Van Halen 1982-11-30 Asheville, NC

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

After having minor guitar issues the night prior, they are even more pronounced tonight. The show starts off with noticeable difficulties throughout Romeo Delight, resulting in an unusual extended transition into Unchained, instead of the usual clean break between songs. Crackling sounds and other minor oddities are occasionally heard throughout the first few songs. Then when attempting to start Little Guitars, we only hear bass and drums, so we get another short extended intro jam while Dave makes a bunch of repeated “oh” sounds until Ed’s guitar finally comes in.

Later on, there’s a really weird false start to Ain’t Talkin’ ‘Bout Love, seemingly due to something on Eddie’s part rather than an issue with the guitar itself. It almost seems like he dropped his pick after doing the neck slide that is usually done to transition into the song. In response to the screw up, Dave says “don’t you ever play anything fast, man”, to which Ed soon follows with a tease of “Baby Elephant Walk”, something he also teased the night prior during the Doctor jam. He then quickly restarts playing Ain’t Talkin’ ‘Bout Love, properly this time.

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 near the end of the first part of Everybody Wants Some. The second side of the tape starts over halfway into Dave’s storytime interlude, so is missing several minutes. Then as usual, Roy pauses the tape after Somebody Get Me A Doctor, so does not capture Dave’s acoustic solo, Ice Cream Man, nor Intruder. The recording starts again several seconds into Pretty Woman. Roy paused again during the first encore break, as always. However, Roy didn’t start recording again until the second encore, so we’re completely missing the first encore with Bottoms Up. It’s easy to not notice the pause, but the recording starts again about 9 seconds prior to the start of You Really Got Me. 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”. There is about 25 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 [0:48]
03 Unchained [4:26]
04 Drum Solo [8:12]
05 The Full Bug [11:09]
06 Runnin’ With The Devil [14:50]
07 Jamie’s Cryin’ [17:53]
08 Little Guitars [21:25]
09 Where Have All The Good Times Gone! [26:39]
10 Bass Solo [30:05]
11 Hang ‘Em High [34:51]
12 Cathedral [38:09]
13 Secrets [39:37]
14 Drum Solo II [42:57]
15 Everybody Wants Some!! (cut) [44:55]
16 Dave Talks (cut) [46:56]
17 Everybody Wants Some!! (Reprise) [48:21]
18 Dance The Night Away [50:04]
19 Somebody Get Me A Doctor / I’m So Glad [53:15]
20 Pretty Woman (cut) [1:02:36]
21 Guitar Solo [1:05:29]
22 Ain’t Talkin’ ‘Bout Love [1:16:21]
23 You Really Got Me [1:21:54]
24 Happy Trails [1:25:49]
25 You Really Got Me (Reprise) [1:27:13]
26 Outro Music [1:29:40]

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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