This is very sad. We lost a great player and pretty cool guy. I had a chance encounter with Eddie a couple decades ago, one I will never forget.
I was flying from Calgary to Phoenix on a consulting gig, and my flight had been cancelled out of Calgary. They managed to get me on a flight through LA so off I went. On the flight from LA to Phoenix I ended up in a middle seat and was really hoping the aisle would not be filled. As the flight filled up and the door was about to be closed my seat next to me remained open. I thought I had caught a break. Just before the doors closed a guy in a beat up old herringbone over coat, with blown out elbows, wearing a knit cap with long hair sticking out everywhere, stumbled on the flight. From a distance this guy looked like bum off the corner of Ventura. I looked around the plane and the only seat left open was next to me. Could the day get any worse???
As the "bum" was shuffling down the aisle he bumped into someone and dropped his boarding pass. He bent over and picked it up, and as he did he cracked a smile. I immediately recognized his crooked bridge and knew who it was. He continued down the aisle nodding at people along the way. As he approached he reached up to throw his bag in the overhead, but is slid of his shoulder and ended up hitting me in the shoulder. He quickly apologized and likely recognized my look of annoyance. He took his seat, got comfortable, and engaged the guy across the aisle in a quick conversation.
When I fly I normally have headphones on so I don't have to engage people in conversation if I'm engaged in some work. I had my headphones on and my discman (this was 20 years ago!) in my lap, and this didn't stop Eddie from engaging me in conversation. He elbowed me and asked me what I was listening to? I didn't want to let on I knew who he was so I looked at him with a straight face and said, "Sammy Hagar," recognizing this was not long after his departure from the band. Van Halen responded with, "Aw, that guy sucks!"
We went through the discs I had with me, much of Canadian music, and struck up a conversation about what we did. He asked me what I was doing going to Phoenix and I told him that I was going for work and let him know I was a consultant in the IT business. I asked him what he did and he said he was in the music business. Playing dumb I asked him if he was an engineer or in A&R? He laughed and said he was a musician in a pretty big band. I asked him if they did anything I might know. He rattled off a list of their greatest hits, looking like it would impress me (of course it did, but I wasn't going to let on I was). I looked at him for a second, then let my face light up like the light bulb had just gone on, looked him straight in the eye and sai, "You're David Lee Roth!" I thought he was going to punch me, so I let him in on my gag and told him I recognized him when he cracked his smile coming down the aisle.
We talked for the majority of the 50 minute flight from LAX to PHX. He told me all about the music business, life on the road, the stress it put on his marriage with Valarie (who was from Scottsdale), and how he was re-evaluating things since the band broke up. He was a really cool guy who had a great sense of humor and could make you laugh. When I read this news it took me back to that conversation like it was yesterday and it made my stomach drop. We lost a great one. I suspect that he, Hendrix and Terry Kath are cutting heads in the great beyond.
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