Saw the very first tour, they were warm up for Ozzie Osborne and black Sabbath....when Van Halen left the stage we left the arena.
The changing of the the rock n roll old guard to new was obvious and inevitable.
The one and only time I saw Van Halen was at the 1983 US Festival in CA. They say that David Lee Roth was drunk at that concert but he and the rest of the band still put on quite a show. I thought both Eddie and the bass player were incredible. The guy on drums was pretty good too. But I remember David Lee Roth the most, he was constantly shouting out at the audience, talking trash about The Clash, and bragging about how many arrests there were outside the venue before the show (”We have way more arrests this year than last year, man! You guys ROCK!”).
<> I was in my early 20s and it was a fun time. Today, that kind of music mostly gives me a headache.
I imagine that probably what made Ozzy leave and try to find his own EVH, in the form of Randy Rhodes.