FACT! I was one of them!! Our group of friends ages 18-22 FLIPPED OUT when this came out. When V.H. came to town for a show, 37 of us went as a group and we rushed to the front of the stage the second the doors were unlocked at the Coliseum in Jacksonville, Florida! Simply THE BEST LIVE SHOW.
At 8 years old I picked up the guitar after seeing the Beatles on Ed Sullivan. At 22 I went to the Texas Jam and Van Halen opened the show. This was 2 months after the release of their first album. Frankly, I thought most of the guitar "tricks" I heard on the album had been done with studio magic. I was on the field 50 feet from the stage. By the end of the first song I was up against the stage trying to see everything Eddie was doing. Every time he did the tapping he'd turn away from the audience - until he played "Eruption". That's when I was born again as a guitarist. With a giant grin on his face, Eddie showed us what a guitar could really do in the right hands. I saw a lot of great bands that day, Heart, Rush, Nugent and Aerosmith to name a few. But the memory I came away with was Eddie making music history.
Those "dinging triangle" sounds Eddie makes during the breakdown are called, Harmonics~ a technique you can create on any guitar *without using external effects. In this breakdown section, Eddie creates the harmonics with his fingers and also adds in the flanger effect to make that harmonic section sound even cooler. ✨ Genius
I am 57 years old and my brother's friend Brian gave me $2 to ride my bike to the store and buy this album. When he put it on the record player and blasted his speakers ... we were stunned. And then when put the stereo on 10 and blasted the neighborhood with Van Halen !
The straw effect you’re looking for is called comb filtering and he’s using an mxr phase 90 pedal to get it. It’s basically a modulated microsecond delay which is what happens to sound travelling through a straw.
Is he talking about moving the straw up/down through a cover, or what they listened to, sucking through a straw? I'm not sure I hear it. It's just glorious guitar.
When this album came out, my older brother was just out of high school. He saved enough money to buy a really nice stereo system. He would blast this song so loud, the base actually shook my folks little ranch house. My dad was on his way home from work and heard it over a mile away. 😂. What a great memory.
The Album that Changed Rock Music Forever. Eddie’s Guitar DLR a Frontman’s Frontman Those Killer Harmonies by Bassist Michael Anthony & Wonderful Drumming by Alex Van Halen
That echo, flange, distortion is killer. Those first five albums were air guitar heaven. Just imagine all the bros driving around in their jacked up rides blasting this shit. OH YEAH!
In 1978, The Sex Pistols had pulled many of us away into punk rock. THIS is one of those albums that pulled us right back. This album is so hard core and gnarly, back then it was considered just as big a middle finger to the rock world as anything punk rock was doing here in Southern California..... For those that don't know, Van Halen got it's start playing at a club called "The Starwood" in West Hollywood in the 1970's which is the same club where bands like (the original) Black Flag, X, and The Germs were creating the early L.A. punk scene. Van Halen hit it big as the punk scene exploded and then eventually self-destructed in the late 1970's... I've always felt a lot of the same energy from this first Van Halen album as the music that came out of the L.A. underground at the time. (see documentary "Decline of Western Civilization" if you're interested in who Van Halen was sharing the club stage with as they recorded this album...).
Eddie and Michael Anthony's backing harmonies are so smooth on many VH songs. Alex is also an underappreciated drummer. Please guys, make it a triple shot and play the vastly underrated and underplayed Ice Cream Man, also off the classic debut album. It's fun, cheeky and so bluesy rockin'.
I was 16 driving through a strip mall and my best friend had the 8 track and we put it in my car stereo and yes it was like nothing i'd ever heard. Eddie's Brown sound. Best tone Eddie ever had and yes he strarted a new guitar era.
I vividly remember jumping in my buddies Torino to go to school he gave me this look and says Check this shit out! Just cranked it, I was stunned. Never had I heard anything like it. God what a memory
The first time i heard this album back in 1978, i was blown away. I could not figure out how a guitar could make those sounds. Every song on this album is fire. I will put this album up against any other album ever made. And to think it was the debut album at that. Unbelieveable. I still have the album from 1978 that i bought. Still can't believe the sounds that Eddie could make come out of a guitar. RIP EDDIE. You will never be forgotten!
I saw them live in 1984, you're right, they are amazing live. The thing that struck me was that they never missed a note; every song was precisely as they recorded it. Awesome band.
Eddie, in most of his interviews said he chased tone, he wanted a certain sound to come out of his guitar, he built his guitar from 3 different guitars to get a certain sound, the guitar was named the Frankenstrat
When I was a kid they played all over the San Gabriel Valley and Inland Empire out here in the LA area and were a regular on the Sunset Strip. This was a few years before they were signed. They played high school dances too. They played at our schools prom but I was a junior so I couldn't go to see them. They'd also play big backyard parties. And by big I mean hundreds of people at big estates in Pasadena, up in the hills in Hacienda Heights, and down in Orange County. So I had heard the buzz but had never heard their music until a friend took me to go see them play at the Whiskey around 1976. He said you have to see this. You've never seen anything like it. This was a year or two before the record you're playing came out. I remember standing about 20 feet from the stage not knowing what to expect. But from the time they walked on the stage (Roth jumped onto the stage) till they walked off it was stunning. Everyone's jaw dropped especially when Eddie did Eruption. Holy crap was it fucking amazing. We had never heard any of these songs before but it was plainly obvious they were going to be huge rock stars and Eddie was going to go down as one of the greatest guitarists of all time. Nobody had ever seen someone play guitar like that before. People wore that record out back then and everyone who heard it for the first time were stunned. Like me at that first show they were literally in a state of shock. As for the $100 tip Roth gave to roadies I'm not sure when that was going on but it wasn't in those early days before they were signed even though they were already drawing big crowds. I have no doubt that went down at some later point but a high school friend of ours grew up next door to them in South Pasadena and was one of Eddie's and Alex's childhood friends. He used to go over to their house and watch them practice when they first started playing. Way before they had even run into David Lee Roth out on the local band circuit. He roadied for them all the way through high school until they started touring. If that had been going on he'd have talked about it because he had plenty of stories about them. I feel really fortunate to have seen them before they took off nationally and worldwide.
With the music that was out in 1978 (I was there), this album came out and blew everyone away. You couldn't walk through my dorm without hearing it in every room being blasted.
Straw funnel sound. LMAO 🤣 That "Polar Pop" liquid sound you were trying to describe is a FLANGER effect that Eddie used on that riff. 💯 I've also heard the flanger effect described as a jet airplane sound as it's passing you from overhead. ✈️ Amazing stuff. Thanks for the great review guys!👍 RIP, King Edward 👑🎸♥️
Long time Ozzy Osbourne guitarist Zakk Wylde said that when this album came out in 1978, he would listen to it for hours on end trying to figure out what Eddie did. Ted Nugent himself was blown away as well, and countless others.
If you’ve been lucky, like me, you’ve experienced the pure primal joy of being among the 15,000+ fans yelling “HEY, HEY, HEY!” with a fist pump in the air along with David Lee Roth!
Everybody Wants some was mostly written in the studio ( improvised). Just different and easily as good as this. Both Epic. Any old school VH fan would agree." Cradle Will Rock" also from fourth album. Next
Oh, and: ALSO: Up until: FAIR WARNING [their 4th album], Van Halen albums were, essentially: a reflection of their live shows. Just: THAT energy, power and immediacy. ...It gave them that "raw" and "no stopping, no hesitation" feel/energy. No guitar overdubs. Mainly recorded live, as one (including David). ...and based-on/-around songs from their "Sunset Strip days" (circa 1975-1978 --although, the fact is: Eddie, always used and '"recycled" old songs. o;f parts and bits and melodies and phrases (bits of songs and unfinished, unused "riffs,"etc.) ...2 of the best songs on MCMLXXXIV ["Girl Gone Bad" and "House Of Pain"] are: old, "added-onto" and "mutated, slightly," songs and ideas from those times/demos written before this album [the debut Van Halen album.] was, ever, recorded or conceived-of! -And: 100%. Absolutely. ...and: in EVERY (ewven potential, possible!) way!: They were KILLER, live. Absolutely, relentlessly, unstoppably, inarguably: SUPERB. Night-in-and-night-out. 🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥 Eddie: Incomparable guitar tone and technical mastery; but MORE importantly!!!!!: FEEL.🔥🔥🔥🔥 Consummate rhythm (In phrasing melodic lines, individual notes, runs, patterns, chords: EVERYTHING & ANYTHING!]. Groove. A knowledge of how to complement (AND, even, enhance!) things melodically and rhythmically and when NOT to play, as well! Michael Anthony: underratedly solid, "on-point" and "never off" on the bass. Michael and Eddie's background vocals are, like, "the unrecognized 'secret' " of this band's music, too., [Michael does the ultra-high parts.] Alex: beast. ...Power, precision and developed a sense-of-groove ALMOST as good as his brother. ...obviously: having played from, nearly, "infancy," together and whatever genetic components can have influence ...Eddie and Alex could lock-in together without even trying. Michael Anthony, also: locked-up with Alex, like a shark's jaws on a dead fish. & D.L.R.: THE consummate frontman. I would put him up against ANYONE you think is "the best." ...or is "great." He beats Jagger. He beats Steven Tyler. ...He, just, beats anyone, really. No-one competes with Dave for: energy, volume, egoistic display, insouciant foolishness. 100% Owning ANY stage and having every person in the crowd as his friend and compatriot. He was THE KING. It is inarguable. Totally. Van Halen: in concert: Every time.100% Killer! The only POSSIBLE reasons you weren't having an AMAZING time would have been: You passed-out at the show, before the band started ...or: you died, on site. Outside of that???🤷🤷 Effectively: not possible. (...well !!!🤦🤦: until people (bandmembers) started getting to "falling-down-drunk" on stage levels. Then, I am sure there were "rough nights," in pales, as well... 🤷🤷 -But, mainly/the majority of the time: Best band you would ever want to hear and see and experience. Best you could, even IMAGINE!)
When this came out I was so freaked out by the sound, that I wanted to hear it loud, so I went out to my Toyota Celica in a snow storm and listened to it on my car stereo. Now, this is 1978. Don’t forget Boston’s Tom Scholtz was already doing what Eddie was doing…pull offs and hammer-ons, for three years prior in ‘75. But, what was new to all of us (I was 16) was the sound of his guitar. He used an Echoplex, which was a tape driven delay/echo effects unit, and with his playing, he created a whole new approach and sound never heard before. Add David Lee Roth, Michael Anthony’s super high and sweet backing vocals, and the open airy drums, you had a raw, live-sounding band, with little to no instrumental overdubs. That was the appeal. Raw, sexy, rock and roll, with a virtuoso guitarist.
Oh yea when this came out we never heard this tone and ballsy riffs. I still have my original album. They played this as the encore on their ‘81 shows and the paint would peel off the arenas.
The straw part 🤣 Perfectly hilarious. And frankly, that sounds like something Lex would say. 😜 I love it. This is one of the best rock n roll songs ever.
My first concert. Van Halen Fair Warning tour. Oakland, Ca. 1981. I was 12. They filmed the whole concert and three songs were on heavy rotation on early MTV, it was a trip watching it and reliving it everytime. I still do.
The triangle dinging isn't playing high up on the fretboard. It's harmonics, where you change the wavelength of the string by lightly touching it at exactly 1/2, 1/3, 1/4, etc of the length. Then when you pluck the string, it rings out at the new wavelength and sounds like a bell.
Good reaction, guys. This has always been my favorite VanHalen song... the guitar is just so awesome. There was nothing like cruisin' down the road with this song blasting the neighborhood!
Wife Speaking..I swear I sang this with KIP WINGER at a concert (Winger done an AMAZING cover)..."It totally sounds like David Lee Roth" ...PERFECTLY STATED 🤘🤘🤘😁
Nothing (and no one) sounded like Eddie Van Halen in 1978. His sound was unprecedented. He was one of the most creative guitarists ever, a true artist that transcended his art form. I didn't even get exposed to their 1978 debut until 1982 (around the time Diver Down came out) and from there, me and my 7th grade buddies went back to purchase and listen to VH, VH2, Women and Children First, and Fair Warning. The band quickly became a favorite with my friends and me. Their mind bending remake of Roy Orbison's classic, "Oh, Pretty Woman" (which must always be played with the "Intruder" intro.) was life changing in 1982. You guys need to do that and you also need to do Little Guitars with its intro. I think you should do a Fair Warning complete album review. One of the most underrated albums in rock history.
I respect how deep you went down the straw rabbit hole, lol!!! Van Halen!!!! Back in 1982, at the age of 14, my school note books had VH symbols all over them and Eddie Van Halen was GOD.
Dating myself here but I had this 8 track and wore it out. This was my favorite VH song from that album. Alex Van Halen's drumming is so overshadowed by Eddie's guitar but both incredible musicians.
Saw them at Winterland in San Francisco , the first show on their first major tour, right after this came out . Never really heard of them never ever forgot about them after that. They opened for Santana. That's who I went to see. Who knew?
Was working security backstage at one of their early concerts and can confirm what Ty said about the roadies recruitment since I was told to let multiple ladies back to the dressing room at their bequest....never knew about the "bounty" but does not surprise me...saw stuff at 17 that was unbelievable.. literally but what a show!
I wore this 8-track OUT back in '81 in my '71 Ford LTD on the best shitty car speakers I could afford! Something that was very common, "back in the day," was that any time somebody got a new "used" car, the next bit of time and money went towards improving the sound system. My huge car was a designated cruiser and this album, Back in Black, Moving Pictures, Hi Infidelity, Metal Health, '74-'78 Steve Miller Band greatest hits, In Through the Out Door were also 8-tracks in heavy rotation.
That "Straw-funnel" sound you're referencing is a "Flange" effect among others. Eddie also used a Phase 90 pedal. You recently did `Head Over Heels' by Tears for Fears where the "flange" effect is used on the drum break into the "La-la-la-la-las" and at the end when Roland sings "Time flies!" Here's a clip on how he achieves the effect: ua-cam.com/video/-6YEaxyVEoA/v-deo.html
DUDES! You MUST do "Ice Cream Man"! The fact I've seen NOBODY request this, is insane. And speaking of "Fire", "On Fire" is just that. Prolly their hardest song ever.
I was 9 yrs old when this hit radio.......even that kid knew this was groundbreaking....it sounded badass....the entire album rocked....I loved Ace Frehley up to that point....then it was all King Edward after that.....I grew up....😊
When this album came out,it did blow most people's mind.Nobody had heard anything like that on guitar.Eddie Van Halen took it to a whole new level.
Summer 1980: A Detroit DJ, right after the show, prophesied: "Van Halen is the [guitar-rock] band of the 80s." 🔥. #History
EVH legendary
FACT! I was one of them!! Our group of friends ages 18-22 FLIPPED OUT when this came out. When V.H. came to town for a show, 37 of us went as a group and we rushed to the front of the stage the second the doors were unlocked at the Coliseum in Jacksonville, Florida! Simply THE BEST LIVE SHOW.
At 8 years old I picked up the guitar after seeing the Beatles on Ed Sullivan. At 22 I went to the Texas Jam and Van Halen opened the show. This was 2 months after the release of their first album. Frankly, I thought most of the guitar "tricks" I heard on the album had been done with studio magic.
I was on the field 50 feet from the stage. By the end of the first song I was up against the stage trying to see everything Eddie was doing. Every time he did the tapping he'd turn away from the audience - until he played "Eruption". That's when I was born again as a guitarist. With a giant grin on his face, Eddie showed us what a guitar could really do in the right hands. I saw a lot of great bands that day, Heart, Rush, Nugent and Aerosmith to name a few. But the memory I came away with was Eddie making music history.
Eddie Van Halen blew everyone’s minds. Guitar God. Van Halen is 🔥🔥🔥
Those "dinging triangle" sounds Eddie makes during the breakdown are called, Harmonics~ a technique you can create on any guitar *without using external effects. In this breakdown section, Eddie creates the harmonics with his fingers and also adds in the flanger effect to make that harmonic section sound even cooler. ✨ Genius
You guys are on the money. We never heard anything like Eddie before. It was like wtf is this? YES!!
I am 57 years old and my brother's friend Brian gave me $2 to ride my bike to the store and buy this album. When he put it on the record player and blasted his speakers ... we were stunned. And then when put the stereo on 10 and blasted the neighborhood with Van Halen !
Mine goes to 11.
🔥
Those were the days, weren't they? The volume knob on my stereo was about the diameter of a beach ball.
@@TheRealCitizenGhost😂 Right?!
@@7harrylimelol. I thought the exact same thing when I read this comment !!😂😂
coldest lyric in history -" you know you're semi good lookin" haha.
The straw effect you’re looking for is called comb filtering and he’s using an mxr phase 90 pedal to get it. It’s basically a modulated microsecond delay which is what happens to sound travelling through a straw.
Is he talking about moving the straw up/down through a cover, or what they listened to, sucking through a straw? I'm not sure I hear it. It's just glorious guitar.
When this album came out, my older brother was just out of high school. He saved enough money to buy a really nice stereo system. He would blast this song so loud, the base actually shook my folks little ranch house. My dad was on his way home from work and heard it over a mile away. 😂. What a great memory.
The Album that Changed Rock Music Forever. Eddie’s Guitar DLR a Frontman’s Frontman Those Killer Harmonies by Bassist Michael Anthony & Wonderful Drumming by Alex Van Halen
That echo, flange, distortion is killer. Those first five albums were air guitar heaven. Just imagine all the bros driving around in their jacked up rides blasting this shit. OH YEAH!
In 1978, The Sex Pistols had pulled many of us away into punk rock. THIS is one of those albums that pulled us right back. This album is so hard core and gnarly, back then it was considered just as big a middle finger to the rock world as anything punk rock was doing here in Southern California..... For those that don't know, Van Halen got it's start playing at a club called "The Starwood" in West Hollywood in the 1970's which is the same club where bands like (the original) Black Flag, X, and The Germs were creating the early L.A. punk scene. Van Halen hit it big as the punk scene exploded and then eventually self-destructed in the late 1970's... I've always felt a lot of the same energy from this first Van Halen album as the music that came out of the L.A. underground at the time.
(see documentary "Decline of Western Civilization" if you're interested in who Van Halen was sharing the club stage with as they recorded this album...).
I'm 62 and this is just a rock album. No slow songs. I went out and bought it as soon as I heard it. Good times.
Hope you have someone at home to care for you - bless
Eddie and Michael Anthony's backing harmonies are so smooth on many VH songs. Alex is also an underappreciated drummer. Please guys, make it a triple shot and play the vastly underrated and underplayed Ice Cream Man, also off the classic debut album. It's fun, cheeky and so bluesy rockin'.
I was 16 driving through a strip mall and my best friend had the 8 track and we put it in my car stereo and yes it was like nothing i'd ever heard. Eddie's Brown sound. Best tone Eddie ever had and yes he strarted a new guitar era.
their best song imo
Everybody forgets how good of a rhythm guitarist Eddie was. I was a freshman in High School when this album came out. 🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥
His rhythm was always so funky and fun it was so great
I vividly remember jumping in my buddies Torino to go to school he gave me this look and says Check this shit out! Just cranked it, I was stunned. Never had I heard anything like it. God what a memory
Pure Genius!!!!
The first time i heard this album back in 1978, i was blown away. I could not figure out how a guitar could make those sounds. Every song on this album is fire. I will put this album up against any other album ever made. And to think it was the debut album at that. Unbelieveable. I still have the album from 1978 that i bought. Still can't believe the sounds that Eddie could make come out of a guitar. RIP EDDIE. You will never be forgotten!
Still blowing out speakers 40 plus years later. 💪😎🤘
Yes, awesome concert experience!!!
I saw them live in 1984, you're right, they are amazing live. The thing that struck me was that they never missed a note; every song was precisely as they recorded it. Awesome band.
I was 16 when this came out and every Friday night a bunch of us would air guitar to this album and this song was the best of them all.
the famous air guitair we al played after this one
Eddie, in most of his interviews said he chased tone, he wanted a certain sound to come out of his guitar, he built his guitar from 3 different guitars to get a certain sound, the guitar was named the Frankenstrat
I saw Van Halen in concert, not in their heyday but in 2010 and their last tour, they still rocked!
A lot of deaf guys in their 50s now because of this guy.
They were beyond amazing live. The best concert ever!!! 🔥
When I was a kid they played all over the San Gabriel Valley and Inland Empire out here in the LA area and were a regular on the Sunset Strip. This was a few years before they were signed. They played high school dances too. They played at our schools prom but I was a junior so I couldn't go to see them. They'd also play big backyard parties. And by big I mean hundreds of people at big estates in Pasadena, up in the hills in Hacienda Heights, and down in Orange County. So I had heard the buzz but had never heard their music until a friend took me to go see them play at the Whiskey around 1976. He said you have to see this. You've never seen anything like it. This was a year or two before the record you're playing came out. I remember standing about 20 feet from the stage not knowing what to expect. But from the time they walked on the stage (Roth jumped onto the stage) till they walked off it was stunning. Everyone's jaw dropped especially when Eddie did Eruption. Holy crap was it fucking amazing. We had never heard any of these songs before but it was plainly obvious they were going to be huge rock stars and Eddie was going to go down as one of the greatest guitarists of all time. Nobody had ever seen someone play guitar like that before. People wore that record out back then and everyone who heard it for the first time were stunned. Like me at that first show they were literally in a state of shock. As for the $100 tip Roth gave to roadies I'm not sure when that was going on but it wasn't in those early days before they were signed even though they were already drawing big crowds. I have no doubt that went down at some later point but a high school friend of ours grew up next door to them in South Pasadena and was one of Eddie's and Alex's childhood friends. He used to go over to their house and watch them practice when they first started playing. Way before they had even run into David Lee Roth out on the local band circuit. He roadied for them all the way through high school until they started touring. If that had been going on he'd have talked about it because he had plenty of stories about them. I feel really fortunate to have seen them before they took off nationally and worldwide.
This guitar riff is out of this world - 11 out of 10!
I imagine a monk in a remote mountain monastery in Nepal, meditating on how Buddha-nature is expressed in the sublime perfection of DLR-era Van Halen
My Mom would exercise to Van Hagar when i was a kid in the 80s/90s, which is all i needed to see to know which version of Van Halen rocked harder
With the music that was out in 1978 (I was there), this album came out and blew everyone away. You couldn't walk through my dorm without hearing it in every room being blasted.
This music was just normal to me in high school in the 80s. Appreciate now how great it really was!! Thank you for the reaction!
I am so glad I seen Van Halen (several times), in concert. those were the (better) days.
Ed was originally reticent to bring the riff to the band, he thought it was too simple.
One of the greatest songs of all time ❤️
OF ALLL TIME
Imagine yelling out at a VH concert "Eddie!! Gimme some of that straw-slurpee-tone!!"
The effect you are talking about is called a flanger pedal. That's what gives you the tunnel like straw sound.
This song slaps hard
I was 12 growing up in LA,and this album blew my mind!! It changed the directing of music in general for me period!
Straw funnel sound. LMAO 🤣 That "Polar Pop" liquid sound you were trying to describe is a FLANGER effect that Eddie used on that riff. 💯 I've also heard the flanger effect described as a jet airplane sound as it's passing you from overhead. ✈️
Amazing stuff. Thanks for the great review guys!👍 RIP, King Edward 👑🎸♥️
I AM SO GLAD TO HAVE GROWN UP IN THIS ERA...born, 1969!!!
Long time Ozzy Osbourne guitarist Zakk Wylde said that when this album came out in 1978, he would listen to it for hours on end trying to figure out what Eddie did. Ted Nugent himself was blown away as well, and countless others.
I would put this album up against any other album in the world. There is not a bad song on the entire album. Banger after banger. Pure fire!
It's easily a top 5 hard rock album. 😂
If you’ve been lucky, like me, you’ve experienced the pure primal joy of being among the 15,000+ fans yelling “HEY, HEY, HEY!” with a fist pump in the air along with David Lee Roth!
Yes I was and it was fucking awesome! Still my favorite song after 45 years!
Listen to this as soon as you wake up and you can skip your morning coffee!!
Eddie was a killa. Way Underrated rhythm player. Rest in Peace
Calling EvH an underrated guitarplayer is like calling Jesus an underrated christian
@@myplan8166 i specifically said rhythm guitar
Eddie Van Halen is the Master, greatest of all time, Rest in Peace Eddie.
Indeed he is. And I love the appreciation these three have for Van Halen. RIP EVH.
Yup.
No he’s not! He’s good but he ain’t SRV!
@@williamcabell142 are you kidding, do you even listen to Van Halen, do you even pay attention?
@@williamcabell142 lol. That's funny.
This was the party album when i was in high school in the 70s. Amazing guitar we had never heard before. Blew us all away!
1978 when the music landscape changed forever!!! Best rock band to come out of the USA, period ....
Cruising the beach with the top down on my ‘67 TR250 blasting this album. Man those were the days!
My personal favorite VH song, and also my favorite riff outstanding.
I was 22 when this record came out. It still gives me goosebumps, great guitar work. 🎸🎸🎶🎶🎶❤️
Van Halen was then and now 🔥 and always will be!!! Iove listening to you guys it's always a great time!!!
Everybody Wants some was mostly written in the studio ( improvised).
Just different and easily as good as this. Both Epic. Any old school VH fan would agree." Cradle Will Rock" also from fourth album. Next
I worked in an automotive factory for 30 years running machinery and even welding and I can assure you Van Halen isn’t what you’d hear 😂
Oh, and: ALSO:
Up until: FAIR WARNING [their 4th album], Van Halen albums were, essentially: a reflection of their live shows.
Just: THAT energy, power and immediacy. ...It gave them that "raw" and "no stopping, no hesitation" feel/energy.
No guitar overdubs. Mainly recorded live, as one (including David).
...and based-on/-around songs from their "Sunset Strip days" (circa 1975-1978 --although, the fact is: Eddie, always used and '"recycled" old songs. o;f parts and bits and melodies and phrases (bits of songs and unfinished, unused "riffs,"etc.)
...2 of the best songs on MCMLXXXIV ["Girl Gone Bad" and "House Of Pain"] are: old, "added-onto" and "mutated, slightly," songs and ideas from those times/demos written before this album [the debut Van Halen album.] was, ever, recorded or conceived-of!
-And: 100%. Absolutely. ...and: in EVERY (ewven potential, possible!) way!:
They were KILLER, live.
Absolutely, relentlessly, unstoppably, inarguably: SUPERB. Night-in-and-night-out.
🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥
Eddie: Incomparable guitar tone and technical mastery; but MORE importantly!!!!!: FEEL.🔥🔥🔥🔥
Consummate rhythm (In phrasing melodic lines, individual notes, runs, patterns, chords: EVERYTHING & ANYTHING!]. Groove. A knowledge of how to complement (AND, even, enhance!) things melodically and rhythmically and when NOT to play, as well!
Michael Anthony: underratedly solid, "on-point" and "never off" on the bass.
Michael and Eddie's background vocals are, like, "the unrecognized 'secret' " of this band's music, too.,
[Michael does the ultra-high parts.]
Alex: beast. ...Power, precision and developed a sense-of-groove ALMOST as good as his brother.
...obviously: having played from, nearly, "infancy," together and whatever genetic components can have influence ...Eddie and Alex could lock-in together without even trying.
Michael Anthony, also: locked-up with Alex, like a shark's jaws on a dead fish.
& D.L.R.: THE consummate frontman. I would put him up against ANYONE you think is "the best." ...or is "great."
He beats Jagger. He beats Steven Tyler. ...He, just, beats anyone, really.
No-one competes with Dave for: energy, volume, egoistic display, insouciant foolishness. 100% Owning ANY stage and having every person in the crowd as his friend and compatriot.
He was THE KING.
It is inarguable. Totally.
Van Halen: in concert:
Every time.100% Killer!
The only POSSIBLE reasons you weren't having an AMAZING time would have been: You passed-out at the show, before the band started ...or: you died, on site.
Outside of that???🤷🤷 Effectively: not possible.
(...well !!!🤦🤦: until people (bandmembers) started getting to "falling-down-drunk" on stage levels. Then, I am sure there were "rough nights," in pales, as well... 🤷🤷 -But, mainly/the majority of the time: Best band you would ever want to hear and see and experience. Best you could, even IMAGINE!)
When this came out I was so freaked out by the sound, that I wanted to hear it loud, so I went out to my Toyota Celica in a snow storm and listened to it on my car stereo. Now, this is 1978. Don’t forget Boston’s Tom Scholtz was already doing what Eddie was doing…pull offs and hammer-ons, for three years prior in ‘75. But, what was new to all of us (I was 16) was the sound of his guitar. He used an Echoplex, which was a tape driven delay/echo effects unit, and with his playing, he created a whole new approach and sound never heard before. Add David Lee Roth, Michael Anthony’s super high and sweet backing vocals, and the open airy drums, you had a raw, live-sounding band, with little to no instrumental overdubs. That was the appeal. Raw, sexy, rock and roll, with a virtuoso guitarist.
One of my faves great song
I was 14 when this came out were all totally blown away
Oh yea when this came out we never heard this tone and ballsy riffs. I still have my original album. They played this as the encore on their ‘81 shows and the paint would peel off the arenas.
Worked the Inglewood Forum in 1980 (Wear house) and would stay in the evening and watch all the concerts for free. Van Halen put on the best shows!
You're right about a rap group sampling this song, but it was back in the late 80's. It was sampled by 2 Live Crew, for the the song "Fuck Shop"...
Yes. Their concerts were outstanding!
1st saw them warming up for Montrose and Journey in 1978. Never heard of them. They started the set with this song and blew our minds.
Great to hear Diamond Dave getting some love.
The straw part 🤣 Perfectly hilarious. And frankly, that sounds like something Lex would say. 😜 I love it. This is one of the best rock n roll songs ever.
That guitar effect is a phaser or flanger pedal. And the bell-like chime in the breakdown is called string harmonics.
Love this one!
WoW!!! Brings back memories!!❤
Ryan just about laughing his face off in this one was priceless!🤣
Seen them in 78 in Cincinnati opened up for Black Sabbath, it was incredible
Same tour in Pittsburgh 🔥
My first concert. Van Halen Fair Warning tour. Oakland, Ca. 1981. I was 12. They filmed the whole concert and three songs were on heavy rotation on early MTV, it was a trip watching it and reliving it everytime. I still do.
first time I heard this song was in a drive-in theater....was amazed....
Eddie Van Halen Changed the World #1, R.I.P Eddie!
The triangle dinging isn't playing high up on the fretboard. It's harmonics, where you change the wavelength of the string by lightly touching it at exactly 1/2, 1/3, 1/4, etc of the length. Then when you pluck the string, it rings out at the new wavelength and sounds like a bell.
This my friends, is the definitive VH song! Opening guitar riff, chorus, bridge...yep!
Agree.
Good reaction, guys. This has always been my favorite VanHalen song... the guitar is just so awesome. There was nothing like cruisin' down the road with this song blasting the neighborhood!
Wife Speaking..I swear I sang this with KIP WINGER at a concert (Winger done an AMAZING cover)..."It totally sounds like David Lee Roth" ...PERFECTLY STATED 🤘🤘🤘😁
Michael Windslow can make that straw sound. No problem. LOL
10 years old when this album broke. Was hooked on Eddie's unique "brown sound" as they called it. Mean Street is just incredible on Fair Warning.
My favorite VH song ever
The entire album is all killer no filler
omg I remember when they dropped this we were all waaaaaa wTF IS THIS?!?! THIS IS GREAT!! good times
Nothing (and no one) sounded like Eddie Van Halen in 1978. His sound was unprecedented. He was one of the most creative guitarists ever, a true artist that transcended his art form. I didn't even get exposed to their 1978 debut until 1982 (around the time Diver Down came out) and from there, me and my 7th grade buddies went back to purchase and listen to VH, VH2, Women and Children First, and Fair Warning. The band quickly became a favorite with my friends and me. Their mind bending remake of Roy Orbison's classic, "Oh, Pretty Woman" (which must always be played with the "Intruder" intro.) was life changing in 1982. You guys need to do that and you also need to do Little Guitars with its intro. I think you should do a Fair Warning complete album review. One of the most underrated albums in rock history.
Well said, Kurtis. I completely agree. I love every VH album with David Lee Roth.
I respect how deep you went down the straw rabbit hole, lol!!! Van Halen!!!! Back in 1982, at the age of 14, my school note books had VH symbols all over them and Eddie Van Halen was GOD.
Dating myself here but I had this 8 track and wore it out. This was my favorite VH song from that album. Alex Van Halen's drumming is so overshadowed by Eddie's guitar but both incredible musicians.
The sound is a combination of a flanger and a MXR Phase 90. Both are analog stomp pedals
Saw them at Winterland in San Francisco , the first show on their first major tour, right after this came out . Never really heard of them never ever forgot about them after that. They opened for Santana. That's who I went to see. Who knew?
Here’s a vote for the whole album! 🔥
Despite the messed up lyrics, this was the song that hooked me when I was a high school kid. And, yes, it was the guitar and live, this sounded great.
Was working security backstage at one of their early concerts and can confirm what Ty said about the roadies recruitment since I was told to let multiple ladies back to the dressing room at their bequest....never knew about the "bounty" but does not surprise me...saw stuff at 17 that was unbelievable.. literally but what a show!
Seeing their first 3 concerts was AMAZING!!
I wore this 8-track OUT back in '81 in my '71 Ford LTD on the best shitty car speakers I could afford! Something that was very common, "back in the day," was that any time somebody got a new "used" car, the next bit of time and money went towards improving the sound system. My huge car was a designated cruiser and this album, Back in Black, Moving Pictures, Hi Infidelity, Metal Health, '74-'78 Steve Miller Band greatest hits, In Through the Out Door were also 8-tracks in heavy rotation.
Used to play this as load as possible when arriving & leaving the parking lot of my high school....
That "Straw-funnel" sound you're referencing is a "Flange" effect among others. Eddie also used a Phase 90 pedal. You recently did `Head Over Heels' by Tears for Fears where the "flange" effect is used on the drum break into the "La-la-la-la-las" and at the end when Roland sings "Time flies!"
Here's a clip on how he achieves the effect: ua-cam.com/video/-6YEaxyVEoA/v-deo.html
All his own
DUDES! You MUST do "Ice Cream Man"! The fact I've seen NOBODY request this, is insane. And speaking of "Fire", "On Fire" is just that. Prolly their hardest song ever.
I would say Ice Cream Man and I’m The One are necessities
I was 9 yrs old when this hit radio.......even that kid knew this was groundbreaking....it sounded badass....the entire album rocked....I loved Ace Frehley up to that point....then it was all King Edward after that.....I grew up....😊
Same here. Was 9 and knew good stuff even that young. This album blew me away.
That sound is a flanger/phase 90 effect that Eddie used to get that sound