This is why all those criticisms of “A Different Kind of Truth” being “old demos” is stupid. It didn’t matter in the least that those riffs were old... they were still badass riffs ready to be made into amazing songs. Tons of Eddie’s best stuff was written years prior to being released. Every musician has a catalog of ideas laying around. Some ideas come to fruition immediately, others take years to develop. They’re all valid artistic expressions. Long live The Mighty Van Halen. We miss ya, Edward, 😎✌️
What ppl dont realize is ALOT of VH2 and Carnal was written and demoed before their 1st tour. So arguments like this are just dumb, who cares if its old or new or whatever if its good you know?
How am I only seeing this now, on 5/11/2024…!?!?! What an AMAZING clip. Watching him put the pieces of this song together, is such an absolute TREAT to behold. THANK YOU for SHARING this bit of Ed’s history. 👊🏽🎸🤘🏽
@@rodbhar6522 nah he was definetly tryin to find the notes he wanted. I think it was a combination of remembering what he'd already wrote and he wanted to add in to finish it off. Either way I'm just glad we got him for as long as we did. Panama is an awesome song!!!
Eddie had it made....Beautiful house, hot wife, talented son, and a studio/playroom full of guitars right next to his mansion where he could go and do his thing. What a life and what a guy. RIP
...and if my math is right, this is probably being noodled out at the same time they're recording 5150. Just imagine, this could have been on 5150 instead of Balance.
If you saw the 1998 interview with Eddie at the 5150 studio, you’ll find out that he was sitting on so much music he recorded over the years that got turned into songs as time went on that there was still plenty when he died that hadn’t been made into full on songs. In that same interview he said he found a tape of “Right now” labeled 1983 on it, long before it made it to For unlawful carnal knowledge, apparently he wrote most of it even before “Jump”. Same thing with “316”, it was just a riff he played around with long before Van Halen was even signed and used it for Carnal knowledge after Wolfgang was born on March 16, he wrote “316” for him.
@@gameroftheyear1000 This is true. I have an old vhs tape of EVH noodling. And on it it said he wrote eruption long before he had a whammy bar. And he said that most of his hits were made from riffs that he found listening back to noodling. RIP Eddie. Thanks for sharing. 🤘
It's amazing how varied Ed's writing style was. You hear songs that you think are "older Eddie", but they actually come from his younger days. I mean, Right Now is pre-1984. That's amazing. His inspiration was all over the place.
@@bls8959 No, meaning thinking the song was written in 1995, not 1985. It's a full decade younger than you would think. And, I'd argue the peak was 1984, maybe even earlier. He wrote DIFFERENT stuff for 5150, but none of it really rivaled anything from the 78-84 years, at least musically. Though, to hear what Dave would have done with Summer Nights would be great since that song was written while he was still in the band. Ed wrote some radio-friendly pop rock with Sam, yes. But, his musical peak was certainly pre-Sam. His songwriting became more polished, yes. But, musically it had become more predictable. That edge was largely gone by 86-88.
@@e.l.norton actually I changed my mind..eds peak was 81...84 is overrated and just as poppy as any van hagar stuff ..not a van Hagar guy btw..that's what I meant 86 was the end
@@bls8959 I'd agree Ed's playing peaked with Fair Warning. But, as a total band, production, etc. I think I still lean toward 1984 being the band's peak. Not Eddie's, but the band's.
You never know, this may have been the reference track he used when putting this on Balance. I can see him thinking "now what was that riff again?" And then digging through all his recorded material to find this gem. I hope one day Wolfe goes through all Ed's stuff and releases some riff outakes. I'd love to hear them!
It's seems so weird to me that he's been removed from this life because yet every single time I hear a van halen song I feel comfortable knowing that Eddie is still here with us because he has always been here with us and for us like that. And I guess it makes sense that because most of us didn't see him every other day and spend time with him that it would still feel like he was still here. But yet, for Wolfie ,Alex,Val, and his new wife and his handlers and all the van halen Inc. People its got to hit home much harder on adaily basis. Eddie Van Halen was a True musician of the century. The heart of his art will still beat strong ,long after we are all gone. Rip Eddie and thank you.
Has a bit of Beautiful Girls feel too it. One of the tunes I wish we could hear Dave’s melodies and lyrics to. “Oh Wham bam oh Amsterdam!” is a big whiff if you ask me.
Eddie hated the lyrics Sammy came up with for this. He said this piece of music meant a lot to him and Sammy crapped all over it. This was when I knew they were going to break up. Right before the Balance tour commenced. What a thing to say on live radio lol!
@@UptempoMusicLessons Eddie said a lot of mean shit to just about everyone…. Look how he tried to shit on Jimmy Page’s live guitar skills….. said he plays like a 2 year old….. like whaaaaaaat
Imagine if this would have been released on 5150? I can't believe he sat on this riff for like 10 years...but then again, there's probably a boatload more like this stored somewhere that he never was able to finish. Thanks for posting this.
Eddie had a seemingly endless supply of riffs, some of which would hang around for years before being used in a song. He made a hilarious 30 second cameo on the American TV show “Two and a Half Men”, during which he played a finger-twisting riff that would surface a few years later in the track “As Is” on the A Different Kind Of Truth album. For fun, go listen to the early WB demos and pick out the bits and pieces of the demos that ended up in other songs years or even decades later. The guy had an incredible memory for riffs.
And people complain about how the last album had too much old material. This is one example of how many more songs throughout there career were probavly like that we dont know about.
This is from around March of 1987. Eddie’s has a “rat tail” ponytail and his hair is just a little longer in general than it was in his February 28, 1987 appearance on Saturday Night Live. He had gotten his hair cut short with the rat tail at the beginning of November of 1986 and the growth between that time and this video matches with the SNL appearance.
That's the original SSL soundboard they recorded the first album with at Sunset Sound. He bought it for 1 million, dropped another million into it rebuilding it.. Every told him he was nuts, but he said he had to have it..
I miss when guitar based songs had reverb. The Balance version is good but I guess everyone dropped the echo effect because of Nevermind in 91. This version sounded so majestic.
The day Eddie died I just sat there on shock. Panama introduced me to Van Halen and I will never forget seeing that music video. That video is the 1980s for me. Times were so different back then but then again times were so pure. There was a different vibe in those days without Internet, and although it's a godsend for seeing videos like these nowadays, nothing ever beats putting that new cassette or vinyl in the player as we used to. RIP Eddi, a true Icon and the man who completely turned guitar on its head.
This was '87 not '85. And this is why he was so great and prolific, he didn't do the celebrity stuff didn't, vacation around the world, didn't do Hollywood parties, just stayed home and played guitar late into the night every night.
Wow...that's absolutely brilliant and he's just horsing around at home. I enjoyed VH when I was in high school (1984 tour was my second concert ever) but stopped listening much. Always loved Ed, big reason I started playing guitar. Just rediscovering lately, been listening to isolated guitar tracks from old VH recordings. It's not the lightning solo runs or the tapping that interests me, it's what this video showcases--his absolutely phenomenal touch and rhythm playing, it's out of this world good. And does anyone create riffs like that? Love the tone, too, and the way he's playing in time with the echo effect to get that percussive scraping going. What an absolute master musician he was. I listened to the studio recording of this song, falls way short of this. Has to be one of the all-time greatest riffs every. I'm floored.
Always thought this song didn't get the recognition it deserved. Maybe if the lyrics weren't about Amsterdam and the atmosphere there, it would have. Great riffs, as were the usual with the modern day Beethoven. So glad I was able to see him
Absolutely Absolutely I heard Eddie say that Randy copied him. Bull shit. Randy was a classically trained musician he knew more ways to chord notes and different voicings. Eddie should have copied Randy. That would have been cool.
IKR the more videos I see of him the sadder I get. I just got to walk away. 😢 I don’t know how you feel about Wolfgang but I can’t even watch his video “Distance” anymore.
wow, some of the most "unorthodox" song structures in 5150 and OU812 start to make sense now, since it was the first time he was composing alone in the studio without his brother's Drums to provide him with a sense of timing... makes sense now why some of the songs are so odd in terms of timing
Such a shame that he is gone! I do not take putting on descriptive labels like "Great" on performers or sports figurers lightly,. but Eddie was THE guitarist of the 70's and beyond RnR Generation and one of the greatest guitarists of all time!!
Can't believe your comment because I'm the same way. I cried like a baby the morning after he died. Never happened to me before. Put it this way, I'm a HUGE Rush fan since I was a kid, but when Neil Peart died... not a tear from me. Don't get me wrong, It hit me hard, I just didn't cry? Knowing that I'd never see Ed's smile again tore me to pieces. Sorry to ramble.
I live in LA, so when my brother texted me that he had just passed, I told my boss that a family member just passed and I had to excuse myself from work for the day. I then drove straight to Sunset Sound Recording and listened to the local rock radio station playing VH nonstop and I was parked outside where all that music was recorded years earlier. Although we all knew Ed wasn’t well, it me harder than I thought it would.
Just another piece of evidence on how far ahead of the game EVH always was. I've got a Memorial in celebration of his life in my bedroom, and rare vids like this are only true conformation why... EVH ♾
Me too brother... somewhat of a shrine!!! His music was so heart felt its almost like you knew him and hung out with him !! Never felt like that with any other musical artist... extremely special!
We miss you Eddie. But your gifts to us throughout your beautiful life will be our blood flowing through out veins till we have our front row chairs in heaven. RIP
Balance was such an underrated masterpiece. Only one or two songs that I thought were “throw ins”. Amsterdam still gets played VERY loud in my household. 🤟🏼
My brother and I dig Balance and reach for it more often than the others, yo! And. . .Van Halen 3. And. . .we are legitimately cool people, and we like cool music. Peace.
