To celebrate the fourth night of Hannukkah, Dave Grohl and producer Greg Kurstin perform an arrangement of Van Halen’s “Jump”. This is in continuation of the duo’s “Hannukah Sessions” where they cover a song by a Jewish artist each night during the Festival of Lights.
The performance featured a bare-bones setup similar to their rendition of the Ramones’ “Blitzkrieg Bop”. Grohl showed off his skills leading the vocals as well as covering the drums. The two were feeling the vibes throwing in drum-stick twirls paying homage to the song’s original music video from 1984.
Kurstin rocked the synthesizer with an impressive recreation of Van Halen’s unique flair. He even breaks out the keytar and treats fans to an intense keytar solo. Meanwhile, Grohl brought hard-rock vocals to the song, a slight contrast from Van Halen frontman, David Lee Roth’s original harmonies.
“Quite possibly the loudest and proudest of hard-rocking Jews, David Lee Roth has gone on record crediting his Bar Mitzvah preparation as his earliest vocal training,” the duo wrote in the video’s YouTube caption. “He became a rock star the day he became a man: Diamond Dreidel DLR and Van Halen … with ‘Jump.’”
Watch the video below:
In addition to “Jump”, Dave Grohl and Greg Kurstin also performed covers of Lisa Loeb’s “Stay (I Missed You)”, “Blitzkrieg Bop”, and “Copacabana” by Barry Manilow.
This is their second year of hosting “Hannakkah Sessions”. The 2020 series celebrates artists including Bob Dylan, the Knack, the Velvet Underground, Beastie Boys, and Mountain.
Van Halen Over the Years
The American rock band featured three different sings and two different bassists joining the Van Halen brothers through the years.
Prior to Van Halen, there was Mammoth. Mammoth typically performed cover songs before they began evolving into what we now know as Van Halen after David Lee Roth joined the group. Original bassist Mike Stone was the first to leave the band and was eventually replaced by Michael Anthony.
Van Halen rocked the charts with their first several releases between ’78 and ’84. As the band’s popularity grew, so did internal tensions. This lead to David Lee Roth’s departure from the group as he went on to pursue his solo career.
Roth’s absence left big shoes to fill. A chance meeting ended up leading the band to bring on Sammy Hagar. With Hagar at the forefront, they released ‘5150’ which became their first No. 1 on Billboard charts. Over the next decade, they continued to be successful releasing a string of chart-topping albums including 1988’s OU812 and 1991’s For Unlawful Carnal Knowledge.
In 1996, Hagar was on the outs which led to a highly publicized reunion with David Lee Roth. Unfortunately, his return to the group only resulted in a pair of new songs on their Best of Volume I 1996 album. The gang eventually returned to the studio with Roth releasing their 12th studio LP, A Different Kind of Truth in February 2012.
