Tag: Pretty Woman

Van Halen – ‘Destruction in Dallas: Reunion Arena, Dallas, Tx – November 18, 1982’ (Bootleg) – Album Review

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There is no better feeling than out vinyl digging and find something unexpected like a bootleg. Make that bootleg Van Halen and make there be two different ones there by Van Halen and that is why I love collecting. Those little surprises and the first one I already reviewed.. It is a soundboard recording from April 3, 1978 and recorded at the Pogo’s Night Club and Discotheque in Wichita, Kansas. The other bootleg I found was Van Halen’s Destruction in Dallas. Recorded on November 18, 1982 at Reunion Arena in Dallas, TX in front of a sold out show of over 19,000 screaming fans. This recording is a soundboard recording, although not a great one. The sound is really low, you can hear everything, but you really have to turn it up and it never gets loud enough for me which does detract from the show a little.

But Michael Anthony, Alex Van Halen, David Lee Roth and Eddie Van Halen due to all out and I am sure the fans had a great time at the show. This was the Diver Down/Hide Your Sheep 1982 Tour. Now, the copy I have of this bootleg is on 2 LPs and both colored. We get a beautiful red one for Sides A/B and a white on for Sides C/D. The track list appears to be accurate from what I’ve seen and the last three songs on Side D are actually demos of songs that have not seen the light of day on any release.

The album opens up with an enthusiastic introduction from the announcer and the band goes in to “Romeo’s Delight” with Eddie’s guitar throwing riffs out like they were candy. Dave “woahing” and screaming as he forgot the fucking words (as he tells the crowd). Someone might be a little hammered already and we are only at the first song. Not a good sign of things to come. Sound quality wise, the sound is a little hollow for the instruments. And I have it cranked and still hard to hear the instruments. Dave is clear, Eddie’s guitar is clear, but the rest not so much. Oh, and the backing vocals are pretty loud too.

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Van Halen – “Pretty Woman” – 45 Single

Published on by 2loud2oldmusic33 Comments

When I was on vacation during this past Summer, I found a ton of 45 Singles with the Picture Sleeves at a place called House of Vinyl and I ended buying 7 Van Halen 45’s. First up last week was “Dance the Night Away” from 1979. And second we have the song “Pretty Woman” off the band’s album ‘Diver Down’ from 1982.

The copy I found was interesting to me. First was the fact the song was called “Pretty Woman” and not “(Oh) Pretty Woman”. When the single was first released, it went without the (Oh) part of the title and later issues corrected that and put the (Oh) back in. So that tells me I have an original issue copy. The second thing I found interesting is that the back cover of the picture sleeve has the flip side being “Happy Trials” which was actually the B-Side on the album. However, this copy is a promotional copy and it only has “Pretty Woman” on Side A and Side B. One Mono version and one Stereo version like the last one. That got me thinking was this in the wrong cover and what I can find is that it is not. It looks like they slipped the Promo copies in the same sleeve as the actual single to the public at least according to what I found on Discogs.

Another thing I thought was cool about the label on the Single was how the Engineer, Donn Landee, was actually listed. That does not happen very often. According to Ted Templeman’s book, he feels that he couldn’t be as a good as a producer he was without the help of an amazing engineer and Donn was that to him. He wanted Donn to get as much credit for these albums and songs as he did so he had his name added. Pretty freaking cool if you ask me.

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