Our friends at Ultimate Classic Rock put together an extensive article on how Van Halen’s set lists changed over their 14 tours, featuring three different singers.
From their barnstorming 1978 days as an opening act to their final shows as homecoming rock legends in 2015, Van Halen’s set lists changed a lot over their touring career.
Here’s a chronological breakdown of the average set lists from each of Van Halen’s 15 major tours, showing which songs were added from the group’s 12 studio albums for each new tour, and which were taken out of rotation.
Of course, Van Halen’s song choices often depended on who was their lead singer at the time of each tour. When Sammy Hagar took over for David Lee Roth in 1986, he was careful to lean more heavily on his own work with the band instead of filling half the show with Roth-era classics.
Upon his return to the group in 2007, Roth drew an even clearer line in the sand, never singing a single Hagar-era song during any of the group’s three final tours. As for Gary Cherone? In his brief time as the group’s frontman he was an equal opportunity singer.
With data from SetList.fm, here’s a look at how Van Halen’s set lists evolved between 1978 and 2015.
It should be noted that each entry below is focused on the average set lists for each tour – sometimes Van Halen would switch things up for a show or two, or for a portion of the tour. It’s also a bit hard to track instrumental songs such as “Eruption” and “Cathedral,” which start out getting their own spot on the set list but were eventually subsumed into Eddie Van Halen’s nightly guitar solo showcase.
1978 World Tour
After years of honing their performance and songwriting skills on the club scene, Van Halen exploded onto the rock world at large with their self-titled 1978 debut album.
The group capitalized by performing a staggering 174 shows that year, opening for – and often stealing the spotlight from – everybody from Journey to Ted Nugent to the Rolling Stones. Although they understandably focused on material from their first album, they would occasionally sneak in “Somebody Get Me a Doctor,” which wound up on their second album.
Typical 1978 World Tour Set List
1. “On Fire”
2. “I’m the One”
3. Bass Solo
4. “Runnin’ With the Devil”
5. “Atomic Punk”
6. Drum Solo
7. “Little Dreamer”
8. “Feel Your Love Tonight”
9. “Ain’t Talkin’ ’bout Love”
10. Guitar Solo
11. “You Really Got Me” (Kinks cover)
12. “Ice Cream Man” (John Brim cover)
Songs per album:
Van Halen: 9
1979 ‘World Vacation’ Tour
Van Halen kept the pedal to the metal in 1979, releasing Van Halen II just thirteen months after their debut, taking advantage of the large backlog of original material they had assembled before signing a record deal…
Read the rest at Ultimate Classic Rock.