While the quintessential American hard rock band Van Halen is on the road once again, this time supporting their new album, “A Different Kind Of Truth,” the syndicated radio series "In The Studio" felt it's a good time to examine the early years of the band. Van Halen’s 1978 debut quickly became a benchmark for every hard rock band ever since , and six years later they even … [Read more...]
My Introduction To The Mighty Van Halen
By Doug Fox Photos by Mitch Hancock from March 31, 1979 in Logan, Utah. There are moments of clarity in every person’s life that are ingrained in one’s memory so completely as to almost be imprinted on the DNA. Most people, for example, can tell you exactly where they were and what they were doing when world-altering events occurred. Personally, I find that this phenomenon … [Read more...]
Van Halen Turbo-Pop
Here's a tale from Van Halen's 1979 "World Vacation" tour, from David Lee Roth's autobiography "Crazy from The Heat": Pretty soon, we were opening for bigger and bigger bands. In early '79, we were playing at the Los Angeles Coliseum, some ninety thousand people, Aerosmith was top bill. And I had an idea of a way to make an entrance, having gone down to the stadium to see … [Read more...]
The Mosh Pit: Van Halen & Van Halen II
Embed from Getty Images From 411Mania.com: By Dan Haggerty Running With The Devil Eddie and Alex Van Halen started their music career humbly as kids in the 60's. Eddie played the drums and Alex played the guitar. That rather odd sounding arrangement came to an end when, according to Eddie, Alex would sneak onto his drums so one day he just gave up and told Alex … [Read more...]
Video: Opening night of Van Halen’s 1979 tour!
A look at the upgraded 1979 Fresno footage Posted by Scott Gilbert, VHND’s bootleg connoisseur, 4/20/10 Recently, the VHND brought you the first of two installments on the recently released upgrades of Van Halen’s performances at the Selland Arena in Fresno, California from September 22nd, 1978 (23 total minutes of footage)and March 25th, 1979 (32 minutes). We recounted … [Read more...]
Adam Bomb’s Van Halen stories
Guitarist Adam Bomb shares his story and personal photos from meeting Van Halen in the late seventies. The Van Halen portion below is from the full story on his Myspace page. His Van Halen story starts off in September of 1978. Adam was just a 15-year-old kid who was obsessed with rock 'n' roll, girls, smoking pot, and playing guitar, who just scored tickets to see Van … [Read more...]