Van Halen better with Roth or Hagar?

Roth or Hagar

  • Roth

    Votes: 512 80.6%
  • Hagar

    Votes: 123 19.4%

  • Total voters
    635
There is no Van Halen without Roth IMO. Diver Down is one of my favorites.

Me and my buddy got in a fight back in the day over who would draw a better crowd if they toured again....Van Halen vs the Beatles. I was convinced VH would win that battle of the bands reunion. Back then only old people would have paid to see the Beatles again. Millions of young headbangers would have showed up to see VH.
 
Well...I made the mistake of seeing VH a few years ago on that trainwreck of a reunion tour.

It was all people over 50, and DLR could no longer carry a tune. At all.

Sad...


jblnut
 
Well...I made the mistake of seeing VH a few years ago on that trainwreck of a reunion tour.

It was all people over 50, and DLR could no longer carry a tune. At all.

Sad...


jblnut
No doubt, DLR is a Vegas burnout, but he was good back in the day. I whish I went to see VH back then.
 
No doubt, DLR is a Vegas burnout, but he was good back in the day. I whish I went to see VH back then.
DLR's energy really added to VH's novelty factor in the early days, I remember hearing "Running with the devil" for the first time in an AFEES audio club demo room in Germany and being blown away. I would have liked to have "discovered" them, but fine with not being the guy that claimed to.
 
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I agree that this may not be a poll but just asking opinion. Well, that's a hard question. Both have their good and bad points. But without David I don't think the band would have gotten off the ground in the first place. I just watch a documentary on the band and how they got famous. David was part of that rise to fame. See on Netflix.

Disclaimer: This is my opinion only. My opinion is not meant to discredit any other view or opinion.
 
I remember when we heard the news that David was going out on his own, after the
very successful 1984 album, and that Sammy was replacing him. A lot of the people
I hung out with at the time was talking like it was the end of the world. We were all sad.
May have not been the end of the world, but definitely the end of an era if you were alive
and a fan back then when it happened. Sammy already was very successful in Montrose
and in his solo career. Super strong singer. The Van-Hagar years produced some
very good albums, and this debate has been going on for years. To me, and this is just
my opinion, everyone has their own. I liked both, and bought both era albums, but, The
original band with Roth will always be my favorite. Yes, Live, they were way better in the early 80's
than they are in the present, of course, they have got older and past their prime. Hagar
is an exception to the rule. At 72 he still has his voice. He and Michael Anthony have been
performing together as of late.
 
I concur; Sammy was a better singer, but for some reason I liked the music they did with DLR better.
The reason is that the Van Halen Bros. (no I'm not gonna Google it, I just remember there were two brothers) couldn't write songs and Sammy wrote songs like boogie woogie classic rock. What if there had never been a DLR and Sammy just hired the VH Bros for his band? You guessed it. Obscurity by 1978.
 
Well...I made the mistake of seeing VH a few years ago on that trainwreck of a reunion tour.

It was all people over 50, and DLR could no longer carry a tune. At all.

Sad...


jblnut

Wife scored me tickets for that show. I had to fake being pleased, as I didn't want to see what my heart knew would be a disappointment.

The tour got cancelled just a week before we were to go.

I said what a shame that was to my sweet wife.

Well, pitch was never exactly one of his strong points.

He never had a typically "good" voice. However, he was pretty spot-on with his pitch.

Time is the old, bald cheater (thank you Stephen King) and it took one of rock's great fireballs and turned him into a slightly peculiar old Jewish fellow.

I still love Roth, and the more flamboyant he was, the better Alex and Eddie played. Michael was the consummate pro, and so you had an unstoppable force that burned brightly for 6 albums. It was bound to collapse.

Off to spin my favorite (as I am a guitarist) "Fair Warning".
 
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