10 Best Songs Where Hard Rock Bands Went Acoustic
2. Spanish Fly - Van Halen
One of the biggest critiques of virtuoso guitar players is that most of them are all flash. You can talk about how much a genius some of these guys are behind the fretboard, but when you take away all of their effects and amplifiers, they will have absolutely no idea what to do, right? In some cases that might be true, but Eddie Van Halen doesn't need a Marshall stack and tons of electronic effects to work his magic.
Halfway through Van Halen's second record, Spanish Fly comes in like a little breather between the mayhem in between it, as Eddie shows off some of his tapping techniques on an acoustic guitar. Compared to the guitar hero clinic most of us had already heard on Eruption, this is just the other side of that coin, with Eddie throwing in different styles like flamenco into the mix, moving across the strings and hitting harmonics that most of us would need a couple of years to even figure out.
Even when he's not bringing in the delay and sustain pedals, hearing him throw tapping licks into the mix here is still a spectacle to listen to, almost sounding like two different people are playing the guitar at once. Some of the critics may want to talk about the 'authenticity' of guitar heroes all they want, but when you strip away all of the bells and whistles, Eddie Van Halen was still leagues above any other guitar player in the world.