CMU School of Drama


Tuesday, November 10, 2020

In Memoriam: Edward Van Halen (January 26, 1955 to October 6, 2020) — “...and then one day I’m the FOH engineer for Van Halen!”

ProSoundWeb: In early October, rock ‘n’ roll – and really the entire music world – lost one of its most beloved and influential artists: Edward (“Eddie”) Van Halen. I was instantly crushed by the news when my wife told me. Almost immediately, many of my friends and colleagues who knew that I’d spent most of the 1990s as a mix engineer for Van Halen (the band) reached out with a kind word. That helped a lot, but we couldn’t believe he was gone. It just couldn’t be.

2 comments:

DJ L. said...

Even just in terms of celebrity deaths, there is no doubt that 2020 has been an absolutely terrible year. For me, the death of Eddie Van Halen was definitely one of the worst, very sadly followed more recently by Alex Trebek. This article surely does the man justice, it was incredible to read. I started playing piano at an extremely young age thanks to my mother, and, as I got older, I slowly started to pickup more instruments. One of the first other instruments I picked up after playing piano for years, was the guitar. My first, and only, guitar teacher made me fall in love with Van Halen's music like you could never guess. There is no doubt that he was my greatest inspiration in playing guitar. It is absolutely devastating to lose such an amazing musician so young. 2020 has taken many greats, none of which compare to Eddie Van Halen in my life.

Jacob Wilson said...

As a guitarist, I am very upset about Eddie Van Halen’s death. Van Halen was an amazing guitarist and I will forever remember his music. My favorite song of his is ‘Eruption.’ Eruption just has so many amazing guitar licks that I have been mesmerized by. His skills will forever be remembered. I do like the personal anecdote that the author has provided by one of Van Halen’s old sound board operators. It makes you realize that the crew on tour really does become close friends and bond with each other. Their bond was so strong that even a decade later when the sound board operator left to work on a new project he still knew some of the crew that had been on that tour. It seemed as if Van Halen even remembered who he was when he came back stage to say hello. That type of personal relationship is the best.