VH THE STORY OF CITY NIGHTS……

Back around 1986/87
I purchased a VHS tape of Van Halen from the US Festival.
It was advertised as “Pro-shot”, so I had to have it.
When I bought it, I asked the seller where he got it from?
All he replied was that it was “Stolen from Showtimes Vaults and the master tape returned”.

When I watched it, it seemed purposely “generated”
by about 3X. It was all there except the last 3 minutes,
or so of “You Really Got Me”, so it cut off the end of the song,
There was still about 2min of blank tape left on the VHS tape that it was on.
I was REALLY into bootleg VHS tapes at that time and had 2 sets of VHS decks with an,
Audio and Video EQ between the master deck and the copy deck.
I had recently taped the Showtime special of the US Festival,
which had the 3 songs you spoke of above.
I decided to take MY master tape, with the 3 songs on it, and dub the missing part of
“You Really Got Me”, on to the end of my 3rd gen US Festival I had purchased.
It made perfect sense to me,

The problem was, that there was not enough blank tape at the end of my 3rd Gen tape,
to fit YRGM, at the “SP” (best quality) speed.
So I had to record it at the “EP (6 hour/worst quality) speed.
Since the tape I bought was 3rd gen and the tape I was using for dubbing was 1st Gen, I figured that would make the missing part of YRGM, about 2nd Gen, and would closely “blend in” with the rest of the tape.
You have to remember, this was BEFORE any type of home editing software was available.
So when it was done, I had a “complete” VH US Festival VHS concert tape.
I had made contacts with the guy who made all the “Toasted” brand videos,
back in the late 80′s/early 90′s. I sent him my Master VHS Tape.
He dubbed hundreds of copies, because his friend had a video lab.
He designed covers and I got 25 VHS copies,for the use of my master tape.

While he had it, he contacted me about using the audio for a 2LP Bootleg record of the
US Festival.
For my trouble/permission,
I would get 10 copies of the title.

That is how “City Nights” came to be.
If you listen to the encore of “YRGM”, you can hear the sound “quality” change.
That is where I made the splice in my original VHS tape.

There ya have it.
The story of “City Nights”
and… “if I’m lyin…I’m dyin”.  ;^)

Great story, thanks for sharing!

Did you have any say in the artwork?

Ron,
No I did not.
In fact out of all the WWOTR titles that used mu audio sources,
I just supplied the files/source and received a few copies of the finished product.

Now I’m confused, WWOTR replies as Blackmagic? any hoo interesting story. I remember hesitating buying that vinyl at a trade fair thinking how can I pass that off in my collection from prying eyes! the nude Val lookalike was an odd thing to put on there.

While were on artwork, anyone know who the guy was that used to do the cartoon illustrations years back, Rape the vaults and other stuff. I remember talking to Scott about him I think. Also who did the Mad Hatter logo, the artwork covers don’t match the illustration style, that logo is way cool.

Decatone: While were on artwork, anyone know who the guy was that used to do the cartoon illustrations years back, Rape the vaults and other stuff. I remember talking to Scott about him I think.

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http://www.vhboots.com/79tourrehearsals.html
Front and back cover artwork are modified versions of famous Robert Crumb’s (R. Crumb) cartoon artwork.

Thanks Ron should of checked on your site for info, the guy that did the old Keep on truckin logo… cool.