(insert some pun on a van halen song title here)

bring back glam has three clips of all three incarnations of van halen performing "ain't talkin' 'bout love" live. the first clip is w/ gary cherone, the second w/ hagar, and the third w/ roth. cherone, whose era was notoriously ill-advised, is easily the worst. he's an interesting performer to watch, but his voice is weak. it sucks because the dude had immeasurable odds stacked against him. it's bad enough to have to fill roth's shoes, but roth's and hagar's? as much as i dig evh for what he's done w/ guitar, it's basically impossible to deny the fact that all the derision in van halen is most likely because of him. if you're in a band + you go through three lead singers, what is the constant in that equation? now even michael anthony is out of the band. the only people evh can get along w/ on any longterm basis seem to be blood relatives. i say these things because evh changed the way people approached rock guitar + it'd be rad if the dude could give us some more music before he keels over. as a guitar player, it's damned near impossible not to be influenced by him in some way. even if you hate him + his style, you're still affected by him. anyway, for me hagar will always be the best vocalist of the three, but as far as all that pure rock n' roll shit goes, roth is easily the quintessential van halen frontman. the band sounds the best in the roth-era clip (alex is going overkill w/ kick drum-- you're not in krisiun, dude), even though roth himself approaches the vocals as a sort of afterthought-- wowee, i'm sooooo getting head tonight by an 18-year-old-- oh, fuck: looks like i missed that chorus. zow, can i get some panties in my face or what!?