The Mighty VH Podcast
This ain’t yer mom's podcast.
This is a high-voltage, back-alley, nitro-burning, chrome-plated oral history of the loudest, proudest, most uncontainable rock band ever to plug in and blow the doors clean off the building.
Every episode, your hosts Tommy London & Tor kick open the vault, flash a fake backstage pass and stroll past the velvet rope like they own the place. Albums get peeled apart track by track. Tours get relived night by night, bruise by bruise. Legends get mythologized, demystified, and then mythologized again.
The Mighty VH Podcast is where the riffs sweat, the stories stretch, and the truth comes flying in sideways wearing ass-less chaps.
You want news and rumors? We tell you what’s real, what’s noise, and what’s pure beautiful nonsense, with a wink and a raised eyebrow.
This is the place where genius gets examined, ego gets celebrated, and excess gets its rightful crown. Where guitars talk, drums thunder, and the spirit of rock and roll doesn’t politely knock, it jumps the fence, cannonballs the pool, and steals your girlfriend’s attention span.
The Mighty VH Podcast
Ep: 003 What Happened at the Legendary US Festival?
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If you’re like us, you can’t hear the words, “Memorial Day Weekend” without thinking of Van Halen playing the US Festival in 1983.
Between the epic tour they had just come off of, the music they were in the middle of creating for their next album (1984) and their massive pay day, amongst many other things, the band had their hands full when they hit the stage on that faithful day.
Would they rise to the occasion and make rock history or … forget “the f**king words!”
The answer is, both.
Tune in to Episode: 003 of The Mighty VH Podcast to hear all about it.
Welcome once again to the mighty Van Halen podcast, hosted by yours truly here, Tommy London, and my good pal Tor, who Tor and I have been Van Halen fans since the very beginning when we first met, and we've been talking about this podcast almost since the very beginning before podcasts existed. This is what we wanted to do.
SPEAKER_00That is very true. That's an interesting point. You're right.
SPEAKER_01If you think about it, we just didn't know it was called a podcast.
SPEAKER_00Right. It was a podcast for just us. We were just talking about this all the time. Every time we saw each other, we eventually would get around to talking about Van Halen during years that really there wasn't much to talk about, but somehow we there was always about there was always right.
SPEAKER_01And I just want to apologize ahead of time for my lame background here with this curtain. I am uh I'm in Hollywood at a hotel, uh hanging out at the uh rock and roll fantasy camps, which Van Halen has been a part of, Michael Anthony and Sammy Hagar in the past, but uh has nothing to do with my backdrop, it's just lame. So I'm apologizing, but at least I got a cool shirt.
SPEAKER_00Got my Van Halen here. Very cool shirt. But you know, maybe you should stay at a hotel that's got red and black and white stripe curtains. Maybe that's the new criteria.
SPEAKER_01You're right. I should have done that to the uh to the drapes here. That would have curtain, that would have been a great idea.
SPEAKER_00Well, listen, today we are going to be talking about uh the Us Festival, the infamous, the infamous 1983 Us Festival. Uh that Van Halen uh headlined, uh set the world record for highest paid band at the time. As a matter of fact, not only was it a world record, but they invented that world record. That the Guinness Book of World Records didn't have that category, but started that category because of this show and because of their payday. Um you know, there's so much to talk about with this performance. Uh honestly, I can remember seeing it uh for the first time I was uh over at a friend's house who had showtime, right? It's 1983, it's fall 1983. So the show starts in spring '83, right? It's the show happens at you know, Memorial Day, May of 83. By the fall, it is on Showtime. And there's, you know, it's it's edited, so it's not the entire every little thing that happened. But I remember walking into a friend's house, and I guess we didn't have that channel at the time because cable, that's just how it was. Like you didn't have all the channels and whatever, whatever. But um, oddly enough, it was on Showtime and not MTV. So, you know, but um, you know, Apple lost so much on putting on this show that they this was part of the recoup strategy to to gain to make some money on it, or at least to you know, break even on it, was to license to to an affiliate to to show time to show stuff. And I remember seeing Van Halen really kind of for the first time. I mean, you know, I had seen the um the Fair Warning tour stuff actually in the movie theaters, they were showing it before. Um, they were showing those clips before Bachelor Party in the great movie, right? They were showing that before back, but um, you know, and maybe I'd seen a maybe pretty woman, but I doubt it. I don't I don't know that I saw that at that point because it it got banned pretty quickly. Um, so this was my first like, oh, this is them moving around, like this isn't just a record, right? So weird to think about that at in at this day and in this day and age of like you didn't see a band, you couldn't see a band, like you might not know what they look, not that what they don't look like, because there were magazines and obviously album covers, but see them moving, seeing Dave do a jump, like seeing Ed do the do the wind do his jump, like you know, and uh not that I'm harping on jumps, but you know what I'm saying? Like you just didn't get to see them in action. And I remember walking in and seeing that and being like glued. Oh my god. Uh when was the first time you you saw the the us festival footage?
SPEAKER_01Well, first of all, I didn't know Showtime had done that. That's that's I didn't have Showtime, so I wouldn't have seen it anyway as a kid, you know. Um, but you know, when I discovered it was first word of mouth hearing about this myth that this show that Van Halen did called the Us Festival. And you're right, we didn't have the internet where we could just plug in right now and see it or see anything from Van Halen or anyone for that matter. I remember just hearing about this concert and how epic it was with all the artists that partook besides Van Halen. I was like, oh my god, this is amazing. This really happened, like we're maybe a few pictures in Circus Magazine and things, but nothing, you know, um video-wise. And I would always go to these um uh record conventions. I don't know if they even still exist anymore. I searched for them a few times, you like record shows, you know, where you would go and buy rare posters and albums, and right for anyone who's not aware, like that they would do these things and uh they're awesome. And there was this one guy who had um all these VHS bootlegs, all the bootlegs, yeah. All the bootleg tapes, and I was like, whoa, and I had never seen that before. Yeah, I was like, whoa my god, this is a thing, right? So I'm looking through all the bootlegs, and there it was Van Halen Us Festival. I was, I mean, I was the uh the mind-blown emoji before it was created, right? I'm like freaking out. So I bought it, me too, right? And I I don't know what it cost me back then. I can't recall, maybe 10 bucks or something, right? 20 bucks. Uh, but just a side note, after I brought that home, um, I started duping VHSs. I would buy a few and then go to these record shows and trade. And so I built up a huge collection, which I still have on the VHS. Yeah, but the first one was the Us Festival. It's start, I had to have that one. And I played it so much I had to adjust the tracking on the on the VCR, you know, as a matter of fact.
SPEAKER_00I I actually got my VHS copy of this the same exact way. And I got mine in the late 80s or maybe early 90s at a record show that had, you know, there are record shows now, but they're they're so vinyl uh focused. It's not about all of paraphernalia. It's really uh it's not the collectibles, it's really just the records. Um, but yeah, back in the day you'd have record shows, and at record shows you had the VHS guy, you had the bootleg guy, or maybe one or two of them. And um, yeah, I had my coveted VHS of the Us festival that I wore out. I absolutely wore out, and uh I had it memorized, much like all the other uh VHS I had of Van Halen. Anything I recorded off of MTV and the specials and all the other things. But you know, with the Us Festival, maybe we should dial it back to the origin and what what the I kind of want to lay out a timeline that's kind of kind of blow your mind when I when I tell you this, right? So um when you think about it, the timeline back then, it was the the the show happens in May of 83. It's announced in January, February of 83. So that means that they were in contract and in talks in 82. Okay. So in 82, Van Halen is is pretty big. They're on the diver down tour, they are the premier hard rock band that is out on the road. Um and they're kind of this this mammoth machine that is just plowing through the nation, and they are being offered this headlining slot on what is to be the biggest festival of all time at the time. Um, they had done a uh an US festival the year prior, and Wozniak wanted to do a bigger and better version in '83. And the whole purpose of the festival was to show people how computers and music, you know, and pop culture could kind of live together. I think that message was totally lost. Everybody clearly, you know, it was really all about the bands because that's all we ever talk about, you know, and obviously went on to do bigger and better things, but um, you know, they were trying to sort of cross-promote uh, you know, the whole marketing scheme was was based on cross-promoting. So, okay, Van Halen's on the road with Diver Down. They're getting offered this thing, they're gonna do it. Because I had always heard, and maybe a lot of other Van Halen fans out there had always heard that you know, they couldn't find Dave, they were gonna do this show, and Dave didn't even know about it. He was in the jungles of the Amazon, and they had to they had to send someone out there to find him and bring him back. And it's I mean, I mean, those are some of the myths that you know we're gonna have to bust here because you know, logistically, they were they were talking about it while they're on tour, they signed contracts prior to the tour even being over. Um, but I want to uh throw this out there that before the us festival, a couple of things are happening before they even do the us festival. Um, so the the uh diver down tour is over and Dave goes off on vacation, everybody's you know mulling around. Uh you know, Eddie's in the middle of building 5150 during the diver down tour is when it's getting built. Okay, so as soon as the tour is over, basically January, February of 83, 5150 is completed, and Ed's already starting to work on demos for 1984. Right at the same time, left to his own devices, he's playing the solo on Beat It. Okay, so before the Us Festival, he's recorded Beat It. You know, right most iconic, uh as far as I'm concerned. That and the solo for jump are the two greatest guitar solos of the 1980s. Fight me. Like I'll go toe-to-toe with you on that. They are epic. But it it was kind of interesting as I was doing some research for this episode that you know, yeah, right. So he had done, he was doing these iconic sort of moments in in Van Halen history, and this is the timeline that it sort of lines up. It was very interesting to sort of put those things into perspective. So they're already working on songs and demoing songs for 1984 when they have to go back and do some rehearsals to do this show. So basically, the Us Festival happened in the middle of recording 1984, right? And no one knew what was coming.
SPEAKER_01No, you know what I mean? Like 84 would, as we know, right, was their most commercially uh you know made album over the top, and it was literally around the corner, you know, from the us festival.
SPEAKER_00And so the us festival happens, and I'd have to say, and I'm I'm sure you'd agree with me on this, that that's David Lee Roth's shining moment. Like it couldn't have been more tailor-made for that guy, that front man at that time. I mean, a crowd and uh you know of hundreds of thousands of people. He's not only the center of attention out on that catwalk on that runway off the stage, he is in the highest paid band. They've made all kinds of headlines. He was a star of the show at the press conference. Like, and you know, when the spotlights on Dave, he knows how to work it, right? So if you notice during the during the show, he talks, he knows how to talk to a big crowd, he does a sentence, pauses, does another sentence, pauses so that everybody can kind of cheer between it. And when he does his little bits and banters that he's so famous for, it works so perfectly in a festival setting. He just knows how to work that crowd and is the center of the universe for those moments on stage. As a matter of fact, in the version of Everybody Wants Some, it's nine minutes long. It's a nine minute long version of that song because Dave is just working the crowd. And and you know, part of the whole Van Halen Mystique, right, is the drinking and the partying and all that stuff. And Dave isn't letting us down. Like he's he's so off kilter, but with a big smile on his face. And and at the time, you want your rock stars to be wasted, like that was just the thing. Like, and yeah, he forgot the fucking words, dude. The first song, the first song. And what does he do when he forgets the word? Does he panic? Do you see panic in that man's face? Like, no, no, he just tells you right up front, I forgot the fucking words, man. And I mean, it's like shots were fired, like the shot heard round the world. Like, that was the most iconic rock star moment in modern history, right? Like all the Davisms were happening at that show, and I'm sure they were happening through the diver down tour, and he was working on them throughout his whole career. But that was the pinnacle of all Van Halen things, right?
SPEAKER_01I mean, well, speaking of the drinking, that's when he called out the clash with uh having iced tea in his bottle, or not not having iced tea in his bottle, I should say. Ironically enough, he I believe he later said that about Kevin Dubrow uh in a circus magazine years later when they had a rivalry going on. Uh, Kevin, of course, who sang for Quiet Riot, who was also at the Us Festival. Heavy Metal Day consisted of Van Halen, Ozzy, Judas Priest, Triumph, Motley Crew, Quiet Riot, and I forgot the Scorpions there who were in the middle of that. I mean, that is just epic alone. He calls out the clash because, well, Strummer and the boys there, I think, were a little envious of the fact that it leaked out that Van Halen were getting 1.5 million. Everybody was, yeah. And the clash got a half a million. Right. Ironically enough, I don't know if this had anything to do with this, the math and the price tag there, but that was the clash's final show.
SPEAKER_00Right. Yeah, by then the clash had sort of, you know, that was really gonna be they had they had lost uh some key members and just were on their their last legs, unfortunately, because the clash are amazing, but uh yeah, it wasn't it wasn't their time, but it was Van Halen's time. And one of the one of the the moments that you sort of take away from that is like I remember seeing the full show for the first time, and um drum solo happened on the third song, right? Now I had seen Van Halen on the 1984 tour, and that was the same thing. The drum solo happened on the third song, but the third song was hot for teacher, you know, like the drum solo started out, and they had a reason to get to to do that because, like, okay, we're gonna go into Hot for Teacher, and that obviously starts off with the drum solo, but not in 1983, they didn't have that, they just did their drum solo on the third. I would love to find out if anybody out there knows what the thinking was behind that because they seem to do that a lot. Uh, I'd love to know the you know, drum solos don't happen that early in the show traditionally, they happen, you know, in the pocket where people you'll get a beer or something like that, you know. Not when you get warm up.
SPEAKER_01Let me ask you this. You said when you saw the show on Showtime, was it the whole heavy metal day? Or or was it like did they show like just the hits from Quiet Riot, maybe, and then moving forward up to Van Halen? Like, I I never saw the Showtime version of it. And did they also show New Wave Day, which was when the clash played the day before with uh straight cats in excess and whatnot?
SPEAKER_00Do you do you recall that? So my I can tell you my experience, and then I can tell you what I know. So my experience was, and this is a great excuse to not have seen the whole thing. We were headed to a party. Like me and my buddy, we were headed to a party. I was stopping by his house and we were heading out the door. And when I walked in, that's what he was watching. I was like, Well, we can't leave.
SPEAKER_01He was getting ready for the party, right? We were getting ready, you know.
SPEAKER_00Um, so I didn't catch the whole thing. Um, and not having showtime, I didn't know what, but uh years later, and in the streaming age, like you can find they had uh all three days uh set up, and you can you can stream those now, but they are heavily edited. There's like maybe two songs per band, and I don't even think that Van Halen made the package that is out there now. Um, obviously, contracts, etc. Like I'm sure there's a lot of legalese that that goes on in in that sort of thing makes it impossible for us to even see, you know, there isn't even a vinyl out of this performance, right? Um, even a bootleg. Um, I've seen bootleg CDs of this with um with rehearsal uh music as well, like just audio only of rehearsal from May 21st, and then uh the show. I guess I think it's from May 29th was the date. Uh actually, we can take a look on my my shirt right here.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, that's an awesome shirt. Original.
SPEAKER_00Originally, yeah, original, not not reprinted. And let's take a look at the back here.
SPEAKER_01Back side, which is slightly faded, which proves even more how original it is. Eddie Van Halen's guitar there.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, I can't say that I was there, but uh, you know, found this some tucked away somewhere and you know had to had to bring it out today.
SPEAKER_01But um interesting design on that shirt. It's like not a common Van Halen design, you know what I mean, in my opinion. Like you don't have the big VH, yeah, you know, and and things like that.
SPEAKER_00It's kind of like this, it's a uh trier tire track, yeah. It also has that sort of postal sort of look to it, like a posted sort of thing. Um, but very Dave, very, you know, like it not expected, kind of cool. It almost looks like Ocean Pacific. Remember that brand, Ocean Pacific.
SPEAKER_01That's that's actually what came to my mind when I saw the shirt at first.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, yeah, kind of crazy. Um, but now I've totally lost my train of thought.
SPEAKER_01So uh hey, we're talking shirts. Hey, you know what? Uh I was we were saying uh New Wave Day was the day before, okay. Uh and as I mentioned, Clash Men at Work, Straight Cats in Excess among the many who David Bowie heads up. Well, that was that on The Rock Day, though? That was another day, right? Oh David Bowie? Maybe I think I think it might have been. So uh I know Slim Jim Phantom who plays drums for straight cats, and he told, and I love to get him on the show at one point. Uh he he was friends with Eddie, and he said it was that day that he first met Eddie Van Halen backstage. So, you know, they get in the day early. And what's interesting, I don't know if Dave was roaming around uh backstage there because he was the loud mouth who started well with the clash. So I don't know if if they you know met backstage because they would have clashed. That would have been an interesting backstory. I asked Jim that he doesn't know anything about that. Uh and he doesn't remember. Actually, he said he didn't meet David Roth two years later, but it was that concert, um, that festival that he met um Eddie Van Halen and became uh friends ever since with him then. But it was pretty cool.
SPEAKER_00That's an interesting duo. Imagine running into those two hanging out somewhere. I I know, right?
SPEAKER_01So, you know, uh the the concert ticket back in '83 was twenty dollars a day, and it was sixty dollars for the weekend.
SPEAKER_00And I did the math, and today's that was a lot, and that was a lot because like to see Van Halen was like $12.50. Like if you went to see them on the Diver Down Tour, I think it was like $12.50. And so $20, like that's a lot, but it's a festival. Right, right. So that was the expensive ticket, was $20.
SPEAKER_01Well, I did the math today's. If it was today with that with inflation, it would it would be $66 a day and $200 for the weekend. I got news for you, bro. That would not be the cost of that ticket today, right? Like, and this boggles my mind too. This has nothing to do with Van Halen, but let's talk about inflation for one minute here. Who does this math? How can you tell me? There's no way that ticket would be $66 for one day.
SPEAKER_00Well, listen, there's inflation, and then there's also live nation. Those are two things, yeah, right.
SPEAKER_01Live inflation nation. That's what that is.
SPEAKER_00Right, right, right. But that's that's a conversation for me.
SPEAKER_01How insane is that, but it's crazy, right?
SPEAKER_00So, in doing the math, right, we're talking about a band that made a million and a half dollars. That was the payday. Van Halen got was a million and a half. And the reason they got that originally the offer was a million dollars, and then the organizers booked David Bowie, and he got a million dollars. But the Van Halen contract, that Noel Monk, man, he was on top of things. And they had what what is called a favored nations clause, which means that Van Halen gets has to be the highest paid, right? So if they decide to book someone else and they get have to pay them more, you've got to then pay Van Halen more than them.
SPEAKER_01Right. Well, why wouldn't you just do a million one? I like who knows. Maybe maybe that's pretty good.
SPEAKER_00Maybe the particulars of the contract there's a percentage or whatever. Who who knows about that stuff? But and if anybody out there does know about that stuff, you know, drop us a comment. Um, but that inflated to current day numbers would be just under five million dollars. So they would have been paid just under five million dollars to do this festival. While, man, I'll take five million dollars any day of the week, I'll take a million and a half any day of the week. I'll take the clashes 500,000 any day of the week. But at the same time, I I couldn't tell you what major acts are getting for a festival like Coachella at this point, but something tells me it's a lot more than five million dollars. So the sort of performance inflation and concert ticket inflation, like the numbers go beyond our day-to-day type inflation numbers. Like that math just doesn't you can't even do that math.
SPEAKER_01You know, they say you he lost uh 12 million on this festival. Right. Okay, yeah. I I and I'm not certain, and I can't recall from what I've seen the live footage. Uh I'm assuming there were no sponsors. Like, I don't know. Like this day and age, you would have so many sponsors that nut would be covered.
SPEAKER_00Right. Well, they were the sponsor, that was the thing. It was to remote their company, right? But I mean, like Jack Daniels or whatever, you know, in this day and age. That I mean, you have to remember though, back then it was a big deal to have a corporate sponsor for your thing. I mean, Woodstock didn't have a corporate sponsor 10 years prior to that, or just a little over 10 years prior to that. I can recall the the uh Stones tattoo you tour, um, who's a big deal that they had, I believe it was Michelobe, was their sponsor, and it was a big deal. It was like, wait, who? What is happening? Corporations and rock and roll, that's not right. There was a little, you know, dust up about that in the press. I'm sure you can do a little research on rollingstone.com and find an old article or two about how you know corporate corporations and rock and roll don't make. Mix and yet here we are. Now you couldn't possibly do a festival without corporate, you know, hundreds of uh maybe even thousands of sponsors for something like that. You know, it's kind of crazy how times times change. Um, one thing I'd like to point out, and if anyone out there has seen the Us Festival or is gonna maybe watch it after after you listen to us or watch us here, um, Dave's outfit. Okay, it's great the Dave David Lee Roth started the whole mauled by a bear look, right? The torn-up holes and the you know, he's got these uh tiger, yellow tiger striped, you know, uh mauled by a bear.
SPEAKER_01All ripped ripped by a bear. It's so great.
SPEAKER_00But I mean, if you think about it, prior to that uh show, you didn't really see bands doing that. And then suddenly after that, everybody was doing that. They had the torn-up stuff and the tied up things, and the you know, they were sort of emulating that look that Dave once again, you know, brought was the you know, brought to the forefront.
SPEAKER_01I think it's great you bring that up. I think it's great that you bring that up because that's something Davy Roth never gets um you know noted for. Uh, he gets noted for his own fashion sense, but not how he influenced others with the fashion sense. I mean, you can go into the whole 80s hairband thing, and well, quite frankly, Van Halen created the mold, Blondlead singer, and everything else, you know. Yeah, um, I mean, that was their creation. Uh, but yeah, I mean, he wait he's a fashion icon, and uh it's it's you're right. That's it's funny you brought that up because now I recall when I first saw that video and I got the VHS and plugged it in as a kid there. That's one of the first things I picked up. I was like, look at this guy! Like, he just looks like so cool, right? I'm like, this guy's just cool, right? I don't care if he sings or not.
SPEAKER_00Right. I mean, listen, they were the quintessential band of the moment. They were of the moment. There wasn't anybody else who could touch them in terms of having their finger on the pulse of what was about to happen. It's not about necessarily being the band of the moment and being at the pinnacle, it's about just before the pinnacle, right? That you are the one setting the tone for everyone else to follow. And and clearly they made the right step in 1984. The next step, suddenly they are the biggest band. But here they're still, they're still, I dare I say hungry and still got something to prove. And, you know, we can get into the whole like Dave breakup thing after 1984, but where do you go from there? Right. So at this point, they still have places to go, they still they still want to be number one, they still want to, they've got you know goals to to meet, and uh, but it's exciting, and it was exciting to see a band uh be at that level, just beyond the precipice of ultra-stardom, you know.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, well, hey, have you noticed online? I discovered this not too long ago, and this is where I'm really grateful for the internet is um backstage footage of the Us festival I had never seen. You know, there's like Davely Roth getting warmed up and ready, and it's like who had this footage? And it's always anonymous. It makes me wonder if it actually comes from the camp itself in some way, shape, or form. Right.
SPEAKER_00Is it is it footage from is it footage from the us festival is it footage from Donnington for 1984?
SPEAKER_01Oh, and maybe I am confused. Now you got me wondering, but now now I gotta go back and look. I I thought it was us festival. Maybe I made an assumption.
SPEAKER_00It is a festival, like Donnington was a festival.
SPEAKER_01Maybe I just assumed it was us festival, but even nonetheless, to have this backstage footage that I never seen. Yeah, it's just you know, and it raises the question too that you brought up earlier. Is these live recordings exist? Um, you know, even how you said when you saw the Fair Warning stuff in the movie theater, that live performance, you know. Um, why Van Halen, the Roth era, doesn't put out, I know they put out this one, I'm wearing this shirt, you know, from the live record they put out, which was later with the reunion, but why they don't put out this older stuff uh on vinyl like they do with with the Sammy Hagar era is beyond me because it it would sell instantly. Yeah, and it'd be a great way to have to own that stuff and sonically.
SPEAKER_00You know, a number of bands have um have really embraced their heritage and released stuff almost every year from their past. The Stones have been doing it for decades. KISS started doing it, and there are a number of bands that just have the catalog that and the heritage where they can they can put out stuff from whatever year in one of their many decades they've been around, and the the fans are gonna buy it up, um, you know, myself included. But uh yeah, Van Halen has just been a little lacking there, and that's honestly, it's kind of part of the draw. While it's frustrating, it keeps you hanging on wanting more in a certain regard. But honestly, I'm with you, dude. Like I would love to see a big grand package, you know, for the 50th anniversary of the Us Festival to just let's see the footage, let's see it like remastered, let's hear it remixed, like whatever they can do to offer us, you know, you know, footage from backstage, uh, stories, etc. Like, why, you know, listen, I I will be the first one to put down a band for a cash grab, but that wouldn't be a cash grab. That's a historic thing that has some weight to it, as opposed to putting out like a you know, some sort of package that just has remixed versions of of the same old songs. Like, I'd love to hear, you know, these songs done properly, you know, mixed properly, etc. Because I'll tell you, so my recollection, uh, you know, I recently rewatched the show and and and I'm sure it's blazed in your mind as well. Dude, the band was on fire. Like it took them a few songs to kind of get to get to that level as it would, especially if you've been partying all day, like the band needs to click in. And they had been off the road for a number of months at that point. And you know, obviously they did rehearsals prior to you know the festival, but you know, listen, it takes a minute for a band to click in if they're not constantly on the road and playing every day. But they got there and man, they were on fire. They just when they finally hit that cruising altitude, the songs were the band was just peak performance. Those guys were just so locked into each other. Yeah, and Dave was allowed. That was the beauty of the band is that Dave was just allowed to be Dave and bounce around and do his one-liners and sing when he sang and spoke, speak when he spoke. And um, and that was the end, that was that was all we needed, you know. And but they really reached a level where they were untouchable. And there was no band on planet earth on that day that was gonna come close to being able to have that power that those guys had on that stage for the hour and a half, two hours that they were on stage. I later did get the bootleg on DVD.
SPEAKER_01I found it at a record convention, and that one didn't have the uh, you know, the static and the tracking. I remember dude when I first plugged in that V that the dupe. Obviously, this is a dupe that I have, and who knows how many generations of this dupe that I have. And when I got I watched it there because at these record conventions, you can you can view them. The guy will have a VCR. Back then he had VCR, you watched it. And uh he must have played like the mid, and it was it was clear and nice. When I got home and I plugged it in, the beginning was a lot of like fixing this tracking and shit. I was so pissed. I thought I got ripped off, and you know, and there's Dave going around. I'm like, what the fuck? You know, and I finally it it it cleans up. But I remember just being mesmerized that I was finally seeing this uh rumored concert that I'd read about and and heard about, and now I can I I get to finally see it. And uh and then when I did when I did score it on DVD, that was like uh that was major for me.
SPEAKER_00Major score, yeah, for sure. And and thank goodness for streaming now, right? Like we can watch it, but when you can't sleep at 3 a.m., you can just put that on, you know. Yeah, I would love to uh hear from anyone out there that was there, that witnessed that show firsthand, that that was there and could you know give us some some recollections. Please feel free to comment below or or shoot us a DM or or shoot an email, send soak signals, whatever, whatever. But I'd love to hear some stories about actually being there and and uh what that experience was like to experience firsthand.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, the mighty vanhalen podcast at gmail.com if uh you want to email us something. If you got pictures or videos, uh that'd be pretty well, probably video would be hard to have because we didn't, you know, I'm just taking for granted every I've never seen any crowd sort of stuff floating around, but that would be cool.
SPEAKER_00Anytime that sort of eight millimeter old film stuff pops up, I've seen some stuff from the Fair Warning tour, like that 16 millimeter. Um, and it's always so cool, like it just seems like such an like you see it from a weird angle, like it the film quality, etc. Like it's so so cool. Uh man, it would be great.
SPEAKER_01But back then you had to be like rerun in uh what's happening and go in with the real to real under your uh big overcoat and record that Van Halen show. Isn't you know what a side note isn't this kind of ironic that back then you couldn't even bring in a disposable camera? It was like a it was a to-do, or if or your camera and pulled it, you had to pull the film out. Nowadays, all bets are off. You know, it's almost like they want you to film it to put it out there than before when there it was that mystique, you know, you you couldn't do that and uh copyright thing, uh for sure, man.
SPEAKER_00It's it's an interesting world we live in now. Yeah, back then you couldn't you couldn't bring a camera, you couldn't, you had to sneak it in, put it in your sock or some, yeah, something like that, you know, someplace. And if you had a plastic disposable camera, which I don't think really happened until like the 90s, um, you know, metal detectors wouldn't go off. So that was cool. But you know, prior to that, you're bringing your mom's camera and it had a flash bulb on it or some nonsense like that, and you got shitty pictures that you oh remember those cameras, you would have to get the flash bulbs.
SPEAKER_01My mom had that. Oh my god. And it was like you'd have to buy that piece for the camera. And the camera was long ways, right? Right. And it would it had this huge these bulbs. I remember I got a Polaroid camera uh as a kid, and that was like that was a big deal.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, for sure. I would love to see any any home shot photos or or footage or anything from from actually any Van Halen. Any Van Halen, especially this one. I think that this one really cemented the band as uh as to who they were, who all the fans knew that they were going to be from the first album, or whenever you you jumped on the train, which were that which with whatever album you jumped on the Van Halen train, like you just knew this is the greatest band ever, and they're gonna be the biggest band ever. And they were just about there with this. And it just makes this performance that much more exciting to watch. Even now, there's part of it that you know, the the whole sort of drunken sort of party, they were the ultimate party band, first of all. Yeah, and that was the message they put out, and we all believe, and I still bel like that's who they were. You know, that's there was no fake in it, as as we just discussed. Um, but there was an aspect to there was so much on the line. They were getting paid a million and a half bucks. Are they gonna fall on their face? Are they gonna is this gonna be an amazing set, or is this gonna be the worst set ever? And throughout the entire performance, there's that aspect of like, these guys are gonna fall down the stairs and break their neck, or they're gonna fall down the stairs and land on their feet and be like, hey, look at me. Yeah, you know, like there was that that whole rock and roll aspect of like you don't know what's gonna happen next.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, I mean they proved everyone why they were uh were worth more than 1.5 million, you know. Like it was just you really saw you, you're right, man. Like that that show right there was a tell. Like, hey, you're getting a sneak peek as this is larger than life and it's about to get bigger, in which it did.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, amazing stuff. We definitely highly recommend everybody go watch that right now. Yes, stick back, find two hours, tell everyone else to fuck off, and just watch Vanhalen at the Us Festival 1983. Well, listen, it's been great uh talking to you, uh, talking at you. Uh, this has been uh the mighty VH podcast. Yeah, my name's Tor. This is Tommy London. Tommy, tell them where they can reach us.
SPEAKER_01Hey, you can find us on the socials, hit us up, don't be shy. And uh, like I said, email earlier, uh, the mightyvanhalen podcast at gmail.com. If you have any ideas for topics, uh old pictures to share, videos, maybe uh a run-in with any of the members of Van Halen, cool story. Uh please uh don't be shy. We would love for you to take part. This is not our podcast, it's all of ours podcasts. It's your podcast as well. If you're a Van Halen fan like us, you are a member of this family, and we thank you for tuning in.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, be sure to follow us on Instagram, tag us and post, we'll be more than happy to share. Until next time, happy trails. Happy trails.