Van Halen 1982-11-29 Huntsville, AL

Here is yet another uncirculated soundboard recording, capturing the Van Halen concert in Huntsville during their Diver Down tour (Hide Your Sheep tour) in 1982. Not even an audience recording of this show has circulated previously.

This show has a bit of a weird sound mix for a while, and a few random guitar feed issues throughout, but nothing majorly disruptive. Despite that, Dave seems in a “special” mood tonight. During his introduction to Where Have All The Good Times Gone, he breaks routine with a dramatic pause, then comes back with a deep voice, repeating himself twice. He also introduces Mike’s bass solo as a “private moment with Lady Di”. Then for his vocalizing introduction to Cathedral, he instead does more of a low hum like what he’d typically do before Happy Trails, and follows with a goofy high voice which I can only presume was meant to sound like Michael Jackson or Mickey Mouse. Then for the transition into to the jam section of Somebody Get Me A Doctor, Eddie does a really goofy bit that seems to have been a nod to being in the deep south. It sound familiar, but I can’t quite put my finger on it.

As usual, Roy paused the tape during the break where Dave would give an extended talk to the crowd following Runnin’ With The Devil. However, this time he didn’t resume recording for Jamie’s Cryin’ as he usually would, so misses the entire song, and instead started the recording again right before Little Guitars. Due to the missed song, the tape flip came a bit later in the set, so Roy manually pauses after the first part of Everybody Wants Some, intentionally misses Dave’s entire storytime interlude, and resumes recording right before the reprise of Everybody Wants Some. Despite that, the first side of the 90 minute master tape runs out before the band finishes the song.

The second side of the tape starts several seconds into the beginning of Somebody Get Me A Doctor, so we’re completely missing Dance The Night Away. Then as usual, Roy pauses the tape after Somebody Get Me A Doctor, however he pauses a bit later than normal and captures about 8 seconds at the start of Dave’s acoustic solo, though overall does not capture that part nor Ice Cream Man. The recording starts again prior to the start of Intruder. The tape is paused again during both encore breaks, as always. There is one more pause during the brief interlude where Dave says a few more words between You Really Got Me and Happy Trails. This tape is another one of the few that captures the outro music that would play over the speakers after the band walked off stage, that being Kid Creole’s “Imitation”, followed by Van Halen’s own “Big Bad Bill”. There is about 22 seconds of silence before the outro music starts, not because the tape had been stopped, but because Roy seemed to have shut off all other mics that may have picked up any crowd noise.

Track Listing:

01 Intro [0:00]
02 Romeo Delight [0:44]
03 Unchained [4:17]
04 Drum Solo [8:21]
05 The Full Bug [11:19]
06 Runnin’ With The Devil [15:03]
07 Little Guitars [18:45]
08 Where Have All The Good Times Gone! [23:29]
09 Bass Solo [26:52]
10 Hang ‘Em High [31:58]
11 Cathedral [35:21]
12 Secrets [37:16]
13 Drum Solo II [40:35]
14 Everybody Wants Some!! (cut) [42:47]
15 Somebody Get Me A Doctor / I’m So Glad [47:06]
16 Dave Acoustic Solo (cut) [55:50]
17 Intruder [56:06]
18 Pretty Woman [57:57]
19 Guitar Solo [1:01:00]
20 Ain’t Talkin’ ‘Bout Love [1:13:13]
21 Bottoms Up! [1:19:05]
22 You Really Got Me [1:23:00]
23 Happy Trails [1:25:21]
24 You Really Got Me (Reprise) [1:26:45]
25 Outro Music [1:28:57]

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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