78' when they opened for Sabbith.

I've heard a rumor that the 1984 show at the Buffalo Memorial Auditorium was recorded using the Sabres broadcast cameras like Largo was, but I could never come up with anything, I even asked one of the former broadcast directors who also worked for Hockey Night in Canada and he knew nothing of it....

Monk had tapes. Supposedly Ed and Al were viewing these sometime obviously before Ed got too ill. I don't know where or who said that actually happened.

But whatever the case there are certainly tapes, audio and video of CVH shows 78-84. Whether we will see or hear any of them of course remains a mystery.

[FORD]

Monk is also dead.... or so I've heard. I don't think I ever saw an official news story announcing his death. But if that's the case, who has his tapes?

[Nickdfresh]

Monk was having a fire sale of his VH memorabilia some months or a year or so. IDK about tapes as that could be copyright infringement, I'm sure the Van Halens would think so. Maybe he sold them on the down low...

[twonabomber]

BOTTOM LINE: If Van Halen recorded four albums ever in their whole career (5150, OU812, F.U.C.K. and BALANCE), they would not be remembered with the same aura of legend, they would very likely not be in the Rock and Roll Hall of Shame and they simply would not be talked about very much.

Sham rode the wave of the legend of a great band.

Hagar always claimed that he was considered for VH instead of Dave. It might have even been in Templeman's book, I don't remember. If VH did arrive in '78 with Hagar singing, I doubt they would have been as successful as they were with Dave. Maybe not even as historically significant. Probably would have been a lot of reviews saying "the guitar player's great, but the songs are awful."

[FORD]

Templeman did produce the first Montrose album, so I could see a technical case for him making that argument.... but it's also a fact that when VH split, Ted went with Dave and did not produce 5150. And while he's listed as producer on "FUCK", he really didn't do much on that album. Andy Johns & Eddie were probably the "real" producers, from what I've read over the years.

So if Ted Templeman considered Spam as a singer for VH in 1977, he damn sure didn't keep the opinion that he was better than DLR.

[FORD]

Here's Eddie playing the song that would eventually become Van Hagar's "Amsterdam". 10 years before recording it....

Had Van HALEN completed their 7th album in 1985, imagine what that song could have been.... instead of some dopey lyric about a cheese peddler going all the way to Amsterdam to buy some weed

[Nickdfresh]

I don't think I've heard that song the whole way through. Reminds a little of The Who's Sparks/Amazing Journey live...