EVH had a Sustainer?! đź‘€
I just had the sudden urge to relisten to Van Halen III while pulling a late-nighter, which eventually led me to the Pittsburgh Live Record - which I’ll have to admit I hadn’t really listened to.
And on the strangely renamed song Year and a Day (at least this is the case on Spotify, the studio album version is named Year to the Day), you can hear Eddie’s guitar go into a squeal right at the 2:05 mark - the very iconic sustainer type tone.
”Ain’t no way” I thought as my ears perked up. I instantly started scouring the webs and sure enough, it led me down a rabbit hole and apparently there are a few out there with this setup, such as one seen on this post.
You can also see it in the YouTube video linked below which is seemingly from the same performance as the live album - wherein the aforementioned sustainer singing around 1:05:10 in the show.
So now I’m planning on modding my Fender-era EVH Wolfgang Special guitar and drop in a Sustainiac-style pickup in the neck position…
That live album is really great - with a solid selection of songs from the whole range of Van Halen to the quality of the recording. Even though Van Halen’s III album didn’t quite land as well as the rest of the catalogue, I still believe given the chance for a follow up album fronted by Gary they could have created magic, given the significant change from the studio album to how well they sounded live in Pittsburgh.
But alas, circumstances were what they were in the band at the time, and we would only get the studio and live album with Gary.
Though, I can’t say that I complain… Extreme’s latest album, where Gary Cherone started out and eventually returned to after Van Halen, is pretty fricken good - and I was lucky enough to see them at Sweden Rock 2024!