I’m probably the minority, but I really preferred Van Halen with Sammy Hagar.
Both Roth and Hagar were good. At the time when Roth left, the thought was the band would suffer. Then came Sammy.
I liked Van Hagar, too.
I liked Sammy when he was with Montrose.
I liked both versions. Van Halen (with Roth) was perfect for the time and their age. Aggressive, attitude, and fun. Sammy was a great replacement. I enjoyed his voice better and it helped them expand their music.
Sammy all the way! Eddie wasted away so many potentially great years with SH.His ego got in the way . Loved VH with DLR, but Sammy is such a better singer and song writer.
You Most Definitely Are.
While Roth is an Ego Maniac, he is far more Entertaining AND Relevant to this band than the founders.
Certainly more so than Hagar.
From a pure stage performance perspective Roth was Van Halen.
The Derogatory phrase Van Hagar has a definite basis in reality. The original fan base never has and never will accept the guy as legit. A stone cold fact.
As they age and Eddies’s perceived importance fades into irrelevancy he has become bitter.
Eddie has toyed a few times with bringing the group back together but, Roth’s out-sized persona and Eddie’s resentment of that make this almost completely impossible
Too bad. Because with a few exceptions 99.9% of Van Halen fans consider the Original Group the ONLY actual Van Halen Group. .
Since Hagar tried to turn them into another Montrose, I was not fond of that period. Of course, that was the period of their greatest album sales, but it was not the same by far.
LOL, I went to see them with Sammy Hagar, and he was climbing in the ceiling scaffolding that must have been 75-100 feet up in that arena, hanging by his hands...er...hand.
It was just sick. I couldn’t believe it. He just climbed up his stage setup all the way to the girders in the roof, and began swinging from them. That guy really is/was a wild man!
The first run of Roth was good, the run with Hagar was good, then everything after Hagar was just an attempt to stay alive.