I'm going to rehash some old shit I've said, just because. Move along if you don't want to hear me bloviate about my youth.
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I immediately became a giant fan of Van Halen the moment I heard their debut. It blew the cobwebs out of my Midwestern brain, which up until then had been consumed with the album oriented rock of the day. I wasn't really a guitar player then, but that record changed things.
When they announced their first headlining tour, I was not quite 16 years old. For some reason, my parents and those of a few buddies agreed to let us go see the tour in St. Louis, a two hour drive from our quiet little Ozark town. We pulled into the parking lot, and it was like a scene from "Dazed & Confused" writ large. Just a sea of muscle cars: Camaros, Trans Ams, GTOs, any number of Chevy vans, whatever, and every fucking one of them had the radio blasting KSHE-FM, the iconic St. Louis rock station, which was of course playing Van Halen all night long. The first tune I heard on this giant community stereo was of course "Eruption". God damn it was glorious.
We had floor seats. Row 28. When Van Halen hit the stage, a massive number of less fortunate patrons poured down, and it soon became a sea of delirious rock fans back to about . . . Row 27. We stood on our chairs and had a birds-eye view of the best fucking rock show ever.
David Lee Roth was a master showman. I mean, the BEST of the best. Giant fake joints, chaps, the stage talk, everything. And he could sing, don't let anyone tell you he couldn't.
But Diamond Dave couldn't top Eddie. Eddie ruled that world. His talent was so fucking immense. He was probably half high and fully drunk and it didn't matter one bit. He blazed. He was absolutely a musical titan, on par with Miles and Beethoven and Monk and Joplin and Bartok and you name it, he was in their league. But the thing is, he wasn't just a musical genius, he was playful. He reminded me of a more talented Joe Walsh. "Oh yeah? You thought that was good? Watch THIS!"
Ultimately, music poured out of Eddie like water out of a glass. He didn't even have to try. Don't get me wrong, I'm sure he tried, but he didn't have to. He just was. He was the King.