Recently saw an incredible article by Dave Lewis written about Led Zeppelin’s best live recordings of all time. It was from a few years back but really an excellent read about the live boots from Zeppelin. This had me wondering if anyone has done something similar about Van Halen?

This can be a subjective exercise, but it’s still always exciting and gets the blood pumping when people discuss which recordings are the best. Hope you guys don’t mind if I get this discussion started here being new. I really look forward to hearing your thoughts and opinions.

So here is my question. It’s two fold.

Question #1: What are the best sounding recordings out there for the mighty Van Halen, quality wise, from the beginning to now, all ears of VH?

Question #2: Not talking about sound quality but about sheer power of live performance, what are the best Van Halen recordings from the beginning of the band to now?

I have to vote for the Meadowlands concert on what I believe was the FUCK tour. I have the show still somewhere on CD in a box. It’s an audience recording and the quality wasn’t the best. But the show itself is unreal, Eddie is ON FIRE. Really a special show in my opinion. If I can find that darn cd I will share it with you all. Remind me.

What are your thoughts here?

Thanks for sharing with me!

–Chuck

Oddly, I don’t really listen to my boots that much, but there is definitely an era I like the best and that’s the early years up to 1982 or so. I had a bunch of bootlegs in iTunes on an old computer and in iTunes you can rank them 1 to 5 stars. The computer has long since crashed (have the music still, but not my rankings…) but I remember really liking a boot from some speedway in Texas. It had a 12 minute or so version of YRGM that I thought was spectacular.

Super helpful, I know…

I’ll also put the US Fest at the top of my list because it’s a visual representation of everything I love about VH. Everyone’s hammered, Dave forgets the words, yet they pull it off like, uh… rock stars. Awesome.

They played the Meadowlands twice on the FUCK tour (October 24, 1991 and October 25, 1991). An as yet never before released video of one of those shows will be seeing the light of day in the next year or two.

That’s a lot of the fun for me. 25 years later and a never-seen-before video pops up!? I’m amazed that people can just sit on this stuff! Or do they forget about it? Either way, it’s pretty exciting when it surfaces.

guitard: They played the Meadowlands twice on the FUCK tour (October 24, 1991 and October 25, 1991).An as yet never before released video of one of those shows will be seeing the light of day in the next year or two.

I am sure it will be worth the wait.

Gilligan: That’s a lot of the fun for me.25 years later and a never-seen-before video pops up!? I’m amazed that people can just sit on this stuff! Or do they forget about it? Either way, it’s pretty exciting when it surfaces.

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When CBG first started filming shows in 1987, he traded some of them – but found out a few people with whom he traded were turning around and selling them. So he completely stopped trading – but kept on filming. I don’t know why he decided to release his collection, but he did. The only thing, is that he wants the shows properly authored and he is only going to release them one per week. So you’ve still got all of the various 1989 and 1990 ahead of the 1991-92 FUCK shows that he shot. However, in the meantime, there are still some more 1988 VH shows that he hasn’t released yet, along with some DLR shows from that era.

ArkansasVHFan:
Question #1:What are the best sounding recordings out there for the mighty Van Halen, quality wise, from the beginning to now, all ears of VH?

#1) best sounding/quality….

1978 – there are lots of good quality from 1978.. 5/28 Ipswich I think is strong. Also London
1979 – Fresno (3/25), Vancouver (4/18), Japan are some of my favs
1980 – 6/23 UK, 5/1 Largo, MD (soundboard)
1981 – 8/25 Greensboro
1982 – 11/18 Dallas (soundboard)
1984 – Reno (5/7) and LA (5/13) are strong. a healthy bunch of pretty good audience recordings from 84

LA 1984 >>> http://www.themightyvanhalen.net/1984/05/13/1984-inglewood-ca-forum/

I only casually collect the years after, but excited about the CBG uncirculated stuff

To me a lot of the pre-VHI recordings are among the greatest due to historical reasons.

This type of thread comes up every now and then …

1978 I like the UK shows (in particular June 1)
1979 Selland
1980 and 1981 kinda a black hole … it is a shame there aren’t many recordings that I get excited about
1982 the South American shows I prefer (even over the US Fest)
1984 I like Madison Wisconsin and Quebec City (I don’t know why I just do)
1993 Alpine Valley (I may be a bit bias but Alpine Valley shows are always special and 93 was awesome for so many reasons)
1995 Alpine Valley and TN
1998 Alpine Valley and Japan (Osaka I think is my favorite)
2004 PA
2008 there are a couple really nice ones from February (I wanna say Feb 16 and Feb 18 but I don’t recall the cities, Jacksonville is one maybe)

that is just off the top of my head, I have to give it some additional thought.

As stated by the OP earlier…this has NOTHING to do with sound quality…ONLY presence of force on a given night! On another point, it’s not really fair to compare best recordings between VH and LZ…especially when you take into consideration how many Zep soundboards there are! So…in no given order, here re my favorites!

Barton Coliseum, Little Rock, AK 6/9/1979

MECCA Arena (or Milwaukee Arena) Milwaukee, WI 4/14/1980

Greensboro Coliseum, Greensboro, NC 8/25/1981

Regarding question #2, my vote is for Auditorio El Cilandro – Montevideo, Uruguay – February 5, 1983.
http://www.vhboots.com/thefullmontevideo.html

My 2 cents (quality &/or best show to listen to)
6/29/76
10/15/77 – I like the soundcheck
12/31/77
3/24/78
5/28/78
6/22/78
9/23/78
3/25/79
5/1/80
6/23/80
5/15/81
8/25/81
2/5/83
5/29/83
3/24/84
8/18/84
9/1/84

Crazy, this is the first I knew of actual recordings from 1976! Learn something everyday!

ArkansasVHFan: Crazy, this is the first I knew of actual recordings from 1976!Learn something everyday!

Check out the old club days and I think you’ll forget all about 1991 and that killer version of spanked.

VAiN: Check out the old club days and I think you’ll forget all about 1991 and that killer version of spanked.

^^^ LOL!!!