30 Amazing Photographs of Eddie Van Halen on the Stage From the Late 1970s and Early 1980s

Guitarist Eddie Van Halen, known for his thrilling and acrobatic guitar playing, has died at the age of 65. Van Halen, who was born in Amsterdam and grew up in California, helped make the rock band named after him one of the biggest of the 1980s.

Edward Lodewijk Van Halen was born on January 26, 1955, in Nijmegen, the Netherlands, and moved with his family to California in the early 1960s. While growing up in Pasadena, Eddie and his brother, Alex, took classical piano lessons, playing mostly improvised classical, and Eddie, in particular, proved to be an early musical standout. As teenagers, Eddie switched to guitar and Alex to drums, leaving classical music behind and starting a rock band called Mammoth.

In 1974, the Van Halen brothers hooked up with vocalist David Lee Roth and bassist Michael Anthony to form Van Halen. Within a few years, the band, on the back of Eddie’s signature guitar sound and Roth’s equally unique vocals, had become hugely popular in the Los Angeles rock scene.

In 2012, he was voted number one in a Guitar World magazine reader's poll for “The 100 Greatest Guitarists of All Time”. On October 6, 2020, he passed away after a long battle with cancer. Rest in peace, Eddie Van Halen!