WHAT A TEMPER!: YOUNG AND WILD, NOW AND THEN

Saturday, January 24, 2009

YOUNG AND WILD, NOW AND THEN

Another week evaporates. The evenings following The Killers concert were spent looking for and downloading a half dozen of their concerts stretching back to 2006, all of which were of fairly good quality. What I noticed is that there aren't very many bootleg recordings available that can easily be found on the net, not the seemingly hundreds of recordings available for Van Halen. While in the process of doing this I got to wondering whether this was the beginning of the end for my year of Van Halen, believing that new sounds were going to push them aside. The answer was obvious once I popped in that CD and Eddie's guitar filled my ears. Nope. Not yet.

This Friday night I decided to do something a little different. Not one but two concerts, with Van Halen opening for The Killers. A 30 year difference in time. Both were rocking good shows.

Van Halen opened up with their October 15, 1977 appearance at the Pasadena Civic Auditorium in California. Dave announces that they won't be appearing at this venue again (incorrect in that they appeared again at the Civic Auditorium 5 days later). This show took place 5 months before they were to go on their world tour following the release of their first album Van Halen on February 10, 1978. And because this show takes place shortly before they released the album, the set lit is the same one they used during the 1978 tour. Very good quality recording, great performance before an enthusiastic audience.

Download it here:

http://www.mediafire.com/?50mf0mq2dyi

Part two of tonight's show was The Killers, appearing at the Royal Albert Hall in London, UK on November 3, 2008. Very good audience recording, also before a very loud and enthusiastic crowd. The set list was pretty much the same as when they appeared here in Denver, with some of the songs switched around in different order. Good show that kept me bouncing to their beat right up until midnight. Brandon Flowers is not nearly as chatty as Dave was in Pasadena 30 years ago!