Van Halen 1982-12-11 Jacksonville, FL

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

This show in Jacksonville is the grand finale of Van Halen’s 1982 “Hide Your Sheep” tour, and it’s clear that the band are an a celebratory mood. Despite a small few sloppy moments early on, the band is playing with an obvious energy, and of course Dave is being sure to make it a party tonight.

One unique aspect is Dave’s vocalizing intro to Little Guitars, which is certainly different from any show prior. Another standout moment is during Where Have All The Good Times Gone, where instead of the first verse, Dave delivers his “I forgot the f’in words” line, rather than having done it during Romeo Delight, then sings the next verse as “oh, Dave is f’in around”.

As the band breaks after the first part of Everybody Wants Some, Dave starts his banter by mentioning someone throwing toilet paper at his head, and brings out his occasional “I’m gonna f your girlfriend” line. Then a bit later near the end of Ice Cream Man, Dave stops to say “the next stupid motherf’er who throws something at my head, you pass him up here on stage and I’ll kick his ass”. While there are photos of toilet paper all over the stage, there’s more of a story behind it all, as a post online from an attendee claims that the band’s roadies were throwing the rolls of toilet paper into the crowd from the back row. This same attendee claims he hit Dave square in the head with a roll, feeling a sweet satisfaction. Being able to now hear this recording pretty much paints the rest of the story, as true as it can get.

There are also photos of balloons all over the stage, and after the final encore you can hear what sounds like many balloons being popped. Another thing worth noting is this show features the final performance of Hang ‘Em High, until a few rare outings in 2012.

Like several nights prior in Lakeland (and perhaps his two missing Hollywood tapes), Roy has again decided to use a 120 minute tape, rather than his standard choice of a single 90 minute tape per show. This time, he decided to let the entire first side of the tape run without pause, so we get to hear Dave’s talk prior to Jamie’s Cryin’, which emphasizes this being the final night of their 1982 tour. The first side of the master tape runs out less than a minute into the beginning of Somebody Get Me A Doctor, but it’s clear Roy was alert with the intention to record as much as possible, because he only misses about 30 seconds of the song.

What could have been a near perfect tape, Roy still decided to do his usual pauses during both encore breaks so that he wasn’t recording down time. He starts the recording again for the first encore a handful of seconds into Bottoms Up, not missing that much. However when he paused before the second encore, for whatever reason he missed the entire first half of You Really Got Me, with the recording starting again during the downtime that precedes Happy Trails. Overall, with that being the only major cut, we can’t complain too much. It’s easily one of the most complete shows in his collection, and it survives for us to hear. Yet one can’t help but again feel like there’s no excuse to have missed anything, considering there was plenty room left on the tape. What ideally would’ve been a worthy sacrifice to miss, this tape is again 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 [0:49]
03 Unchained [4:35]
04 Drum Solo [8:17]
05 The Full Bug [11:35]
06 Runnin’ With The Devil [15:31]
07 Dave Talks [18:41]
08 Jamie’s Cryin’ [21:47]
09 Little Guitars [25:29]
10 Where Have All The Good Times Gone! [30:24]
11 Bass Solo [33:55]
12 Hang ‘Em High [38:04]
13 Cathedral [41:28]
14 Secrets [43:04]
15 Drum Solo II [46:31]
16 Everybody Wants Some!! [48:32]
17 Dave Talks [51:55]
18 Everybody Wants Some!! (Reprise) [56:24]
19 Dance The Night Away [58:18]
20 Somebody Get Me A Doctor / I’m So Glad [1:01:35]
21 Dave Acoustic Solo [1:11:41]
22 Ice Cream Man [1:15:34]
23 Intruder [1:19:30]
24 Pretty Woman [1:21:29]
25 Guitar Solo [1:24:35]
26 Ain’t Talkin’ ‘Bout Love [1:36:30]
27 Bottoms Up! [1:42:51]
28 Happy Trails [1:48:20]
29 You Really Got Me (Reprise) [1:49:56]
30 Outro Music [1:53:20]

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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