Eddie Van Halen’s son, Wolfgang, has a few words for how the Grammy Awards honored his late father at Sunday’s ceremony.
In an Instagram post on Monday, Van Halen pointed out that his father ― the legendary rock guitarist who died in October at age 65 ― was shown briefly during the show’s “In Memoriam” segment and was not mentioned again.
Alongside a screenshot of the segment featuring Eddie Van Halen performing, his son wrote: “The Grammys asked me to play ‘Eruption’ for the ‘In Memoriam’ section and I declined. I don’t think anyone could have lived up to what my father did for music but himself.”
“It was my understanding that there would be an ‘In Memoriam’ section where bits of songs were performed for legendary artists that had passed,” he continued. “I didn’t realize that they would only show Pop for 15 seconds in the middle of 4 full performances for others we had lost.”
He said he was “hurt the most” by the show’s failure to mention his dad “when they talked about artists we lost in the beginning of the show.”
“I know rock isn’t the most popular genre right now, (and the academy does seem a bit out of touch) but I think it’s impossible to ignore the legacy my father left on the instrument, the world of rock, and music in general,” Van Halen wrote. “There will never be another innovator like him.”
He added that he doesn’t want to start a “hate parade” because his dad “would probably just laugh it off and say ‘Ehh who gives a shit?’” He concluded by saying he’d “love to get the opportunity to speak with The Recording Academy not only about the legacy of my father, but the legacy of the Rock genre moving forward.”
The Recording Academy didn’t immediately answer HuffPosts request for comment.
Eddie Van Halen, lead guitarist for the iconic ’80s rock band Van Halen, died after cancer treatment.
Rolling Stone put Van Halen in a league with rock’s greatest guitarists. “It’s hard to imagine what rock & roll would sound like without Eddie Van Halen,” the magazine wrote.
“Like Jimi Hendrix, Jimmy Page, and Eric Clapton before him, he single-handedly (or perhaps, in his case, double-handedly)” ― referring to a two-handed technique known as tapping ― “changed the vocabulary of guitar for a generation,” Rolling Stone said.
CORRECTION: An earlier version incorrectly described Van Halen as the band’s frontman.