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Video of of this past Monday’s (October 26) City Council meeting in Pasadena, California where a memorial honoring legendary VAN HALEN guitarist Eddie Van Halen was discussed can be seen below (starting at around three-hour and 54-minute mark).
City manager Steve Mermell was directed to come up with ideas for how to best honor the musician, who died on October 6 at the age of 65.
“It’s an incredible story for Pasadena to express pride in,” said Councilmember Victor Gordo.
Among suggestions for the memorial are for alleyway Electric Drive to be renamed for Eddie; erecting a monument somewhere in the city; renaming a park; a life-size statue; and turning his childhood home into a historic landmark.
Gordo suggested that Mermell bring together a public group to figure out for the most appropriate way to remember Van Halen, who attended school in Pasadena with his drummer brother Alex, and played backyard parties in the area with VAN HALEN in the early 1970s before signing a record deal and achieving worldwide fame.
According to Pasadena Now, there may be other remembrance of Eddie Van Halen in the works. Pasadena City College will also consider a memorial at its next Board of Trustees meeting, and the Pasadena Center Operating Company has received an inquiry for a virtual concert to raise funds to build a statue.
In the last three weeks, the city has been bombarded with requests to pay tribute to Eddie “to recognize both his local connection to Pasadena, as well as the impact that his artistry had on music,” Mermell wrote in a report.
“Recognizing Van Halen the band and/or individual members should be considered,” according to the report. “With his passing, Eddie Van Halen‘s international recognition as a musical artist is noted for the significant impact he had on the Rock & Roll genre and his legacy is a source of hometown pride for the city.”
Following Eddie‘s death after a long battle with cancer, fans left flowers at his childhood home on Las Lunas Street in Pasadena. Additional flowers, candles and fan mementos were placed on Allen Avenue where Eddie and Alex scratched their band’s name into the wet cement of a sidewalk when they were teenagers.
VAN HALEN was inducted into the Rock And Roll Hall Of Fame in 2007.
Rolling Stone magazine ranked Eddie Van Halen No. 8 in its list of the 100 greatest guitarists.
