10 Greatest Eddie Van Halen Guitar Moments

For every guitar player reading this, you knew we'd get here eventually. While Van Halen may have carved out different areas of shred across every one of their albums, it all comes back to where it all began on the first record. "Runnin With the Devil" may have set everything up nicely, but once a legion of kids heard "Eruption" for the first time, there was no going back.

Clocking in at just under 2 minutes, this one solo turned Eddie Van Halen into one of the world's greatest guitar heroes overnight, with the ferocious intensity of 3 guitar players in one. Pretty much every cool thing about rock guitar is on display here, from the whammy bar action to the insanely fast picking to the bluesy turns it takes in the midsection. However, everything fades away when the tapping section begins, which marked one of the first times a guitar player began to use both hands on the fretboard to get a sonic barrage of notes.

The solo may be a feat of musicianship, but the real magic comes from the fact that it sounds so damn lively coming out of Eddie's fingers. He may no longer be with us in human form, but when you listen to a song like "Eruption," you're hearing Eddie's spirit being played out in between the notes.