Van Halen 1983-01-21 São Paulo, Brazil (SBD)

Here is an uncirculated soundboard recording, capturing the Van Halen concert in São Paulo during the South American leg of their Diver Down tour in 1983 (No Problem tour). This is seemingly the first of three consecutive nights Van Halen played at the Ginásio do Ibirapuera (Ibirapuera Gymnasium). This recording is another from the collection of VH’s then-front-of-house sound engineer, Roy.

This soundboard source is the SAME SHOW as the circulating proshot video, just in better sound quality. It’s also worth noting, I’m going off the assumption that the video source has been dated properly over all these years, as I couldn’t find any evidence to 100% confirm if it truly is the first of the three nights in São Paulo. Not to claim that it isn’t, but you never know with old bootlegs (e.g. Caracas). Roy did not label his tape with any indications of São Paulo that would help.

The setlist on this specific night is a bit shuffled up compared to normal, with Dance The Night Away and Somebody Get Me A Doctor being played much earlier in the set, rather than after Everybody Wants Some. After Mean Street, Dave shouts out “alright baby let’s dance the night away!”, seemingly as a way to lead the band together with the shift in the setlist, considering he didn’t regularly introduce the song during the Diver Down tour otherwise.

Unfortunately this recording isn’t without a fair bit of cuts, because if you remember the 15 minute remnant of the third night in Caracas, the majority of that show was recorded over with this night in São Paulo. Similar to what he often did in 1982, Roy paused the recording after Runnin’ With The Devil, and misses Dave’s entire segment talking to the crowd. Sadly, he doesn’t start recording again until right before Mean Street, so unfortunately this tape is missing Jamie’s Cryin’, Little Guitars, Mike’s bass solo, Beer Drinkers And Hell Raisers, and Little Dreamer.

The 90 minute master tape is flipped after first part of Everybody Wants Some, but is quickly paused again during Dave’s talking interlude, then doesn’t start again until during Intruder. Due to this, we’re also missing the reprise of Everybody Wants Some, Dave’s acoustic solo, Ice Cream Man, and Heartbreak Hotel.

As far as we know, Heartbreak Hotel didn’t appear for any night in Caracas, and was first added here in São Paulo, which will be in the setlist for the remainder of the South American tour. The bit prior to starting Ice Cream Man proper is the same Dave acoustic bit as in 1982, rather than the more unique variations otherwise typically seen in 1983.

Despite the cuts on this tape, all of these songs can be found on the video source, which contains the complete show. The only song missing from the video is Where Have All The Good Times Gone, but since the setlist is already unusual, it might be safe to assume it just wasn’t played on this night.

While this is one of the more cut up shows in Roy’s collection, his reason here seems due to having wanted to save the rarer songs from the third night in Caracas that he was recording over. So it seems strange that he then chose to miss a couple of those same rare songs here in São Paulo instead of more common songs, but for whatever reason, that is what he ultimately decided as a way to cram everything on the same 90 minute tape instead of using a new blank tape. Fortunately, from Rio and onward he used two 90 minute tapes per show, and all those recordings have survived intact.

Unlike in 1982 where Bottoms Up was played as the first encore, then You Really Got Me and Happy Trails for the second encore, these encore songs are all performed back to back at these South American shows, and also omit the “Growth” intro to You Really Got Me that was present during most of 1982.

While most South American shows are plagued with discrepancies among the date ranges listed online, the São Paulo shows seem to have always been documented correctly. Adverts, articles, ticket stubs, and the band’s itinerary all reaffirm that the date range of the three São Paulo shows were January 21/22/23.

Track Listing:

01 Intro [0:00]
02 Romeo Delight [0:37]
03 Unchained [4:10]
04 Drum Solo [7:54]
05 The Full Bug [10:49]
06 Runnin’ With The Devil [14:40]
07 Mean Street [18:11]
08 Dance The Night Away [23:14]
09 Somebody Get Me A Doctor / I’m So Glad [26:14]
10 Cathedral [35:52]
11 Secrets [37:29]
12 Drum Solo II [40:51]
13 Everybody Wants Some!! (cut) [43:21]
14 Intruder (cut) [47:35]
15 Pretty Woman [48:23]
16 Guitar Solo [51:24]
17 Ain’t Talkin’ ‘Bout Love [1:02:08]
18 Bottoms Up! [1:07:20]
19 You Really Got Me [1:11:22]
20 Happy Trails [1:14:08]
21 You Really Got Me (Reprise) [1:15:58]

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