We imagine that Eddie Van Halen, one of the most revered rock guitarists, will ‘jump’ for joy at least once today as he celebrates his 58th birthday.

The boys in the band have yet to complete their world tour, which began last spring. When they called off several dates at the end of the tour, the week they were to play at the Excel Energy Center in St. Paul, MN, VH fans went into wild speculation mode. An official release from the gifted fretboard wizard himself said:

“We bit off more than we could chew. This record [the previously released A Different Kind Of Truth] took a lot out of us. And we went on tour earlier than we wanted to so we could play Madison Square Garden (in March, before a renovation), and that threw the schedule out of whack…a lot of the canceled dates were in cities we already played. So in November, we’ll hit Japan, and in the new year, we’ll possibly do something special, but I can’t talk about it.”

For months after there was no publicity, no word on if the band had self-destructed as it had done so many times before. When news came down that they were postponing the November Japan dates, the fans, press and world-at-large did a collective face-palm and gave up on the whole thing.

Then in August, the band revealed that Eddie had been ailing from diverticulitis, and underwent emergency surgery. EVH is no stranger to big medical problems or big medical bills, he had already gone through crippling avascular necrosis in 1995 which left him with a metal replacement hip and survived an oropharyngeal cancer in 2001, when half of his tongue had to be removed.

So today we give a hearty PANAMA! TriviaNinjas shout to Eddie Van Halen on his 58th birthday and ask:

When Diamond David Lee Roth left the band for a second time in 1996, who did Van Halen replace him with?

Leave your answer below and collect the coveted TriviaNinjas’ No-Prize for being the first music-maniac with the correct answer!