Van Halen Early 1983 Soundcheck Jam South America

Here is something very unusual, perfect for a surprise Christmas release! This is an uncirculated soundboard recording of Van Halen during a soundcheck, which took place prior to a concert in South America during early 1983. This is another tape from sound engineer Roy’s collection, which had sadly been left unlabeled. The tape is paused at multiple points throughout, but the overall mix indicates it’s from the same venue, at least per tape side. While hard to be certain, this could be from two dates. Regardless, various clues throughout both sides indicate that this tape was recorded all in South America.

There are so many details packed in this recording, that it really requires listening to it in full several times to really absorb everything being played and being spoken. Even then, it’s easy to often still hear something minor that wasn’t noticed before. Due to this, it’s impossible to be fully comprehensive with these notes, so I’ve focused on mentioning all of what’s most notable. Dave is largely absent throughout and only shows up on random occasion to talk, only actually singing at the very end of the tape. Most what you’ll hear is Eddie, Alex, and Mike playing.

Among the many sections of the tape, there are a few pieces of music that are identifiable. The first is the song Wild Thing from The Troggs, though it is still jam-like and wouldn’t call it a fully fleshed out instrumental cover. A bit later there’s an extremely brief segment that starts off really funky but turns into Eddie doing a bit of Another One Bites The Dust from Queen, which out of a difficulty figuring how to label it, I’ve just called it “Funky Queen”. During the second blues jam section, Dave pops in and says a line of Heartbreak Hotel from Elvis, then Eddie follows with the next part of the melody on guitar. A bit later Mike starts playing the bassline to In A Gadda Da Vida from Iron Butterfly, but before anyone else could’ve potentially joined in with the him, you hear who I guess is one of the gear techs saying “hey guys, one second, Eddie needs a tune-up”. Though later, we do get a fleshed out, mostly-instrumental cover of Crossroads from Cream, featuring a small bit of vocals from Mike.

Some of the most notable parts of this recording is hearing complete instrumental performances of Sinner’s Swing and Hear About It Later, the only missing element is Dave. Same could almost be said about Take Your Whiskey Home, though after playing for a while, Eddie stops and says “I don’t remember it”. We also get an embryonic version of Panama, showing us just how developed the song was as of early 1983.

Later on in the recording is about 10 minutes where Ed is completely alone, essentially just noodling and making whatever sounds he possibly can with his guitar. At one point we hear him playing a bit of the theme song from The Munsters, then several minutes later he plays a bit of the main riff of Michael Jackson’s Beat It, which is fairly interesting because rather it’s specifically the Beat It guitar solo that Eddie is known for having written and recorded.

Closer to the end of the tape, there’s an interlude where Dave shows up again, just talking. He makes a comment about what is assumedly referring to Eddie’s wife showing up: “The woman who needs no introduction… direct from Hollywood after three months of no work… and if you believe that then I have a bridge for you.” He soon follows with “We need a tubular insert up here immediately”, then under his breath says, to my best guess, what sounds like “time for a high colonic anal pork flow”, in other words maybe he needed to head to a bathroom? Well it’s pretty funny, whatever he meant there.

The only songs to actually feature Dave singing is a full cover of You Can’t Do That from The Beatles, followed by a partial attempt at Little Dreamer before Dave stops and says “I’ve been making up the words for the last five minutes anyway”. Prior to singing these two, there’s a segment of Dave making bunch if high and low noises/words, which I assume was his way of warming up. Roy seemed to play along with this and use some effects on Dave’s voice. The tape ends soon after Dave says “Roy, we’re done”, followed by an “OK” from Roy.

Track Listing:

01 Jam I [0:00]
02 Jam II / Wild Thing [6:02]
03 Jam III / Funky [9:03]
04 Panama [12:09]
05 Blues Jam I / Funky Queen [14:02]
06 Blues Jam II / Heartbreak Hotel [17:01]
07 Jam IV / In A Gadda Da Vida [18:28]
08 Take Your Whiskey Home [23:04]
09 Sinner’s Swing! [25:08]
10 Hear About It Later [29:15]
11 Jam V / Romeo Delight [33:35]
12 Crossroads [40:04]
13 Jam VI (Side B) [42:39]
14 Guitar Noodling / The Munsters Theme / Beat It [50:22]
15 Interlude [1:01:14]
16 Jam VII / Girl Gone Bad / Drums [1:05:55]
17 Runnin’ With The Devil / Vocal Warmup [1:09:11]
18 You Can’t Do That [1:12:40]
19 Little Dreamer [1:16:02]

Lineage: Maxell UDXL-I C-90 / Nakamichi DR-1 / Creative Sound Blaster X-Fi HD / FLAC

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