Van Halen – 1982-09-15 San Francisco, CA

Here we have a totally unheard, uncirculated soundboard recording, capturing the Van Halen concert in Daly City (San Francisco area) during their Diver Down tour (Hide Your Sheep tour) in 1982. This is the second of two consecutive nights Van Halen played at the Cow Palace in 1982. It’s worth noting that an audience recording of this show does also exist in circulation.

This is a fairly special show for various reasons. For starters, the sound mix of this soundboard recording is very good. The band also seems to be in an extra good mood, and with a lot of high energy in their performance.

The first standout difference of note is during the breakdown of Romeo Delight, Dave sings the “feel my heart beat… feel my heart beat…” lines heard in the studio version, something he isn’t known to ever sing during this tour. A bit over halfway into Little Guitars, Eddie’s guitar starts to get a bit weird and sounding out of tune for the rest of the song. It seems like he’s trying to figure out how to play the parts with a broken string, but is unable to get it quite right. During Cathedral there is a sudden reverbing WOMP and Eddie stops playing for a few seconds. An attendee account reports that someone in the audience had thrown an orange and managed to make a direct hit on the guitar strings, which followed with Eddie raising his hands in the air in a “come on” motion.

Right as the band is going into the talking interlude of Everybody Wants Some, Mike and Dave seem to be commenting on something being done by Ed or Alex. Mike says “crazy mother f’er”, and Dave says “look at this mother f’er’s eyes”. Not long after Dave starts into his storytime about the girl in the hotel, he pauses and says “I’m going to throw your ass in the audience”. Without a visual or a fan recollection, it’s hard to know for sure what was going on here, but it all adds to the unique mood of the show.

Later during the jam of Somebody Get Me A Doctor, Dave starts making all sorts of noises along with the music, along with some screams. During Intruder the synth parts sound noticeably different, and the explanation is that the synth’s waveform mode was set to square wave instead of sawtooth wave, making this a cool unique version. Then during the breakdown of Ain’t Talkin’ ‘Bout Love, Eddie plays a unique little guitar bit that sounds sort of similar to Cathedral.

This show is also significant due to the fact it is very last known performance of D.O.A. not only for the tour, but for the rest of the band’s history. While there is no known recording for the next show in Las Vegas, audience or otherwise, all recordings from El Paso and onward no longer have D.O.A. in the setlist. As a side note, there is a fan story that Dave fainted off to the side of the drum kit during the Las Vegas show, leading Mike to do lead vocals during Somebody Get Me A Doctor. It could be assumed that may be a reason they shortened the set with one less song. If anyone can materialize an audience recording of the Vegas show, it would be a great historical document to have!

As usual, Roy paused the tape during the break where Dave would give an extended talk to the crowd prior to Jamie’s Cryin’. This tape has very unusual cut, with the tape being randomly paused about halfway into Mike’s bass solo, so is sadly missing all of Hang ‘Em High, then starts recording again approx 52 seconds into Cathedral. The first side of the 90 minute master tape runs out during Dave’s storytime interlude of Everybody Wants Some, missing about 2 minutes total before being flipped. Roy pauses the tape after Somebody Get Me A Doctor, so does not capture Dave’s acoustic solo or Ice Cream Man. The recording starts again about 10.5 seconds before the start of Intruder. The tape is paused again during both encore breaks. The tape runs out right near the end of the first part of You Really Got Me, so does not capture Happy Trails or the reprise of You Really Got Me.

Track Listing:

01 Intro [0:00]
02 Romeo Delight [0:51]
03 Unchained [4:47]
04 Drum Solo [9:37]
05 The Full Bug [12:38]
06 Runnin’ With The Devil [16:19]
07 Jamie’s Cryin’ [19:35]
08 Little Guitars [23:08]
09 Where Have All The Good Times Gone! [27:45]
10 Bass Solo (cut) [31:10]
11 Cathedral (cut) [33:19]
12 Secrets [34:29]
13 Drum Solo II [37:57]
14 Everybody Wants Some!! [39:53]
15 Dave Talks (cut) [42:47]
16 Everybody Wants Some!! (Reprise) [47:56]
17 Dance The Night Away [49:49]
18 Somebody Get Me A Doctor / I’m So Glad [53:01]
19 Intruder [59:51]
20 Pretty Woman [1:02:06]
21 Guitar Solo [1:05:21]
22 D.O.A. [1:16:36]
23 Ain’t Talkin’ ‘Bout Love [1:20:17]
24 Bottoms Up! [1:27:14]
25 You Really Got Me (cut) [1:31:46]

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