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by Kyle Anderson in Wake-Up Video
Hindsight is always 20/20, especially in the world of rock and roll. Given the gift of access and the ease with which everything can be reconfigured in different contexts, fans and critics are always going back over rock history and re-creating narratives that may not have been obvious then but seem painfully trite now. It seems obvious now that the men of Van Halen would go their separate ways circa 1984 (and 1984), but on this day that year, it was simply an opportunity to launch a 103-date world tour that ended up being the last jaunt with frontman David Lee Roth for over two decades.
The year opened well for Van Halen, as they had just celebrated the release of 1984, the album that contained some of their biggest hits (including "Jump," "Hot for Teacher" and "Panama") and went on to sell over 10 million copies. The tour for that album was to be the group's biggest and most ambitious yet, and though it started off promisingly with a blistering opening in Jacksonville, Florida, the stress of the road began to wear on the band members, whose relationships were already frayed (especially between principal members David Lee Roth and Eddie Van Halen). The stories vary, but the tensions seemed to grow out of them being envious of the other one's work outside of the band — Roth was scoring solo success with the singles "California Girls" and "Just a Gigolo" (which came from his debut solo EP Crazy From the Heat, released in January 1985) and Eddie had lent his guitar skills to other artists, most notably to Michael Jackson (whose Thriller kept Van Halen's 1984 from reaching the top of the Billboard album chart, something that reported annoyed Roth).
In the end, Roth left the group to work on his solo career and the remaining members of Van Halen soldiered on with former Montrose singer Sammy Hagar behind the microphone. The members of Van Halen eventually kissed and made up with Roth (twice) and are reportedly working on a new album. There's no indication what the new material might sound like, though hopefully it's a lot like "Unchained."
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