Van Halen at 50
Martin Popoff
192 pages
Motorbooks
May 28, 2024
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You know you’re getting old when the bands you loved as a teenager are all turning fifty. Van Halen at 50 is the latest photographic history book in a series featuring some of the greatest rock/metal bands of all time, by prolific Canadian music journalist Martin Popoff. I read and enjoyed AC/DC at 50 last year, so was pleased to see this one come up for review.
While I read this on Kindle for IPad, it would be far better in the hardcover format. Liberally illustrated with memorabilia and photos of the band at work, both onstage and in quieter moments, this presents a short chapter for each of 50 key episodes in their rock career, all labeled with a song title. Most of the history is presented chronologically, beginning with the birth of the band in Pasadena in 1973, but there are extra commentary sections featuring the author’s opinions on different aspects, like ranking the 16 album covers in reverse order of preference. It’s all written from the POV of a passionate but appropriately critical fan who’s not afraid to critique their playing, albums and shows.
Van Halen don’t get as much radio AirPlay here in NZ as comparable bands from the 70s and 80s, and I didn’t know much about them, so learning about the band’s tumultuous history was fascinating. While I wouldn’t say I was a massive fan, I like a lot of Van Halen’s songs, but never got the chance to see them live, as they haven’t visited New Zealand this century. I did see David Lee Roth at the UK Donington Monsters of Rock festival in 1988 when he was third on the bill after Iron Maiden & Kiss – this isn’t mentioned, but the book does talk about the Sammy Hagar-fronted American Monsters of Rock tour the same year, which I didn’t know about. We didn’t have MTV growing up (yes I was a deprived child lol) and hard rock/heavy metal did not get shown on TV in the UK in the 80s, so I only knew and saw what I read in Kerrang – so it was hilarious to see the band members’ outrageous fashion choices from back in the day!
The saddest part was reading about the lifelong struggles of genius guitarist Eddie – first with alcohol & drugs, then with David Lee Roth (who the author refers to as Dave, as if he knows him – maybe he does?) and finally with cancer. His premature death at 65 was one of the biggest losses to music fans in that horrible year. I didn’t know anything about his son Wolfgang, but am interested to hear him play now. In fact the one thing that would improve this book is if you could just click on links within it to link to video and audio clips of the songs and shows mentioned, to listen to while you read, rather than having to search separately. Hopefully one day the technology will catch up!
Highly recommended for any fan of the band. Thanks to NetGalley and Quarto/Motorbooks for the advance review copy – and especially for making it available to me again when I missed the archive date.
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