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Van Halen Fans - DLR or Sammy?

David Lee Roth or Sammy Hagar?

  • Diamond Dave

  • Sammy

  • I liked them both equally

  • I want to be different! Gary Cherone was the man!

Results are only viewable after voting.
They were way before my time, but even I believe Van Hagar was only a shadow of their past self.
 
This is a really tough question for me. Dave had the Style but The Music got better when Sammy joined the band.
Sammy unlike Dave could play a instrument and definitely added to the band on that end. Tough tough question.
I only saw them with Sammy on the 5150 tour and that was a great show.

I think this is a harder question than most think and one of the few times a band changed Lead singers and didn't get worse but went on to great sucess, Acdc is the other one I can think of when Bon Scott died.
 
Snowman said:
I voted both - I'm a huge VH fan, and like all their music (even a few songs off VH III with Gary Cherone). Like @Nate, the DLR songs had a bigger impact on my young life, and still bring back a lot of memories of my youth. I saw them twice in concert with Dave - first one being the 1978 World Tour, when they were the opening band for Black Sabbath.

Dave was dynamic and had a great vocal range, but was a complete ass in live shows. He was always hammered, forgot the words to the songs, never sang them like they sounded on the album, wandered off and did monologues in the middle of songs - the show was all about him and his antics. Sammy was much better live, he was less of a showman and more of an actual musician, part of the group rather than trying to hog all the limelight like Dave did - if you wanted to hear VH do VH songs that actually sounded like VH songs, Sammy wins hands down, and it ain't even close. He also added another dimension to the band with his guitar playing, even though he can't hold a candle to Eddie guitar-wise.

In the studio/on albums, I liked both of them equally. There were a lot of great songs from both eras and they're both still heavily in my listening rotation. In live performances, I'd take Sammy every time.
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I've heard this before and it doesn't surprise me. I will say I only got to see VH one time live, and it was when they did the tour in 2007 or 2008 (I can't remember which year) where Wolfgang played bass and DLR reunited with them. DLR absolutely nailed it live at that show, but they were all (except Wolfgang) much older and over their various substance issues by that point. Excellent show!
 
Two great bands for different reasons.

The DLR VH catalog is fantastic. Better songs, more fun.

Sammy brought a different vibe, much better live shows, etc. 5150 was great, the rest was OK.
 
I'm a big Van Halen fan and voted for both. DLR was around for what I would consider the quintessential Van Halen hits. Sammy, although different, had some great ones in his own right.
 
Sammy. Especially like the 5150, OU812, and For Unlawful ... albums.
 
I voted both because I enjoyed both versions of VH. But DLR has the edge since he was the original.
 
When I get in the mood to listen to Van Halen now, I never end up picking anything after 1984. Van Hagar was ok - I even saw them live in ‘92 - but it’s DLR all the way for me.
 
I have an especially tough time with this question, especially the way it's framed. In the end, I suppose it boils down to which version you like more.

I played for many years in a Sammy Hagar tribute band (my avatar pic is from one of those shows). I always liked Sammy, and I always liked Van Halen. Honestly, though, I liked them a little less with Sammy. To me, they lost that "edge" they had with DLR. I'm not at all a fan of DLR, even though he put together a killer band for his solo stuff after VH (huge Billy Sheehan fan). He's all show and no go, in my opinion. He never really could sing well, and that's only gotten worse with age. With Sammy, I think they wrote better music, but I also think Eddie's guitar playing got stale. His guitar tone also changed drastically, sounding more over-processed and losing that raw in-your-face tone he was so famous for.

I saw VH on the 1984 and 5150 tours back to back, and both were excellent shows. However, the last time I saw them in the early 2000s, Eddie was so wasted he could hardly stand up on stage, fell several times, and his playing was embarrassing. It was hard to see such a legend going that direction.

I've lost track of how many times I've seen Sammy live.

I've met Sammy a couple of times. He's a really nice guy. I've even shared the stage with his son Aaron (also a really good guy), who sang with the tribute band at a private event. It's hard for me to not like Sammy.

All that said, I still prefer the DLR era VH over the Van Hagar era. To me, "better" is always more of a personal preference than any kind of quantification, at least where music is involved.
 
PatsFan said:
This is a really tough question for me. Dave had the Style but The Music got better when Sammy joined the band.
Sammy unlike Dave could play a instrument and definitely added to the band on that end. Tough tough question.
I only saw them with Sammy on the 5150 tour and that was a great show.

I think this is a harder question than most think and one of the few times a band changed Lead singers and didn't get worse but went on to great sucess, Acdc is the other one I can think of when Bon Scott died.
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I saw VH with DLR on Diver Down and 1984 tour. It was great. I don't mind Sammy just did not like the songs as much. As far as AC/DC Bon was the man. I liked Back in Black and some of for those about to rock, but Bon had that snarl and the songs of old AC/DC were great.

We got to go golfing
 
While I really like Sammy on his own and with VH, I prefer Diamond Dave as the frontman for VH.
 
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