The Rock and Roll community is still in mourning over the passing of guitar legend Eddie Van Halen. Van Halen was the band that gave us the "was the David Lee Roth era better or was the Sammy Hagar era better" debate. The common equation with the band during both eras was the guitar virtuosity of Eddie Van Halen. He was truly one of the greatest guitarists of all time.
As often happens with bands when they
become famous and earn more money, you have division. It becomes a
business. Egos take over. Roth left the band after the 1984 album as he
sought greener pastures. Hagar joined the band and their popularity
continued to soar into the 1990s. Unfortunately, that came to an end as
well. Eventually, pointing fingers and assigning blame becomes a useless
endeavor.
Roth was able to come full circle
and reunite with Eddie and Alex Van Halen. They gave the fans new music and
toured for a while. Sadly, original bassist Michael Anthony and Hagar
didn't appear to be on good terms with Eddie. There were rumors of
reunions, but nothing happened. When you're dealing with egos, this is
what happens sometimes. We are told that Eddie and
Sammy finally made amends this year, but both knew that they wouldn't be making
new music or touring together anymore.
There is
a lesson that can be learned among two other iconic classic rock bands.
Let us talk about Journey and Styx. In both cases, the bands are at
odds with their lead singers. We haven't seen Journey make new music
with Steve Perry since the 1990s, which is also when Dennis DeYoung and
Styx had a parting of the ways. The division is different with both
groups, but it also means any sort of reunion seems unlikely.
Perry
is dealing with his own personal issues with Journey, but the way in
which he was replaced back in the 1990s clearly is something he's
struggled to get over. You get a sense that founding member Neal Schon
and Jonathan Cain are both interested in doing something with Perry. It
appears as if both would be receptive to playing music with him or just
meeting up with him to have a good conversation. The holdup in this case
seems to be Perry himself. This is a reunion that long time Journey
fans would love to see.
The surviving members
of Styx voted to remove Dennis DeYoung from the band in 1999. Since that
time, founding member James Young and longtime member Tommy Shaw have
toured with other members and the occasional visit by founding member
Chuck Panozzo. DeYoung has toured as a solo act. In recent years, he's molded his band to play not just the hits that he sang with Styx but
Tommy's hits as well. When concert tours were in full swing, you could
catch either DeYoung or Styx playing somewhere.
The
attitudes of Young and Shaw haven't changed. In fact, the two can get
quite negative towards DeYoung in interviews on occasion. With DeYoung,
there is interest in doing something with the band again. Dennis has
been making new music lately. As he's entered his 70s, he has been contemplating the end of his career. His interest is to come full circle
and play with these guys again, if only for a little while. The holdup
is the other members.
The lesson of Eddie Van
Halen shouldn't be lost here. You can carry a grudge too far, and then
there are regrets. At least Eddie did tour with Roth again and seemed to
make amends with Hagar. Even if Eddie and Sammy didn't play together
again, they were on friendly terms in the and. There is no guarantee
what tomorrow will bring, and we've lost one of the greatest guitar
players of all time.
Shaw and Young seem to
want to dwell on just negative things that might have happened in the
past with Styx, but was everything really that bad? When the band was
touring all over the world to packed arenas and selling millions of
records to adoring fans, was it really all that bad? The fact that they're able
to tour without Dennis and play those old songs is because they made
them popular with Dennis in the first place. Is there not a kernel of
any kind of respect or appreciation left within Shaw and Young towards
DeYoung? What if they wake up one day to bad news about DeYoung and regret
that they didn't make amends?
Steve Perry is
one of the greatest rock vocalists of all time. Journey was a band that
was taken to a whole new level when Perry joined them. He's been
somewhat reclusive over the last 20 years, though he has made new music
in the last few years. Though there are some hurt feelings over the way
things went after their last original album together, is there any part
of Perry that would want to at least come full circle and make amends?
Might they be able to do something special together one more time?
From
a selfish fan perspective, there are many fans of the bands Styx and
Journey who would love to hear them play together one last time. They
made music that resonates with their fans to this day, and some of those
songs have special meaning to them. Seeing them together one last time
for a new song, a new show or whatever would give long-time fans
something to be happy about at a time in which the world is in a dark place.
More than that, it's about regrets of
what could have been. These bands went up and down the road together,
perfecting their craft and becoming the iconic acts that they are now.
It couldn't have been all bad times or they wouldn't have achieved their success. Sure, something bad might have happened that caused the hard
feelings that some of these members have now, but is it worth holding on
to that anger and hurt? They can hold on to it if they want, but one
day they may regret not letting go and bringing some closure to those
unresolved issues.
