Van Halen 1982-11-24 Wichita, KS

Here is another of the few uncirculated open-mic recordings, capturing the Van Halen concert in the Wichita / Valley Center / Park City area during their Diver Down tour (Hide Your Sheep tour) in 1982. This is what could be considered an “official audience recording”, having been recorded with an open-mic right next to the soundboard / mixing desk. Not even an audience recording of this show has circulated previously.

Completely by surprise and out of routine, Dave abruptly stops the whole band from playing during Secrets and makes noticeably angry remarks about someone throwing coins at him, and says “pass him down on stage and I’ll kick the shit out of him”. They quickly resume the song afterwards. While on rare occasion Dave is known to make remarks about people throwing things on stage and jokingly end with the “I’m gonna f your girlfriend pal”, he doesn’t use that line here, and interrupting a song is very unordinary. With Dave you can never know for sure if he’s just playing out a bit of his, but due to the circumstances here, it seems this was in part a genuine annoyed reaction.

As usual, Roy paused the tape during the break where Dave would give an extended talk to the crowd prior to Jamie’s Cryin’. The first side of the 90 minute master tape runs out during the first part of Everybody Wants Some. The second side of the tape starts partway into Dave’s storytime interlude, then is randomly paused again, so is missing a several minutes. Instead of his usual pause following Somebody Get Me A Doctor, Roy lets it run through most of Dave’s acoustic bit, though still decides to pause not long before the start of Ice Cream Man. It could be assumed that he meant to pause earlier at the usual spot, but for some reason was preoccupied.

He later pauses at an unprecedented spot, randomly during Eddie’s guitar solo approx 5 minutes in, and not starting the tape again until the end of the solo. This may have been done to make up for not pausing on time earlier, assuming his goal may have been to capture the complete encore songs. Roy paused again during the both encore breaks, as usual. There is another couple of brief pauses during the downtime where Dave talks between You Really Got Me and Happy Trails. Despite all the unusual pauses, the second side of the 90 minute master tape runs out during Happy Trails, so is missing the reprise of You Really Got Me.

Track Listing:

01 Intro [0:00]
02 Romeo Delight [1:00]
03 Unchained [4:38]
04 Drum Solo [8:19]
05 The Full Bug [11:36]
06 Runnin’ With The Devil [15:18]
07 Jamie’s Cryin’ [18:19]
08 Little Guitars [21:59]
09 Where Have All The Good Time Gone! [26:36]
10 Bass Solo [30:01]
11 Hang ‘Em High [34:52]
12 Cathedral [38:20]
13 Secrets [39:53]
14 Drum Solo II [43:53]
15 Everybody Wants Some!! (cut) [45:51]
16 Dave Talks (cut) [47:01]
17 Everybody Wants Some!! (Reprise) [50:08]
18 Dance The Night Away [51:54]
19 Somebody Get Me A Doctor / I’m So Glad [55:10]
20 Dave Acoustic Solo (cut) [1:04:19]
21 Intruder [1:07:41]
22 Pretty Woman [1:09:41]
23 Guitar Solo (cut) [1:12:47]
24 Ain’t Talkin’ ‘Bout Love [1:18:53]
25 Bottoms Up! [1:24:25]
26 You Really Got Me [1:28:42]
27 Happy Trails (cut) [1:33:18]

Lineage: Maxell UDXL-I C-90 cassette / Nakamichi DR-1 (azimuth adjustment) / Creative Sound Blaster X-Fi HD / Audacity (24 bit – 96 khz) / FLAC 6

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