A Question for the masses...

[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