The song Eddie Van Halen called “one of the best live songs ever recorded”
From day one, Van Halen always prided themselves as being one of the greatest live bands that the world had ever seen.
Although most people were dumbfounded to hear what Eddie was doing every time he took to the stage, their shows almost seemed like a circus half the time they played, especially when David Lee Roth started to break out the fighting moves and do sword tricks in between songs. But if Roth was the clown who was flying the flag for the band, Eddie was the mad scientist concerned about the music.
This probably explains why there was a bit of a push and pull every single time that the band performed live. Roth had crazy ideas for what a Van Halen show could be, but when talking about doing stunts like the band mock-parachuting into their own concert, Eddie started to wonder whether the people were coming to see the show or to actually listen to what they were playing.
So when Sammy Hagar finally joined the group, it was like a breath of fresh air for the guitarist. He finally had a singer who could go for massive high notes and took his craft seriously, which meant that they could stretch out a little bit more. There weren’t as many gimmicks the second time around, but it’s not like anyone was complaining when you could see everyone onstage having the time of their lives when tearing through tunes like ‘Right Now’ and ‘Why Can’t This Be Love’.
But despite the band graduating to keyboard-dominated tunes, Eddie was always trying to figure out what made his heroes so interesting back in the day. Each one of his licks were totally original, but he wasn’t afraid to wear his influences on his sleeve by borrowing a couple of tricks from Jimi Hendrix or admitting to getting the idea of tapping by watching Jimmy Page perform with Led Zeppelin.
Although a lot of those ideas came from what bands did live, Eddie said that nothing could manage to match what Cream could do in their prime with tunes like ‘Crossroads’, saying, “[That’s] one of the best live recorded songs ever. It’s funny; when I do interviews and tell people Clapton was my main influence, they go ‘Who?’ Because they’re thinking about Clapton doing ‘Lay Down Sally,’ not the Bluesbreakers or Cream. What I loved about Cream is that everybody had to put out It was three people making all this noise and you could hear each person.”
And for a brief time, the same applied to Van Halen. While Roth was the showman, it was easy to take his voice off of those early records and hear every member jamming away behind him. Eddie may have been the obvious focus, but Alex could match his brother behind the drum kit, usually coming up with the kind of thunderous sound that would leave most other drummers dumbfounded.
Admittedly, Michael Anthony may not have been as noticeable as Eddie behind the scenes, but it’s not like he couldn’t hold his own, either. He was no Jack Bruce by any means, but hearing him throw in the occasional bass run was what helped liven the mood every single time they performed. And, really, anyone who could have that much swagger playing one note at the beginning of ‘Runnin With the Devil’ was bound to be a monster player.
While Cream is a completely different animal to nearly anything Van Halen did, it’s not that surprising to see Eddie share his love of ‘Crossroads’ over their entire discography. There are many times where people could experiment in the studio, but nothing got better than listening to some of the greatest players in the world tapping into one of the meanest grooves that rock ever produced.
