van halen tour 1994

Van Halen; Collective Soul

A Van Halen tour stop is always one of the concert season's most eagerly awaited events -- especially in Los Angeles -- and with good reason: Fans who packed the Forum on Tuesday night were treated to a red-lined, fifth-gear rock 'n' roll performance devoid of pretense and posturing, and one that further cemented Van Halen's reputation.

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A Van Halen tour stop is always one of the concert season’s most eagerly awaited events — especially in Los Angeles — and with good reason: Fans who packed the Forum on Tuesday night were treated to a red-lined, fifth-gear rock ‘n’ roll performance devoid of pretense and posturing, and one that further cemented Van Halen’s reputation as the nation’s premier have-a-good-time party band.

The sold-out show — the first of a two-night stand — marked the band’s return to the Southland after a nearly four-year absence and the first tour since the death of their longtime manager Ed Leffler.

Armed with a new Warner Bros. disc, “Balance,” that has sold nearly 3 million copies in less than two months, and with a major tour, the quartet shows no signs of slowing down or diminished popularity.

Although a Van Halen show changes little over the years, and is more often a greatest hits offering peppered with new tracks from its latest disc than a reinvention, the self-effacing yet no-holds-barred presentation makes even the dusty material register as fresh.

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The laborious solos are still a component of the otherwise exhilarating live perf, but have been trimmed to more tolerable lengths.

The band roared through its best-knowns, including “Round” and “Top of the World,” and lead singer Sammy Hagar — who would later proclaim “Violence Is Out” as a mantra for the ’90s — used the gig to offer an explanation and presentation of “Amsterdam,” during which he blasted MTV for making him alter the drug references in lyrics to make the tune vid-channel suitable.

Less than an hour into the show, the band trotted out its current single, “Can’t Stop Loving You,” a driving, radio-friendly track.

But the show’s galvanizing moments came toward its end, with “Right Now” and “Higher,” the set and show finales, respectively, prompting fans to cause the cavernous venue to rock under the weight of their enthusiasm.

Ironically, the evening’s loudest and most sustained applause came on the heels of Hagar’s pronouncement that Eddie Van Halen was playing his first L.A. show sober.

Large video screens flanking the stage kept the action close for those in the nosebleed seats, while a huge screen backdropped the mammoth stage. Gone, however, is the laser light barrage, signaling a welcomed emphasis on the stage action and music rather than technical advancements.

Hagar sounds as good as ever, though by the two-hour show’s end his voice expectedly thinned in the upper registers.

His trademark yells and banshee screams remained in top form throughout as he tried on every T-shirt offered by fans, without missing a beat or losing the rhythm.

As expected, Hagar’s spotlight solo featured the signature chestnut “When Eagles Fly,” and Eddie’s guitar solo was a display of unbridled and uncompromising riff-mastery.

Michael Anthony’s bass solo was embarrassing and awkward, and Alex’s drum solo offered nothing new, unless you include a non-moving drum riser. (The band has in the past used the solo time to either elevate, rotate or obfuscate the riser during the final moments, but on this night it remained static.)

Opener Collective Soul put forth a valiant effort, warming up a tough L.A. crowd with selections from its debut Atlantic disc, “Hints, Allegations & Things Left Unsaid,” and its latest self-titled album.

The Stockbridge, Ga., natives proved capable of assuming the rock god mantle with straight-ahead, ’70s-eets-’90s fare, and were particularly impressive on “Smashing Young Man.”

The Forum; 14,300 seats; $ 40 top

• Production: Promoted by Avalon Attractions. Reviewed April 5, 1994.
• Cast: Bands: Van Halen: Sammy Hagar, Eddie Van Halen, Alex Van Halen, Michael Anthony. Collective Soul: Ed Roland, Dean Roland, Ross Childress, Will Turpin, Shane Evans.

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• 1974-1977 – Club Days
• 1978 – Van Halen I
• 1979 – Van Halen II
• 1980 – Women and Children First
• 1981 – Fair Warning
• 1982 – Diver Down
• 1984 – 1984
• Best Bootlegs (Grade A)
• Decent Bootlegs (Grade B)
• All Bootlegs
• Tour Date Archive

Tour Date Archive Sorted By Year

Best Bootlegs

9/22/1978 – Fresno, CA @ Selland Arena

1984 – quebec city, canada @ le colisee de quebec, 6/1/1978 – london, england @ hammersmith odeon, 5/21/1984 – san diego, ca @ san diego sports arena #2, 8/6/1978 – oklahoma jam, 1980 – milwaukee, wi @ milwaukee arena, 1979 – vancouver, canada @ pacific coliseum.

Tour Archive

1978 – Tour Dates

1979 tour dates – world vacation tour, 1980 tour dates – world invasion tour, 1981 tour dates – fair warning tour, 1982 tour dates – hide your sheep tour, 1984 tour dates.

This site is not affiliated with Van Halen, their management or record label. The only goal of this site is to share, celebrate and chronicle Van Halen's history from 1973-1985.  The resources and documents presented here are strictly for archival purposes only. This site does not condone the sale of unauthorized recordings. Photo credit has been given when known.  If there's a photo you want credited or removed, please let me know: [email protected]

The Mighty Van Halen

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• Album Cover Tributes & Parodies
• Damon Albarn Blasts Coachella
• Top 200 '70s Songs
• Billy Joel TV Special to Re-Air

The Best Way to Watch or Hear Every Van Halen Tour: 1978-2015

Van Halen have somehow only released three official concert albums or home videos, despite the fact that their onstage charisma, skill and showmanship played a big part in making them superstars.

Even more amazingly, they've never released a live home video featuring their original frontman, David Lee Roth . Luckily, clever fans snuck video cameras and audio recording devices into at least one show from each of the band's world tours. After decades of being traded on VHS tapes, their footage is now more easily found on YouTube.

Below you'll find the best video and audio footage available from every Van Halen tour, a era that began with the 10-month 1978 trek that brought them worldwide fame and continued through to Eddie Van Halen 's last show, which took place on Oct. 4, 2015 in the band's hometown of Los Angeles.

1978 World Tour: Sept. 22 in Fresno, Calif.

After years of honing their live skills in clubs around Los Angeles, Van Halen embarked on a massive 1978 world tour in support of their debut album . They served as the opening act for bands such as Journey and Black Sabbath , making a strong and lasting impression on fans – if not threatening to steal the show right out from under the headliners. A June 1978 concert at Osaka, Japan was reportedly professionally filmed , but remains locked in the vault. So, the best we've got now is a 25-minute video of them opening for Sabbath on Sept. 22, 1978 in Fresno, Calif. Listen to the encore-hungry crowd angrily boo as Van Halen's gear is taken down at the end for clear evidence these were two bands heading in very different directions.

1979 World Vacation Tour: March 25 in Fresno, Calif. / Oct. 2 in Tuscon, Ariz.

After a brief break to record their second studio album , Van Halen went right back out on the road, this time as headliners. Over a half an hour of fantastic looking live-video footage (occasionally replaced by still photos) from the tour's opening night can be found below, as well as the full 96-minute soundboard audio from an Oct. 2 show in Tucson, Ariz.

1980 World Invasion Tour: April 13 in St. Paul, Minn. / June 23 in London, England

Much like Eddie's hand-built guitars, the best footage available from Van Halen's 1980 tour is a bit of a Frankenstein job. This 10-minute clip takes the video from an April 13 show in St. Paul, Minn., and pairs it with the audio from a show two weeks later in Pittsburgh. There's also a separate 75-minute full show audio recording of the band's June 23rd show in London.

1981 Fair Warning Tour: June 12 in Oakland, Calif. / Sept. 1 in Memphis, Tenn.

Van Halen had at least three songs professionally filmed and recorded from their June 12, 1981 show in Oakland, Calif., all of which were released as promotional videos. Roth later stated that more footage is in the vault, and it seems quite likely that the entire show's audio was recorded as well. Who knows if we'll ever get to hear or see any of that officially, but in the meantime there's also a 90-minute fan-shot performance from the Sept. 1 stop of the Fair Warning tour in Memphis, Tenn.

1982 Hide Your Sheep Tour: Oct. 12 in Largo, Md.

Maryland's Capital Center was one of the first arenas to install a closed-circuit TV system, allowing visiting bands to easily record great audio and video from their concerts. That's why this pro-quality footage of a nearly two-hour show in support of Diver Down has been widely circulating for years. Supposedly, Van Halen's March 25 stop on the 1984 tour was also recorded in this same manner.

1983 US Festival: May 29 in Devore, Calif.

Nearly four months after the conclusion of the Hide Your Sheep tour, Van Halen cashed a $1,500,000 check and played Apple founder Steve Wozniak's US Festival. It's far from their tightest live performance – Roth, in particular, appears to have started partying long before he hit the stage – but it's an undeniable spectacle.

1984 '1984' Tour: April 19 in Montreal, Canada

Since the aforementioned pro-shot Capital Center footage hasn't been made public yet, your best bet for reliving the last tour of the original Roth years is this fan-taped show from Montreal, Canada.

1986 '5150' Tour: May 10 Detroit, Mich. 

Van Halen's first tour with Sammy Hagar was documented well on the band's first-ever officially released live home video, Live Without a Net . So obviously, start there. But a few songs from the band's typical nightly show were trimmed from that release, including the set-opening cover of the Kinks ' "You Really Got Me," "Good Enough" from 5150 and a cover of "Rock Candy" from Hagar's first band, Montrose . This fan-shot footage from a show in Detroit restores all of those songs plus 1984 's " Jump ."

1988 Monsters of Rock: June 19 in Buffalo, N.Y.

The second North American tour with Hagar found Van Halen headlining a traveling festival that also featured the Scorpions , Metallica and Dokken. Despite being shot from way up high and off to one side, this surprisingly good-sounding fan video does a great job capturing all the fun.

1989 'OU812' Tour: Feb. 1 in Tokyo, Japan

After the Monsters of Rock tour, Van Halen promoted OU812 with a headlining tour that included several dates in Japan. The first of their two shows at Tokyo's Super Dome was filmed for broadcast on local television, and while it has yet to be officially released it's very easy to find on YouTube.

1991 For Unlawful Carnal Knowledge Tour: Dec. 4 in Dallas, Texas

Just like the 5150 tour, your first option should be the band's official Live: Right Here Right Now home video and live album – and, this time out, the entire set list is included. But the most unique show on the tour took place Dec. 4 in Dallas. After losing his voice during the band's area stop on the Monsters of Rock show, Hagar promised the city a free concert as a make-good. Three years later the band delivered with an outdoor daylight show that included a rare live cover of Little Feat 's "A Apolitical Blues."

1995 Balance Tour: Aug. 18 & 19 in Toronto, Canada

Van Halen filmed two August 1995 shows for a pay-per-view special , although they were falling apart physically and inter-personally at the time. The set, which aired later that year in Canada and the United States, was also originally slated to be released on home video. Hagar's acrimonious 1996 departure put the kibosh on those plans.

1998 Van Halen III Tour: April 20 in Sydney, Australia / May 24 in Philadelphia, Pa. / July 28 in Pittsburgh, Pa.

One of the initial shows from their first and only tour with Gary Cherone was filmed for use on Australian television. The tour found Van Halen digging up Roth-era classics such as "Romeo Delight" and "Dance the Night Away" for the first time in years. About an hour of footage from that concert can be seen below, followed by a fan-shot version of a complete two-hour show from Philadelphia. Van Halen also recorded their summer performance in Pittsburgh, reportedly to use for an official live album. The idea was scratched following Cherone’s dismissal from the band, but the entire show is available to listen to below, providing over an hour and a half of audio.

2004 Summer Tour: Nov. 4 in Ames, Iowa

By all accounts, Van Halen's attempt to reunite with Hagar was a disaster . Their plans to record a new album instead got scrapped in favor of adding three new songs to a greatest-hits compilation. According to Hagar, Eddie Van Halen's drinking had gotten out of control, leading to poor playing and numerous arguments. The videos that are out there from the tour certainly seem to indicate that something was out of whack. This trip also featured the worst set list Van Halen ever created, the lowlight of which found Hagar singing "Jump" at the start of each show. But hey, if you're somehow still curious, knock yourself out.

2007-2008 North American Tour: Oct. 3, 2007 in Philadelphia, Pa.

There was a welcome return and the start of a new, lasting stability Aater a decade of turbulence and extended absences from the road. David Lee Roth was back in Van Halen, along with Eddie's son Wolfgang on bass. Some fans fretted about Michael Anthony 's departure, but the changes clearly re-energized the group. Night after night they dug out pretty much every Roth-era song you could ask for, and played them very well. Of course, they completely ignored the Hagar and Cherone years, as you can see from this complete fan-shot show from Philadelphia.

2012-2013 A Different Kind of Truth Tour: Feb. 20, 2012 in Auburn Hills, Mich.

The next logical step for Van Halen's new Roth-fronted lineup was to record a studio project, and 2012's A Different Kind of Truth followed. Half of the album was comprised of re-worked versions of unused songs from their early days, four of which were added to their nightly set lists on the ensuing tour. Below you can see the trek's second show, from the now-demolished Palace of Auburn Hills .

2015 North American Tour: Oct. 4 in Los Angeles, Calif.

The Different Kind of Truth tour led to Van Halen's first-ever Roth-fronted live album, Tokyo Dome Live in Concert . They promoted the live set with a summer 2015 tour of North America. Wolfgang Van Halen, in charge of set lists, dug even deeper into the band's album tracks as they performed long-gone gems such as "Light Up the Sky" and "Drop Dead Legs" every night. This tour concluded in Van Halen's hometown of Los Angeles, with two October shows at the Hollywood Bowl. Roth paid special tribute to Eddie Van Halen on the first night: "The best years of my life, the high points of all my life – onstage with you, homeboy." Eddie Van Halen's last concert ever can be seen below, complete with soundboard audio.

Eddie Van Halen Year by Year: 1977-2017 Photos

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Van Halen’s 1995 ‘Balance’ Tour

On March 11th, 1995, Van Halen kicked off the Balance Tour!

Van Halen’s 1995 tour—in support of the  Balance  album—was dubbed the “Ambulance Tour” by Eddie because of the hip and neck injuries sustained by himself and brother Alex. Despite those health concerns, this was another massive year for the band. Like their three previous albums, Balance debuted at #1, and the tour lasted 131 shows and grossed well over 30 million dollars. This would be the group’s last tour with Sammy Hagar on vocals until 2004, when he briefly rejoined the band for the 2004 reunion tour and the  Best of Both World’s greatest hits CD.

The updated stage show was elaborate—and expensive. Bringing living room comfort to a country of couch potatoes, the band added a new element to their stage show on this tour: the Jumbotron. Initially Alex’s idea, this was the band’s first time touring with a video production. The Jumbotron was a giant screen, similar to a television set, located above Alex. This was only the second time the setup had been used in arenas. Barbara Streisand was the first to use it in this manner. A six-man video team using four operating cameras and three point-of-view (POV) cameras, two of which were located on Alex’s drum kit, filmed the band, the crowd, and more, projecting the images onto the giant screen. The MTV-banned “Amsterdam” video was also shown on the Jumbotron. One of the stranger video effects was a projection of Sammy Hagar’s face on a giant dollar bill during “Big Fat Money.”  At the end of each show, the  Balance  album cover twins would appear, saying their goodbyes to the audience.

The band also hired a high-tech Autopilot system so that lights would automatically follow the musicians using infrared and ultrasonic cues. They were the second band, after ZZ Top, to adopt the system–a quantum leap ahead of the lighting stomp pedals Michael Anthony had brought with him from Snake when he joined Van Halen twenty years earlier.

A total of seven stage cameras brought the sweaty details of every performance to the back rows, just like at a sporting event. With short hair, work shirts with name patches, and ripped blue jeans, Van Halen now looked like a bunch of guys who had just finished hanging drywall in the basement and decided to jam a few Top 40 tunes.

Opening Bands

Van Halen had various openers for the U.S. shows. The bands were: Skid Row, Collective Soul, Slash’s Snakepit, Our Lady Peace, and Brother Cane.

Album Promo Tour

During the short European album promotional tour in January, the band played a supposedly secret club show [pro video linked here]  for the Dutch 5150 fan club in Holland. Word leaked, and three thousand fans waited in the cold and snow for hours hoping to catch a glimpse of Holland’s greatest rock export, sympathetically singing “Happy Birthday” to Eddie on his fortieth birthday. The gig was broadcast live over national radio, renewing interest in the band due to the warm intensity of the performance. The band also performed a club show in Milan, Italy [pro video linked here] .

The Tour: First and Second North American Legs 

The tour began March 11th with a sickly spring cough, as flu-stricken Sammy Hagar struggled to make dates. Eddie’s knees wobbled the first night in Pensacola, Florida, as he looked out over a capacity crowd of over nine thousand fans and prepared to play sober for virtually the first time in his career. He found that he liked being aware of the audience and enjoyed the process of coming out of his shell.

Sammy’s ailing throat forced the band to cancel a night in Orlando, Florida, and then three shows in California in early April. Some nights his vocal outages became a boon for fans, like when the band broke from its preordained routine for a ten-minute jam on the longed-for “Ain’t Talkin’ ‘Bout Love.” Some nights, Eddie would pop into the intros for old unheard ghosts like “Mean Street,” “Romeo Delight,” and even “Runnin’ with the Devil.” He seemed to be chafing at the bit to play original Van Halen classics despite Sammy’s reluctance. Fans definitely wanted to hear them—those first six albums continued to garner multiplatinum sales—and crowds screamed while Eddie teased them.

Eddie continued leaping high, but his moves were increasingly curtailed by a throbbing pain in his hip. Thinking he had taken a bad swivel on the golf course, he underwent CT scans and MRIs. He was diagnosed with an avascular necrosis—a loss of blood supply to his joint that had made the ball joint of his hip collapse. Doctors recommended surgery immediately. Instead, he bought a cane and continued with the tour. “I’m hobbling, yeah,” Eddie said. “It’s from years of hopping around onstage and drinking, not feeling what I’m doing to myself. I’m almost seven months sober now, so the pain is a lot worse.”

Then on April 7, 1995, the Oakland show was canceled after Eddie was arrested at Burbank Airport for boarding a plane with a loaded .25 caliber pistol. “First commercial flight after an eternity of charters,” he said with a shrug, explaining that the gun had become a constant companion after years of stalkers and psychodrama. Eddie went to court, paid a $1,000 fine and was handed a year’s probation.

As the tour continued, Valerie remained a supportive presence, popping in with four-year-old Wolfgang in tow to announce the latest findings she’d dug up as a mole digging through Van Halen’s various AOL chat rooms—one of the first places for Van Halen chatter on the internet. One day, while the family was driving together, Van Halen’s “Hot for Teacher” came on the radio. “I said `Wolfie, that’s Daddy,'” Eddie laughingly told the Albany Times-Union. “He said, `It sounds like Daddy playing guitar, but who’s that singing? That doesn’t sound like Sammy.'”

Alex shaved his impressive facial hair, but his drum solo still included a routine of him playing alongside a prerecorded video of himself on the giant screens–still wearing what looked like a paste-on Groucho moustache. That quirk in the otherwise seamless shows gave a glimpse into the perverse humor of Alex’s world. He displayed his superiority wordlessly, banging out hailstorms of Latin-style percussion on the world’s loudest drums.

A $10,000 big-screen nature video for “Eagles Fly”—a ballad from Hagar’s 1987 I Never Said Goodbye album—became a nightly set piece. Sammy started slowly playing guitar by himself, and then the band joined him to create the big finish. “You throw another guitar player out there and Eddie’s not used to that,” Sammy told Guitar. “When I start playing I mean it, and he feels that. I say, `Come on, motherfucker, you can kick my ass but you’re going to have to kick it good.’ It makes him play, and I like that aspect.”

Cutting back on his ritual pre-show bourbon, Michael Anthony began incorporating Bach fingerstepping phrases into his lengthy bass solo. He now had a Tabasco bass in his arsenal, but like the Jack Daniel’s instrument, the copyright holders got wind and ruined the innocent spirit of the tribute. Tabasco asked him for the bass to hang near their headquarters at the Hard Rock Cafe in New Orleans. They paid for Mike to build a new one, but to his chagrin the graphics weren’t as inspired the second time around. He remained the most easygoing member of the band, always flashing his 1977 smile. “I calm down once I’m onstage,” Mike told Guitar. “Audiences are different. It’s almost like meeting somebody famous for the first time–you start out nervous and then calm down.”

A new addition, former Night Ranger, Montrose, and Sammy Hagar band keyboardist Alan Fitzgerald, lurked in a dark tent off to the side of the stage, triggering prerecorded samples of special effects like strings, gongs, and bells. He also cued the keyboard lines for “Jump” and “Right Now” so Edward would be free to play guitar.

Sammy couldn’t be faulted for sharing some personal insight, but Van Halen’s audience hardly expected the world’s foremost sires of hard cock arena rock to lecture them about sensitivity. It seemed a little too late for Van Halen—especially after the F.U.C.K. album had strapped its male sexuality to the front of a locomotive and rammed it home.

European Leg

Believe it or not, this tour featured the band opening for Bon Jovi on the European leg of their tour. The reasoning behind this move was that the band needed to broaden their European fan base. What better way to do it then play alongside Bon Jovi, who are downright huge in Europe?  As opposed to the years of untouchable success they’d experienced in the United States, Van Halen were becoming a nonentity across the Atlantic, performing fewer than twenty dates in the past ten years. When they appeared with Roth on German and Italian television during their early years, the gaudy high kicks and smiling faces had impressed the dour Continental rock audiences, but in recent years Van Halen suffered for its lack of loyalty to the European rock community.

During the European trek with Bon Jovi, Alex was shocked when a fan asked after a concert if they had any other records besides Balance. “The tour is a rock and roll band and a bunch of posers together,” he told a German paper. “We indeed play the same venues Bon Jovi plays, but we simply wanted to play in front of as many people as possible. The sad thing about it is that he, Bon Jovi, tries to get some credibility out of it.”

Hoping to make their return to Europe a low-stress adventure, Van Halen only made problems for themselves. “That was pretty much a mess,” Mike later agreed. “We came away with a big following, but trying to handle Mr. Bon Jovi became a bit stressful after a while. He even complained to our manager that we wouldn’t come out after our set and watch his band play.”

The May 1995 open-air appearance with Bon Jovi in Eddie’s birthplace of Nijmegen was plagued by a Sammy Hagar wardrobe malfunction. Unfortunately, Sammy wore of an Ajax soccer jersey—representing the effete rival team from Amsterdam. Sammy’s gesture was about as welcome as a Chicago Bears jersey would be in Green Bay, Wisconsin.

A plethora of other bands also shared the bill on Van Halen’s European dates, including Thunder, Ugly Kid Joe, Crown of Thorns, Slash’s Snakepit, The Pretenders, Otto, Little Steven, Bad Moon Rising, and others.

Third and Fourth North American Legs 

Back in the States, the remaining dates had their share of highlights. In Minneapolis, a coterie of bald, chanting monks wearing red gowns, hailing from Gyuto Tantric University, opened the show with the hypnotic drones leading to “The Seventh Seal.” The Toronto show was recorded for a pay-per-view performance. To reward their crew for putting up with movie cameras, lights, and the extra labor, the band rented a boat and took their hardworking road dogs for a cruise around Lake Ontario.

In Denver, the crew began setting up as usual for an outdoor show. The forecast called for snow, in September—and for once, the weatherman was correct. The band performed through a pounding snowstorm , trading snowballs with the audience. Hagar slipped and fell on his ass. By the time they were done, nine inches of white stuff covered the city. Then on October 6, Van Halen were inducted into Hollywood’s Rock Walk, for their “significant contribution to the evolution of Rock and Roll as a universal art form.”

Yet in the view of many observers, management was milking Van Halen, forcing them to continue to work when they needed time apart and rest—especially Alex who was injured and wearing a neckbrace.

The band finished its tour with two dates in Hawaii in early November 1995. Hagar married his girlfriend , model Kari Karte, on November 29.

USA Harvest

The band continued collecting food for USA Harvest, asking for fans to bring canned food to concerts. Donations far surpassed the contributions from 1993, totaling over 360,000 cans. The Presidential Points of Light Foundation had celebrated the charity in 1994. Now for their ongoing efforts Van Halen were invited to the White House by President Clinton. Against all advice, they declined. “I don’t dig the guy,” Hagar told [Van Halen magazine]  The Inside . “I didn’t vote for the guy and I certainly wouldn’t vote for him again. The only thing I’ll say good about Clinton is that I like what he’s doing to the cigarette companies. No one’s ever fought those people before. “

Michael Anthony 

Mike added a nod to J.S. Bach’s “Toccata and Fugue” in D minor (recognized by many as the macabre organ piece from the Phantom of the Opera) to his bass solo on this tour. His bass setup included five Music Man 4-string basses; two in metallic gold, two transparent red, and one sunburst. Each was outfitted with a 2TEK bridge designed by Anthony and Linn Ellsworth and were otherwise stock with the exception of an added thumb rest and the removal of the three-position pickup selector switches (the pickups were hardwired for series-only operation). All the basses were strung with Ernie Ball Hybrid Slinky strings, gauged .045 to .105. Rig-wise, Michael used three racks of gear. The first housed Samson UR-4 and UR-5D wireless receivers. His main rack consisted of two Ampeg SVT-Pro preamps, a Bradshaw switching system, a Custom Audio Electronis 3+ Tube Preamp (for the bass solo), two Roland SDE-3000 digital delays (set to 579 and 279 milliseconds), two Boss SE-70 multi-effects units (for distorted flange), and an Ampeg SVT-3000 power amp (used as a spare). The third rack housed three Ampeg SVT-300 300-watt mono tube amps; two power a pair of Ampeg SVT810Es each, and the third was a spare. He also kept some standby units from previous tours including an ADA flanger, an Electro-Harmonix Bass Micro-Synth, a Colorsound fuzz, and a Roland DC-30 chorus/echo unit.

Prior to the start of the tour, Mike teamed up with Peavey and tried out a CyberBass, a bass-to-MIDI controller that connects to a rackmount sound module. The CyberBass was a precursor to a similar concoction known as a MidiBass. He considered using it during his bass solo, but didn’t for unknown reasons.

Alex Van Halen

Alex drank a homemade garlic and carrot drink each night before taking the stage, that had a tendency to leave a rather garlicky-smell all around him and his drum kit. This practice made Alex the butt of many jokes. His solo featured a segment where he played against a recording of himself, showering the crowd with a rather Latinesque treat.

Edward Van Halen

Ed brought “Franky” out on the tour during the first leg, but ended up not using it for unknown reasons. Eddie also played one of his Ernie Ball Music Man guitars from time to time, which had black electrical tape covering the Music Man logo, probably due to the fact that he was now endorsing his new Peavey Wolfgang line. Early in the tour, Eddie began to experience intense pain in his hip, which was later diagnosed as Avascular Necrosis. It was common to see him standing relatively still for most of these shows, even sitting on a red, white and blacked striped stool on more than one occasion. By tour’s end however, he was much more active, either getting used to the pain or doing a hell of a job masking it. His solo featured several Roth-era song teasers including the verse section to “Mean Street” and the intro to “Runnin’ with the Devil”, as well as a nod to the 5-note communication sequence from the movie Close Encounters of the Third Kind. The final leg of the tour featured the guitarist following in Alex’s footsteps: he also played against a recording of himself.

• Big Fat Money

The band grossed a staggering $32.7 million in support of Balance . Other top grossing acts for the year included the Eagles with $56.6 million, the Grateful Dead, R.E.M. and Page & Plant.

Typical Set List:

• Right Now [or Seventh Seal]
• Why Can’t This Be Love
• Top of the World  [sometimes]
• Runaround [sometimes]
• The Seventh Seal
• Mine All Mine
• Can’t Stop Lovin’ You
• Feelin’
• Ain’t Talkin’ ‘Bout Love
• Guitar solo
• You Really Got Me
• One Way To Rock
• Poundcake [sometimes]
• Don’t Tell Me [sometimes]

This Balance tour page was written by VHND,  contributing writer CJ Chilvers and Ian Christe, author of   Everybody Wants Some: The Van Halen Saga.  Photos from VHND’s archives.

Below, watch the inaugural show of the ‘Balance’ tour — Pensacola, Florida 3/11/95!

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Tuesday, April 16th, 2024

The Tapes Archive

The 1984 tour, the fan-made van halen 1984 documentary episode 4.

The 1984 Van Halen tour marked the peak of their mainstream success, with the original lineup inching closer to their downfall. Despite grossing millions in ticket sales, the tour exposed cracks within the band. The tour featured a massive stage setup, new performance elements, and MTV’s highly successful “Lost Weekend” contest. Behind the scenes, substance abuse and egos were causing turmoil. The band members’ struggles and conflicts culminated in the possible mistreatment of Michael Anthony, leading to a change in his contract terms. David Lee Roth’s solo endeavors further strained relations. The Monsters of Rock tour in Europe marked the last time the original Van Halen lineup would perform together. The tour’s success and backstage issues symbolized Van Halen’s rise and fall.

The 1984 Tour transcript:

The tour for 1984 was the pinnacle for Van Halen, grossing over $15 million in ticket sales alone. It’s also where the final cracks would start to show and lead soon after to a complete breakdown.

When concerts first started becoming mainstream in the ‘60s and ‘70s, the primary way to make money was only through ticket sales. By the early ’80s, Van Halen’s manager, Noel Monk, convinced the boys to all chip in $50k and start a merchandising company. Most bands at the time would farm out merchandise to companies like famed concert promoter Bill Graham’s Winterland. Within a couple of years, this move paid off huge dividends. By 1982, Van Halen was making $250k a night on the merchandise alone, and half of that was pure profit.

Sponsorship Deal: In 1983, the new revenue stream for the concert business was the highly lucrative and low-maintenance world of sponsorship. Monk was able to score a sponsorship deal with Sparkomatic, a company specializing in high-end audio products, primarily for the automotive industry. The band would receive $1.2 million upfront, plus additional revenue for advertising. In return, they would put the company’s name on some of their licensed merchandise in tiny letters, which seemed like easy money to Monk.

But when Monk presented the deal to Roth over the phone, Roth was not impressed and said he’d never heard of Sparkomatic. Roth supposedly put Monk on hold and informed the rest of the band, and they said “No.” According to Monk, Roth didn’t present it to the band. Or it was the shortest band meeting ever. Roth returned and said, “You want to get us a sponsorship, fine. Make it Marlboro or Levi’s. Otherwise, it’s fuck you.”

Monk, dumbfounded, went back to Sparkomatic and told them the deal was off. A couple of weeks later, Alex asked Monk if he could ask if he could still get the deal. But Monk couldn’t; by then, Sparkomatic had given the sponsorship deal to Supertramp. It’s incredible rather than getting paid for allowing Sparkomatic to put its logo on some of its merchandise; Van Halen ended up negotiating with another company to allow them to use a portion of its logo. That business was Western Exterminator Company, whose logo included a character known as The Little Man, a dapper gent in a black coat and top hat wielding a huge wooden mallet, presumably used to obliterate various types of pests in the greater L.A. area. Roth loved this image and wanted to use The Little Man as a mascot for the 1984 tour. Monk made the deal, and The Little Man was plastered everywhere for the tour.

Roth would, of course, rewrite history and only tell his version to the press when asked if they tried to get a sponsor. “We went after a sponsor and tried to get them to put up some money and then we could be in their advertisements and help sell their stereos and their toothpaste or whatever, and nobody wanted us. I guess our image was wrong. So, we decided that we’ll be the first band to sponsor a company. So we took the logo from the Western Exterminator Company in Los Angeles.”

Stage: The 1984 touring stage was one of the biggest ever taken on tour. One hundred seventy-five tons of equipment (including 1.5 million watts of light) loaded onto nine trucks and five buses, with a crew of 75 members. Van Halen gave custom Van Halen rings to all the crew members at the end of the tour.

“Metropolis,” designed by Pete Angelus and Roth, was a collection of metal beams, grids, spotlights, speakers, and backdrops. During the final encore each night, a massive light setup spelled out 1984.

Although their PA was one of the loudest at the time, many speakers on stage were just props. The top wall of the speakers was a curtain with speakers printed on it. Every so often, a breeze would come from backstage, and the whole thing moved. The ’84 stage was the same as the ’81 Fair Warning tour, except for more lighting, a more expansive stage with platforms, and a different backdrop. The backdrop with the speakers was from the Diver Down tour. The three backdrops for 1984 were the sky/clouds with the rigging, the hammer guy, and the same pattern as the stage floor.

New Elements to the show: The band unveiled several new aspects to their live show on this tour. Eddie played keyboards for “I’ll Wait” and “Jump,” with the latter featuring a guitar solo entirely on keys. David Lee Roth took his turn in the solo spotlight, bringing out his inner Elvis Presley by doing a kung fu-style sword dance. The dance, known as “Dave’s Tai Chi Solo,” was developed by Roth and kung fu master Paulie Zink and performed against a rousing synthesizer backdrop from Edward. That same instrumental piece also appeared in the 1984 movie scored by Edward, The Wild Life.

Edward brought a new aspect to his unaccompanied guitar solo spotlight by adding his newly patented guitar gear. He outfitted his guitar with a clear, plexiglass tray table that allowed him to lay the guitar flat, perpendicular to his body. He would then hammer out chords with both hands on the neck. The technique began taking shape in 1982 but only surfaced on this tour. He patented the tray table, thinking that slide players might get use out of it, though it has never been marketed.

T-Shirt Band: For the first part of the tour, Van Halen needed what they called a “T-shirt band,” a.k.a. a band that nobody wants to watch, and they go and buy a Van Halen T-Shirt when they’re playing. Nowadays you could just go to VanHalenStore.com and buy official shirts but back then concerts was the main place to pick up new gear. Autograph got the nod to fill the opening act slot without having a record deal or an album out. Autograph’s drummer Keni Richards was a jogging partner of Roth’s. So Roth pushed for Autograph to open for Van Halen, and after hearing their band tape, Eddie and the boys agreed to let the band open up many dates on the 1984 tour. It was reported on the first night of the tour that Autograph was unannounced and unadvertised. Horrified when the lights dimmed at 8:30 and a bunch of guys who were not Van Halen came out on stage, fans unanimously rejected them. Autograph endured a never-ending barrage of garbage and insults tossed at it. Roundly booed at the end of each tune, the group left the stage after six songs. The second half of the tour was opened by the forgettable band The Velcros.

The North American arena tour consisted of 101 dates between January and July 1984, including two- and sometimes three-night stands in several cities. Van Halen did not need a lot of promotions to put butts in seats, but one idea they had was incredibly successful.

MTV’s Lost Weekend: When MTV announced its Lost Weekend with Van Halen contest in early 1984, the network received over one million postcard entries for a chance to spend three days with the band during their 1984 tour. The promotion’s title was inspired by the 1945 Billy Wilder film, The Lost Weekend, about an alcoholic on a four-day binge. What Van Halen got in return would be $2 million worth of free advertising for their tour and album.

MTV’s Martha Quinn announced that winner Kurt Jefferis and his best friend would be flying to Detroit, where they “barely survived” the April 5 and 6 shows at the Cobo Arena.

MTV did not know that the winner, Jefferis, had a metal plate in his head from a tragic accident a few months before. One misstep and Jefferis could have quickly gone back into a coma with a good chance of dying. That fact did not stop Jefferis from snorting coke, drinking Jack, and partying with the band. Roth even got him laid by a stripper named Tammy. By the last night, Jefferis’ best friend, his plus-one for the trip, was worried about Jefferis and came clean to the MTV folks about his accident. MTV, worried about the legal implications if their winner died under their watch, quickly locked him up in his hotel room until it was time for him to go home. Jefferis would later say: “How many people can say they smoked a fatty with David Lee Roth, man? It was a high point, a once-in-a-lifetime experience.”

Decay from within: Watching the band via MTV made it look like they were the best of friends and at a party that would never end. But as everyone knows today, that wasn’t the case. Although the 1984 tour would be one of the year’s highest-grossing tours, it would be the band’s last.

Their manager from 1979-1985, Noel Monk, details many indicators in his book that the band was falling apart during the 1984 tour in more ways than one. He would also publicize how three of the four band members would unfairly treat the nicest guy in the group.

According to Monk, here are some of the cracks in the band’s future looking glass:

• By now, Alex was a full-blown alcoholic having to drink pretty much anytime he was awake to starve off alcohol-withdrawal syndrome. This led to bad decision-making, like telling Monk’s wife he wanted to have sex with her while sitting right behind Monk on an airplane.
• Eddie had a personal coke dealer that would fly around and meet him on tour.* Eddie had to take many cash advances to fill his Peruvian flakes bottles. Eddie liked the booze as well. Others said this was not true.
• Roth would also partake in coke, weed, and alcohol, but the worst thing about Roth on that tour, according to Monk, was his ego and his dictatorial preening. Roth would order everyone around during soundcheck and then point out everyone’s little mistake at the post-concert meal.

Backstage after the show, Dave held court in the Van Halen hospitality area as if still performing. He set up his PA system and indulged as only he could ever do. Meanwhile, the rest of the band were like wallflowers, anxious to leave the crime scene, as it were. And each band member had their own limousine standing by to whisk them back to their hotel, communications between the four virtually non-existent.

Journalist Malcolm Dome confirmed Roth’s meanness firsthand backstage after the Vancouver show. He said: “That night in Vancouver, Dave humiliated the rest of the band — either unwittingly or deliberately (personally, I think the latter). It was as if he was on a solo tour. If there was a moment for me when it became obvious that Van Halen in its original state was over, then this was it. Dave Roth was playing for high stakes; the rest of the band were simply biding their time before finally ridding themselves of the man who was becoming their nemesis.”

DEA Band: Monk would call Van Halen the DEA Band: drugs, ego, alcohol. Besides the rampant drug and alcohol abuse, all three would go to Monk and bitch and moan about the other band members. One night they all surprisingly unified to team up against, by all accounts, the nicest, most humble person in the band: Michael Anthony.

It was a typical post-concert meal, with Roth telling everyone what they did wrong when Ed spoke up. Not to put Roth in his place, but to call out not only Anthony’s performance but also his role in the band.

Excerpt from Monk’s book: “Michael doesn’t contribute as much as the rest of us,” Edward observed. “Michael doesn’t write music or lyrics. Why does Michael get the same share as the rest of us?” Al jumped in behind Edward, asking the same sorts of questions and offering similar observations about Michael’s value — or lack thereof — to the band. For the most part, Michael just sat there quietly and took it — until David stood up from his seat, a plate of food in hand, and walked around the table. He stopped when he reached Michael’s seat and stood over him for a moment, glaring menacingly but saying nothing. Without saying a word, David slammed his full plate of food down on top of Michael’s full plate. The effect was startling. Food went flying everywhere. Glasses tipped over and shattered. Silverware fell to the floor. And all conversation stopped. Anthony said nothing, stood up, and walked out of the room.

A couple of weeks later, the trio returns to Monk and says, “We want to cut Michael out of the royalties.” They felt since he didn’t write any of the music, he didn’t deserve writing credit or song royalties. (I guess they forgot that neither did Alex.) And not only moving forward but also for the latest album, 1984, which had already been released. At the top of their fame and fortune, they decided to renege on someone that was with them essentially since the beginning. [Insert Jeff Spicoli. “You Dick”] You don’t hear anyone talk bad about Michael Anthony; not even notorious ballbuster and Van Halen photographer Neil Zlozower has a bad word to say about Anthony.

New Contract: On June 20th, 1984, Michael Anthony, on his 30th birthday, signed a new agreement with Van Halen where he was no longer entitled to any writing credits or royalties derived from publishing from the 1984 album and moving forward.

Since he already had a contract, why did Anthony sign this new agreement? Was he afraid that Van Halen would kick him out of the band in the middle of the tour if he didn’t sign it?

Around the same time, Ed was showing nimble-fingered bassist Billy Sheehan the 1984 concert stage and floated the possibility of him joining Van Halen. The Talas bassist was interested, but there was no official offer. This might have been Ed’s backup plan if he needed to let Anthony go because he didn’t sign the new contract.

Why did Roth, Alex, and Ed decide to do this to their band brother at this time, amid the height of their fame? Could it have been a deep-rooted jealousy of Anthony? Angry with him because he wasn’t as miserable as they were? Anthony was happily married, could party within reason, was well-loved by everyone, and seemed to be the only one genuinely grateful at this point for being in Van Halen.

Or was it a fair and equitable move and something that had been building for years? Roth and especially Ed did write the music and deserved fair compensation for their role in the band. And it had been ten years since they had sat down at Dave’s father’s mansion and decided to split the writing credits — and therefore the royalty money — four ways. If you read Steve Rosen’s Tonechaser, you will see that Ed loved Anthony but was irked by him way before the 1984 tour, and maybe rightly so. Anthony was well aware of this issue before being asked to sign the new contract.

In May of 1982, Rosen posed the question of why they didn’t have a publishing agreement between him and Roth like Lennon and McCartney or Page and Plant. Ed responded with: “Jimmy Page and Plant didn’t have a brother in the band cuz I love my brother, and I don’t give a fuck. The only person that eats my ass away is Mike because he makes as much as Al, Dave, and I, and he does nothing. He does nothing, but I feel sorry for him because if he was ever out of this band, he would never play again because he’s not good enough.”

According to Ed, Anthony was never around to jam with and never brought one idea to the band. Ed said: “He walks around like he’s Joe Bitching when he does nothing. I’m telling ya, ya can ask out Al, ya can ask Dave, ya can ask Valerie, ya can ask Noel, you can ask anybody. He does nothing, but he’s part of the band.”

Anthony had almost been kicked out for these reasons before, but he was allowed to stay on the agreement that he showed up every time the band got together, even if he didn’t have anything to add.

Ed went on to say, “Mike doesn’t deserve anything. He should just be paid $100 a week for playing. But you can’t do that because he’s part of the band now, and he has been since the first album. What the fuck do you do? Oh, god. What am I doing?”

As far as I could find, Michael Anthony has never spoken publicly about any of this. With the exception of some Roth comments, he almost always takes the high road when talking about Van Halen.

Late breaking Van Halen news alert: Just as I was about to publish this video, I got word from a very reliable inside source that although Anthony did sign this new contract, it was never enforced. And in late April 2023, Sammy Hagar appeared on the Steve O podcast and implied that Anthony owned an equal 4th of the publishing. Saying “because we co-wrote everything publishing as a team the four…Eddie and I wrote everything Mike and Alex publishing company and yessup recording was owned by all of us equally ” So, as with a lot of Van Halen information..Who the fuck knows.

The last straw: The U.S. leg of the 1984 tour ended on July 16th, 1984; it would start back up for a short Monsters of Rock tour in Europe a little over a month later. Never wanting to waste a moment, Roth headed to New York to lay down his vocal tracks for his first solo album.

In the early summer of ‘84, while Van Halen was touring, Templeman helped put together a killer group of musicians to help Roth croon four cover songs. (Edgar Winter would run point man for the musicians.) So Roth headed into Power Station Studio and knocked out four songs in under two weeks. (Or, according to Roth, in four days.) Templeman did not believe Roth had plans to leave Van Halen at the time. He thought it was a good idea too. Templeman said: “As a label executive, I thought the EP was a good move. It would keep Dave working and creating, we’d sell some records, and it would keep Van Halen, via Dave, in the public eye for a few months in early 1985. If I’d gotten even the slightest sense that he saw this as step one of David Lee Roth’s post–Van Halen solo career, I wouldn’t have done the record. I never ever wanted to do anything to threaten the future of Van Halen. I can’t emphasize this enough.”

To be fair to Roth, it’s not like this was the first time a member had stepped outside the Van Halen family and recorded with someone else. Eddie had recorded several things outside the band, with one of his contributions helping one album sell more copies than all the Van Halen albums combined. That album is still today the best-selling record of all time.

In the late summer of 1982, producer Quincy Jones and Michael Jackson were determined to make a rock song that would appeal to all tastes and spent weeks looking for a suitable guitarist for the song “Beat It.” They decided they wanted the Dutch Master Eddie Van Halen. Jones got Ed’s number via Templeman, but when Jones called Ed, Ed thought it was a prank and hung up on him. They got it sorted; Eddie went to the studio and nailed the song in two takes after doing a bit of rearranging, and in Ed’s mind, that was it. He thought no one would ever know it was him in the song. And against his manager’s advice, Ed took $0 in fees. One of the main reasons this song would win over the mainstream is Eddie’s R&B/rock riff flavor that opened up rock radio to Jackson. He deserved to be paid but did not want it. In late 2022 “Beat It” studio musician and friend to Eddie, Steve Lukather, revealed that Eddie actually did the solo at 5150. With 5150 not being built by the time “Beat It” was recorded, it’s very probable Lukather is mistaken about where the solo was recorded.

The following year in April of 1983, Queen’s Brian May invited Ed out for a jam session which turned into the album Brian May and Friends Star Fleet Project. Besides both being soft-spoken, incredible musicians, they shared the challenges of dealing with a flamboyant and headstrong lead singer.

You can see the similarities in band dynamics in May’s response to a question posed to him at the time.

For context, May was coming off of one of Queen’s worst-received albums, Hot Space, which was Freddie Mercury-driven and not to the liking of the more rocking May.

Reporter: “A lot of the Outside World who do think about Queen probably think it’s Freddie’s band. He thinks of a direction, everyone fights a bit, but generally follows meekly behind. True?”

May’s response: “It’s a continual fight, because we all have very definite ideas of what direction we want to go in, and none of them are the same. It’s a continual battle, and it’s very democratic, and it’s very painful. Most of the time when we’re recording, it’s hell. You have this constant dividing line between being up and positive about what you’re doing, and the other side is that you may be trying to push what you want down someone else’s throat, and maybe the other three will take it for a little while but in the end, they’ll say, ‘No, this is rubbish, we hate it, stop pushing.’ And that’s what’s happened a lot.”

In the summer of 1983, Ed wrote three synthesizer songs (one of which included a guitar solo) for his wife’s made-for-TV movie, The Seduction of Gina.

In early 1984, Eddie started to work on music for Cameron Crowe’s pseudo-follow-up to Fast Times at Ridgemont High, Wild Life. None of the score was officially released, except for the track, “Donut City.”

One instrumental from these sessions got reused for the much bigger film Back to the Future.

So in the span of a year and a half and near the end of the height of Van Halen’s fame, Eddie recorded many tracks that would end up in three movies, jammed with a renowned guitarist from a legendary band that turned into an album, patented a piece of guitar gear, helped produce a record for Frank Zappa’s son, built a home studio, and recorded on an album that would end up blocking 1984 from the #1 spot on the charts. (And he performed live with Jackson during the 1984 tour.) Plus, if Ed had had his way, he would have also produced and played on the Allan Holdsworth’s album.

Even in the early years of Van Halen, Ed played outside the group. In 1977, Alex and Eddie recorded with Gene Simmions of KISS, and in 1978, Ed played on the Templeman-produced album by Nicolette Larson. He also played on Tim Bogert’s (Vanilla Fudge) “Don’t Leave Me This Way” in 1983.

There is nothing wrong with Ed doing all these side gigs, and I get why Roth thought it was no big deal for him to record four basically throw-away cover songs on his own. But this would be cited repeatedly by many people as the last straw for Edward.

When David Lee Roth first heard “Beat It,” he thought someone was ripping off Ed’s licks. But then he found out it was actually Eddie. Roth said: “It was at that point I said maybe I’ll do something on the side as well. Certainly, nothing that would conflict with what we were about as Van Halen, but I’ll keep my eye open. It was some months later when I was in Mexico with my trusted assistant, Ed Anderson. We were sitting under a thatched-roof, empty little bar out in Playa Blanca, looking out upon the sea, and the Beach Boys were on the stereo. Ed said to me, ‘You should do this song.’ It was ‘California Girls.’” This novel idea — combined with Ed already working outside the group, and the frustration of wasting time sitting outside for hours at Ed’s 5150 studio hoping he’d wake up so they could work — led Roth to wonder: Why can’t I do a solo album?

According to Roth, everyone in the Van Halen camp knew of his solo pursuits. But accounts from Monk and Anthony say the first time the band knew about it was while waiting for a Concorde flight to their European Monsters of Rock shows.

Michael said: “I remember we were going to Europe, and we were sitting at the airport, and he played us the tape, the EP of the songs that were going to be on the album. I thought it was pretty shitty that he’d always get on Edward’s case because he was being approached to do different things like ‘Beat It’ and all kinds of different things. And Roth was, ‘If this affects me, I want to know.’ And then all of the sudden, one day he goes, ‘Hey, I got these four songs that Ted Templeman and I are going off and doing’… He plays us this tape and it’s like, “Mmm, yeah, good.” I wasn’t going to tell him to his face that I thought it stunk.”

Eddie’s public response in 1984 was very diplomatic. He said: “I think it’s something he always wanted to do. I think it’s great he’s actually doing it.” But privately, Ed thought of it as a novelty item and felt betrayed.

Monsters of Rock: After an exhaustive U.S. tour, Van Halen decided not to tour Europe extensively. Instead, after a four-year hiatus from Europe, they decided to join the multi-band Monsters of Rock tour for five dates. Sandwiched between openers Motley Crue, Dio, Ozzy Osbourne, and other bands, and headliners AC/DC.

For the most part, the band’s five European dates were standard shows — full of Roth’s swaggering wise-ass, spectacular stage presence and energy. (At the Castle Donington gig, he took what may have been a slight jab at Ed by saying to the crowd: “Michael Jackson ain’t got shit on heavy metal.”) And the band played with enthusiasm as they did nine months earlier at the start of the tour in Jacksonville, Florida.

Backstage at Castle Donington, Ed was starting to show his frustrations — with Roth, presumably — by lashing out at others.

World-renowned rock photographer Ross Halfin relayed his dark encounter with Ed. “I remember shooting them onstage, and Edward was smiling at me, so I was smiling back. I went backstage to see them afterwards, and Eddie was hanging out with Neal Schon from Journey and John Entwistle from the Who, so I took a few photos. Then Eddie said, ‘Hey, fag, what’s your fucking problem?’ I said, ‘What?’ And their tour manager said, ‘Oh, look, just ignore him.’ But he kept going, ‘What’s your fucking problem, fag? Smiling at me like a fucking fag.’ He just turned completely nasty. I realized he was drunk, and when he was drunk, he could turn from the nicest, most charming guy to the most horrible person in the world.”

According to Noel Monk, Ed was backstage with Neal Schon of Journey ungraciously noting that Michael Anthony’s solo, which the crowd loved (even though he ripped his pants in the middle of it), had been composed and spoon-fed to the bassist by Edward. “I had to teach him that,” Edward said. “Every note.” Later, Edward had a meltdown in the dressing room after their set, provoked by a guitar glitch during the show.

On September 2, 1984, in Nuremberg, Germany, after an encore of “Happy Trails,” the band, with the original lineup, would never perform together again. Unknown to everyone, the Van Halen we loved was over.

Copyright 2023 The Tapes Archive LLC

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Why Eddie Van Halen’s Loved Ones Ordered Pizza to His Hospital Room Moments After His Death (Exclusive)

The rocker died from cancer at age 65 in October 2020

Liz McNeil is an Editor at Large at PEOPLE, where she's worked for over 30 years.

wolf van halen/ Instagram

Eddie Van Halen ’s family celebrated his life with one of the musician's favorite foods.

Van Halen died in the hospital, at age 65 in October 2020 from throat cancer, with his ex wife Valerie Bertinelli holding one hand and their son, Wolfgang Van Halen , holding the other.

"I didn't want to believe it was happening. Even while it was happening, I wasn't believing it was happening," Bertinelli , 63, tells PEOPLE for this week's cover story.

The group, which also included Eddie's brother Alex, and his two sons, found comfort with one of his favorite foods.

"I forget who suggested it, but we were like, 'Should we have pizza?' ... Because he couldn't eat, and the last thing Ed really wanted was pizza," Bertinelli says. "He loved pizza and burritos, so we had pizza in his hospital room. I hope people don't think that's morbid."

"He knew how much I loved him," she recalls. "I knew how much he loved me. The last words he said to me and to Wolfie were, 'I love you.' Ed was very giving with his heart. He wore it on his sleeve."

Never miss a story — sign up for PEOPLE's free daily newsletter to stay up-to-date on the best of what PEOPLE has to offer, from celebrity news to compelling human interest stories.

Wolfgang revealed his dad's death at the time on social media. "I can't believe I'm having to write this, but my father, Edward Lodewijk Van Halen, has lost his long and arduous battle with cancer this morning," he wrote in a post. "He was the best father I could ask for. Every moment I've shared with him on and off stage was a gift."

"My heart is broken and I don't think I'll ever recover from this loss," he added. "I love you so much, Pop."

Bertinelli and Eddie were married for 20 years.

“I continued for years to rewrite the facts in my head and build them into some sort of fantasy," the the Indulge author tells PEOPLE. "But now I know we were never going to get back together. We were becoming kinder souls to one another. Our bond was the unconditional love we had for our son.”

For more on Valerie Bertinelli, pick up the latest issue of PEOPLE on newsstands now.

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