10 Greatest Eddie Van Halen Guitar Moments
6. Mean Street - Fair Warning
Eddie Van Halen never seems to get much credit as a great rhythm guitar player. For as many licks that he can pull off in a single solo, the way in which he performs his riffs with dead-on accuracy is something even the most complex musical minds can't piece together. He may have been good at both rhythm and lead guitar, but it was only a matter of time before he found a way to combine the two.
At the start of the album Fair Warning, "Mean Street" opens up with what sounds like the glitches of a synthesizer, as it plays out different fragments of notes. It sounds like absolute chaos at first, but it gets even more confusing when you realize that every sound is coming from Eddie's guitar. Rather than use a different instrument or various production hijinx, the entire intro is Eddie beating his guitar at different parts of the fretboard to trigger different harmonic sounds, which finally gives way to the menacing riff at the end.
Though the song itself stands on its own, Eddie thought enough of this little musical passage to include it in some of his guitar solos onstage. It's one thing to be a great rhythm player, but this kind of dexterity is the closest thing to playing the drums on guitar.