Oh no.

In fairness, there were a few other photos of Ed from that same party and he looked a lot better in other angles. That one above has been sent everywhere. I'll try to find the better one and post it.

Old rockers...rode hard and put away wet. Yikes!

Typical media - picking the stupidest pic possible.
He has never looked young, anyway - lots of wrinkles, etc

still, that's one scarey looking pic. :eek:

Here's a shot of a very young EVH with his first axe.

http://forums.pelicanparts.com/uploa...1146587169.jpg

awesome thread..keep 'em coming, especially more pics of ed, bad or otherwise, i don't care, just like seeing him. saw him in concert two years ago, front row, still mind-blowing. i'm 40 now..he was my guitar god growing up as well. like so many of us, i too stole his finger-tapping, whammy-bar, boogie-woogie blues sound. i had a 'marble' multi-colored american strat with a floyd rose and a charvel model 4, red in color. sold all my electric gear about 15 years ago and kept my nylon string although, sadly, it rarely gets touched anymore..moved to the piano 20 years ago and now that's my mainstay..a '65 kawai upright, deco-styled case, gloss ebony, imported from japan. also have an 88-key yamaha keyboard. ed's the man. stevie ray vaughan is definitely another influence who could steal a show all by himself. would have loved to have seen he and evh get together. i remember reading an interview of eric clapton back int he early 80's..he said something to the effect of evh was 'the greatest living guitar player'. no higher annointment than that imho..
ryan

Ok, here's one I took myself on the OU812 tour in '88. This was from the third row at the Spectrum. My seats were like last row behind the stage and I found a ticket stub on the ground in the men's room - 3rd row!!!!!

http://forums.pelicanparts.com/uploa...1146590533.jpg

thanks for the great shot, rick! i was still deep into listening to their jam in '88. good times. i was a bar-hopping, happy go lucky fella in those days. if only we could go back..
ryan

Ok, here's a VH story of mine.

When I first moved to DC and knew no VH fans, they were on the Balance tour and I had to go see them. I overheard a co-worker (hot Asian girl) complaining that her bf was going to see the VH show but wouldn't take her as it was a guys night out. I perked up and said "I'll get us tix. Come with me!" She did! Another co-worker moonlighted at Ticketmaster and told me he'd hook me up.

He said for me to call at 2:00pm on the day of the show. I was so nervous cutting it that close. I called, gave him my credit card and he just said show up at will-call and you're all set. I got there and the guy at will call said "Congrats. You're in the front row. My seat was right in front of EVH's mic. and I was the only male in the front row. The rest were ALL hot girls.

Anyway, it was a great show. Toward the end they played "Jump". Sammy hopped down into front row put each arm around my neck and my date's neck and we both sang "Jump" into the mic. All I could think of was her bf was probably sitting 100 rows back, watching us sing with Sammy on the jumbotron screen. It was so awesome. Then I caught that pick from Ed after the guitar solo in "Right Now". It was a stellar evening.

Great story. Stuff that great memories are made of -

Another story. On the VHIII tour with Gary Cherone, they played a lot of old school stuff that Sammy would never do - Mean Streets, Romeo Delight, Somebody Get Me a Dr., etc. After their second encore or so, they did their bow, went off stage and the lights came up. People started filing out. I was in the 7th row, so we were in no hurry to join the crowds. All of the sudden, Ed walks out in a wife beater, smoking a cigarette, goes up the mic and says "You guys got time for one more?" Immediately, the place went wild, lights went back down and Ed fired up the opening riff for "I'm the One". That was always the song I aspired to play. They played the entire song, the ba-ba-dah, etc. So awesome.

rick..lol..awesome, man. 'nuff said! :D

'i'm the one'...i'm with you rick, that songs the bomb. another one i remember taking the time to learn the solo note for note because it just rocked was the one from 'ice cream man'.
ryan

Here's one of my favorite of Ed's axes - a Kramer Ripley. He used this on Top Jimmy.

http://forums.pelicanparts.com/uploa...1146591784.jpg

What I started playing a month ago:
http://i20.ebayimg.com/01/i/06/9b/e3/1c_3.JPG

what about wolfgang, rick? know much about him? how old is he now and what does he play..if anything?
ryan

craig..that a u.s. strat? if so, what year?
ryan

2005 - a U.S 50th anniversay Strat.

I just started playing; up to 6 chords now ;-)
Great stress relief

Just saw a picture of Wolfgang earlier today, I'll try to find again. When I saw VH in '04, Wolfgang came out to jam with dad during the solo. He just played a little rhythm.

craig..very cool. is that a scratch on the body i see in the pic? yes, playing is great stress relief. enjoy! :)
ryan

interesting. thinking he's maybe 12-14? hope he inherited some of dad's chops..but what a standard to be help up to. kinda like dweezil zapa trying to find his nitch back in the eighties and getting into 'shred rock' to be different from dad..
ryan

deathpunk dan, those bands you listed were my youth sound track. We sneered at VH and Rush as being too soft. i did like the technical aspects of Rush and a few of the VH songs were fun (panama/hot for teacher) but for the most part i wanted them to play faster without so many damn solos. i now think the Flaming Lips are the most relevent band currently. they border on genius/idiots, its a fine line

Bivenator - nice. I'm a big flaming lips fan. Ever read Leanings by Peter Egan? I went on a long ride to Montreal by myself with my VFR750 2 years ago, and took only the book leanings and Flaming Lips' 'Soft Bulletin' and 'Yoshimi...' with me.

Hmmm, Egan? VFR? Did you know he has come out with Leanings 2? Just as good as the first book. I also got his books from his articles in the car magazines and for some reason they didn't hold my interest like the bike articles do.

Here's some footage from a few days ago. He looks great and sounds like a normal human being. I guess rehab really works.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kCfAEAlWo-8

Looks like Eddie's put on some weight and got a tan.

good to see..

This is pre-rehab, but still not too bad.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JT0exTVXIHI&mode=related&search=

Van Halen ended for me when DLRoth was fired or quit. I lot of those songs are twisted into high school memories. I'm still an old school fan though, old VH, Rush, Zepp, Doors, Sabbath, who, Stones, floyd, ACDC, Boston, Hendrix, Thorogood, ZZtop, Bowie, old Queen, Clash, old Aerosmith, and Ozzy.

BTW, new Rush album came out today.

Nothing Like a vintage Eddie 11 minute guitar solo...
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I love some Rush but all of the new stuff sounds the same to me. If I find a newish Rush album at a flea market for $3 like Vapor Trails or Test For Echo I listen to it once and shake my head. Nothing like Moving Pictures or Signals. All of that talent going nowhere. I used to play the bass and love a good bass player. Geddy Lee is one of the best. All three are virtiuosos but resting on their laurals I think.

Mark

Rick,

It's great to hear you describe how these two bands (VH and Rush) move you. I can definitely relate. For me, it's Van Halen's Fair Warning (particularly Mean Street and Hear About it Later) and Rush's 2112 (Overture, Temples, Bangkok). This music shaped a lot of my perspective in my teens/20's, and is still relevant, important and moving to me today. Your words did a good job in capturing the "essence" of the importance of certain music to your individuality. I "get it".

Thanks for starting this discussion.

JA

Anyone catch this from the RRHOF in March? Pretty cool retrospective.

http://youtube.com/watch?v=vV13bsqmo4o

Nice clip

I was never a fan of Sammy, but this is pretty good http://youtube.com/watch?v=YHI1xnsapyA&mode=related&search=

Musically speaking, 2112 is a rocker's Handel Messiah. Too bad concept albums have lost to the music money machine of radio. This is one up there with floyd's work.

I still love the intro and the amazing build up, of course it needs to be played loud and without distractions.

Neil said in his last book that 2112 made them. They were just about to get dropped by their label and 2112 got them a new lease on life and the label told them they could do whatever they wanted after that. It served its purpose well and it's still great listening.

I liked some of EVH stuff but as a player I could never understand why people think his talent for scales was so great. I agree that the music was good but some songs didn't need a 11 minute solo. I think he was a show boat and a very good scale player. Never liked Sammy on anything, voice to much like a girl, like some of Rushs stuff. I never appreciated Rush until I saw a show on VH-1 of a concert. I played with a kid back in 74 or 75 that could play scales as quick as Eddy but could'nt do anything else. I would have to show him simple chord patterns which pissed me off because he too thought he was a guitar God for knowing all the scales. Didn't play with him long. Then in about 80 I quit playing with all the guys and started playing at home on my accoustics. Don't play much now kind of a therapy, my kids friends come over and love to hear the old Beatles, Zeppelin, Clapton, Stones and the likes. Eddie was very good guitar player it's sad that he didn't stay in touch with what got him were he is today.