Eddie Van Halen’s five worst performances
It’s hard to think of anything wrong with Eddie Van Halen’s playing.
The man was truly at one with his guitar whenever he played, and even if it wasn’t to someone’s taste, it was easy to get behind what he was doing when he started throwing his tapping licks into the equation. But even gods make mistakes, and Eddie did have a handful of moments that were far from his finest hour onstage.
Then again, this isn’t meant to try and call Eddie a bad guitarist by any means. He had an immaculate touch on guitar and no one was going to take that away from him. This solely came from the mechanics of a solo or how one of his solo features fit into the context of an album. It might have worked 95% of the time, but when looking at the rest of his discography, there are always going to be moments where everyone starts to wonder what the hell he was doing.
And before we get started, it’s not exclusive to any one singer the group had, either. David Lee Roth, Sammy Hagar, and yes, even Gary Cherone, had their moments with the band that should stand the test of time, but there are also a handful of sections on all of their albums where Eddie either isn’t meeting the moment like he should is going through one of the rougher patches in his playing.
But even if this was the worst that he could have mustered, many of the solos would have been considered a left field choice for any other guitar player to think of, which really is the ultimate testament to Eddie’s playing. He had the tapping techniques down to a science, but he would always rather go down playing something strange rather than play the standard blues solo everyone’s heard a million times.
The five worst performances Eddie Van Halen ever gave
‘Source of Infection’ – OU812
Van Halen were never ones to flaunt their lyrical prowess around all that much. It made more sense for them to let the music do the talking and for whichever singer to write based on how the music felt half the time. But even if a lot of the smut was gone after Roth left the band, Eddie did end up having a bit more nasty tunes in the back of his head that shouldn’t have happened when working on OU812.
Whereas most of ‘The Red Rocker’s lyrics were fairly solid throughout their career, ‘Source of Infection’ is the sound of the two of them being absolute idiots for a few hours, featuring some of the worst double entendres that anyone had ever come up with. Although Hagar was proud to be adding his own stamp on things, even he had to admit that it wasn’t anything to write home about, even saying that he and Eddie regretted ever working on it. Songs like ‘Poundcake’ may have also been risque around this time, but this is the kind of tune that the cutting room floor was made for.
‘Dancing in the Street’ – Diver Down
Cover songs have never been a bad thing in the world of Van Halen. Other artists might prefer to write their own tunes, but usually whenever Van Halen adopted a pop tune, chances are they were going to make the definitive rock version of it. But if their covers of The Kinks’s ‘You Really Got Me’ and Linda Ronstadt’s ‘You’re No Good’ sounded fantastic, ‘Dancing in the Street’ definitely stands as the least necessary part of their discography.
Eddie was already pissed about being dragged into the studio to work on Diver Down, but the real tragedy here comes from the opening keyboard interlude. This would have been the makings of a great song had they had more time to work on it, but all that we’re left with is Roth doing a half-assed version of the R&B classic while Eddie and Michael Anthony practically force a smile as they’re singing the backing vocals. Even if the cover itself is fairly okay, it will have the distinction of holding back a potentially great song.
2004 Reunion Tour
In terms of Van Halen lore, the 2000s were probably the darkest time that Eddie had ever gone through. He had been crushed under the weight of Van Halen III, and while getting back together with Sammy Hagar seemed like a good idea at the time, it was clear Eddie wasn’t taking care of himself from the first few weeks of the tour. Most fans didn’t have to see the horror stories that happened backstage, but many of his guitar solos from around that time can’t help but make you feel sad.
While Eddie was always in tune with his instrument whenever he was onstage, it’s hard to watch any of the clips and not feel sad. It’s clear that he wants to give the audience a good time, but given the amount of drinking he was doing around this time, he just didn’t have the capacity to deliver the same way he used to do. It was nice to see how he eventually overcame his demons later on in his career, but rarely has a guitar god been captured with all of the magic completely sucked out of them.
‘Big Fat Money’ – Balance
Every era of Van Halen usually has one record where the band started to butt heads a little bit. Roth was no fan of Eddie bringing keyboards into the picture, and while Van Halen III was being talked up like a fantastic album, the backstory behind everything made Eddie and Alex feel more like dictators whenever they started working on the songs. But even if 1984 turned into a classic with Roth, Balance was a completely mixed bag during Hagar’s last years, especially when listening to ‘Big Fat Money’.
Granted, Eddie was still in his element through most of the record, but ‘Big Fat Money’ feels like the one moment where everything falls flat. And it has almost nothing to do with the solo, either. Eddie had been known for playing some strange lead breaks, but the biggest problem here is the tone, which sounds like it was recorded out of someone’s practice amp and thrown on top of the backing track so that it would sound finished. Balance was already one of the most ironic titles they could have come up with considering the album’s production, but it didn’t necessarily have to be a musical theme, either.
‘How Many Say I’ – Van Halen III
Every iteration of Van Halen was always defined by the person that they had at the front. The band might be named after the brothers, but Roth, Hagar and Cherone all at least brought a unique spin to every one of their songs that gave them some sort of structure to them. But since Van Halen III was already a scattershot mess, why not give Eddie some time behind the microphone towards the end of the record as well?
While ‘How Many Say I’ does have a decent enough piano performance behind it, it’s impossible to get around Eddie’s voice, which ranges anywhere from Roger Waters-style growls to what Tom Waits sounds like if he were asked to sing a power ballad. Van Halen may have done a lot more with a lot less to work with, but given their history, this is the one time where Eddie’s vision for the song was cursed before it was even recorded. A Different Kind of Truth may have helped them bow out gracefully, but had they not closed the book on their career with a decent record, the last new thing we would have ever heard of Van Halen would have been the pathetic high note at the end of this tune.
