Van Halen 1982-12-07 Lakeland, FL

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

With the tour winding down in Florida within the week, it’s clear that the band is well aware and in good spirits. Like the show in Memphis several nights earlier, this show in Lakeland features the second known instance of Cathedral being omitted from the setlist in favor of a unique extended intro to Secrets. Unfortunately, there is no known tape of the show prior in Raleigh, and Roy’s soundboard recordings of the two shows that followed at the Hollywood Sportatorium are among three known 1982 shows that slipped into the hands of an unknown person (with Montreal), so as it stands we don’t know if this special extended arrangement of Secrets was ever done more than twice.

It’s also worth noting, that while the surface internet will tell us there were two consecutive shows performed in Lakeland, and retroactively created posters can be found, there has been no real evidence that a second show on December 8th ever actually happened. The alleged second show seems to have stemmed from the crew’s tour itinerary, those which are generally always subject to multiple changes. All known local newspaper mentions only reference one show on December 7th, ticket stubs have only been found for the Dec 7th date, and an attendee has even said they don’t remember there being two shows. A couple other VH researchers have also supported these claims. Roy also labeled his tape simply as “Lakeland Board”, whereas for multiple nights he typically labeled them with a “I”, “II”, or “III”. So if anyone has evidence of a second show on the 8th, it would be great to see any sort of documentation to confirm it.

The moment many of us have been waiting for, Roy has finally used a 120 minute tape to record, rather than his preferred choice of a single 90 minute tape per show. While the recording is notably longer, it unfortunately isn’t without a few cuts. Roy still chose to do his usual pause during the break where Dave would give an extended talk to the crowd prior to Jamie’s Cryin’. There’s another very brief pause following the first part of Everybody Wants Some, but it seems it just misses a length of crowd noise, because essentially all of Dave’s usual banter is here. The first side of the master tape sadly runs out midway into the jam section of Somebody Get Me A Doctor, and the second side starts not long after the song had already ended.

Later in the show, Roy still chose to pause during the first encore break, but for some reason didn’t start the recording again until the second encore starts, so unfortunately we’re missing the entire first encore with Bottoms Up. There’s no excuse for the tape being paused here, considering there was plenty time left on the tape, but overall this is still one of the longer recordings in Roy’s collection, and it survives, so we shouldn’t complain too much. This tape is again 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”.

Track Listing:

01 Intro [0:00]
02 Romeo Delight [0:32]
03 Unchained [4:05]
04 Drum Solo [7:46]
05 The Full Bug [10:56]
06 Runnin’ With The Devil [14:48]
07 Jamie’s Cryin’ [18:12]
08 Little Guitars [21:37]
09 Where Have All The Good Times Gone! [26:16]
10 Bass Solo [29:36]
11 Hang ‘Em High [34:37]
12 Secrets [38:02]
13 Drum Solo II [42:27]
14 Everybody Wants Some!! [44:58]
15 Dave Talks [48:02]
16 Everybody Wants Some!! (Reprise) [53:20]
17 Dance The Night Away [55:10]
18 Somebody Get Me A Doctor (cut) [58:29]
19 Dave Acoustic Solo [1:02:21]
20 Ice Cream Man [1:07:32]
21 Intruder [1:11:42]
22 Pretty Woman [1:13:36]
23 Guitar Solo [1:16:46]
24 Ain’t Talkin’ ‘Bout Love [1:28:20]
25 You Really Got Me [1:33:50]
26 Happy Trails [1:38:22]
27 You Really Got Me (Reprise) [1:39:39]
28 Outro Music [1:41:57]

Lineage: Maxell UD 120 cassette / Nakamichi DR-1 (azimuth adjustment) / Creative Sound Blaster X-Fi HD / Audacity (24 bit – 96 khz) / FLAC 6

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