Hard rock Styx helped further cement heavy rock in the Midwest as a form of stadium rock. In 1978, Van Halen emerged from the Los Angeles music scene with a sound based around the skills of lead guitarist Eddie Van Halen. He popularised a guitar-playing technique of two-handed hammer-ons and pull-offs called tapping, showcased on the song "Eruption" from the album "Van Halen", which was highly influential in re-establishing hard rock as a popular genre after the punk and disco explosion, while also redefining and elevating the role of electric guitar. The opening years of the 1980s saw a number of changes
Hard rock "Double Live Gonzo!" (1978). From outside the United Kingdom and the United States, the Canadian trio Rush released three distinctively hard rock albums in 1974–75 ("Rush", "Fly by Night" and "Caress of Steel") before moving toward a more progressive sound with the 1976 album "2112". The Irish band Thin Lizzy, which had formed in the late 1960s, made their most substantial commercial breakthrough in 1976 with the hard rock album "Jailbreak" and their worldwide hit "The Boys Are Back in Town", which reached number 8 in the UK and number 12 in the US. Their style, consisting of two duelling