Remembering Eddie Van Halen On The WPDH Soundcheck

Sunday night WPDH remembers the late Eddie Van Halen with a 1 hour special dedicated to Eddie's virtuoso guitar work on the bands massive catalog.  We will hear performances recorded in Toronto and Tokyo plus we will hear from Eddie "in his own words".  Starts at 10pm eastern and you can also listen online with the WPDH app and on connected devices like Alexa and Google Assistant.

Van Halen was no stranger to the Hudson Valley.  They have performed in this area twice.  The first time was on July 6th 1993 and it was on the "Right Here, Right Now" tour and in support of their 1991 album "For Unlawful Carnal Knowledge".

That is a very young Jack George standing next to Eddie Van Halen's brother Alex, the drummer for the band backstage at the Orange County Fairgrounds in Middletown.  The opening act that night was Vince Neil of Motley Crue supporting his new solo album.  Van Halen did 24 songs that night, concluding with their version of Neil Young's "Rockin' in the Free World".  The last time the band performed in the Hudson Valley was just 5 years ago on September 6, 2015 at Bethel Woods in Sullivan County.  With original singer David Lee Roth back in the fold but with Eddie's son Wolfgang playing bass the group did 25 songs, concluding with "Jump".

A big hole has been left by Eddie's death in the music world and in the guitar world too.  In Van Halen's prime of recording a new album each year from 1978 to 1984 many competing record companies where trying to find "their" Eddie Van Halen in a band but there was only ONE Eddie Van Halen and Warner Brothers Records knew what they had, someone very special in their talent pool.