Van Halen Donnington 1984

[Seshmeister]

EDIT: PREVIOUSLY THIS WAS ON YOUTUBE BUT IT KEEPS BEING TAKEN DOWN. YOU CAN DOWNLOAD IT AT THIS LINK

https://mega.nz/file/nJ1TjbBK#EZVOLg...r1ttfHRPzYalnk




Finally the long lost video of Van Halen at the Monsters Of Rock Festival at Donington Park on the 18th August 1984 has come to light.

After a set-closing Panama, frontman David Lee Roth famously told the crowd, "we're going to take a little bit of film back to the United States, and show them how England fucking does it." Four more shows and Van Halen was over.

It's not perfect and the sound drifts in and out but it's kind of unique in that it's a single onstage camera kind of like your view if you were the keyboard player.

There are audio decent bootlegs of this so it won't be long until someone marries the two up.

The full set on the day was

Unchained
Hot for Teacher
On Fire
Runnin' With the Devil
Little Guitars
House of Pain
Bass Solo
I'll Wait
Everybody Wants Some!!
Oh, Pretty Woman
1984
Jump
Guitar Solo
Panama

Encore:
You Really Got Me

Origins:
This footage was shot 39 years ago with a single camera "documentary" style on 35mm film,
with exc mono sound (maybe stereo, but def not soundboard) probably recorded on a Nagra tape recorder.
The crew consisted of a cameraman, sound recordist and a camera assistant.
The camera operator had only about 10 minutes of film, before he had to switch to a new magazine and continue shooting. That's why there are so many edits.
It's my guess that this footage was paid for by the band for their personal archives, and eventually it was edited and transferred via telecine to videotape.

If you read this photocopy of the ledger from the Van Halen archive at Pacific Title
(https://postlmg.cc/G4SFsYYg) you can see this footage listed at the top of the page.
It lists the length at 67min total, which what this footage is which means that this is all the footage from this camera from this show that exists.

BUT
If you watch this film closely you can see two other camera crews shooting this show.
So you had:
1. This camera, 35mm film, hired by the band.
2. A BBC 35mm film camera, shooting for "Old Grey Whistle Test" in the pit in front of Ed during "Hot for Teacher". That footage is already on YT.
3. A video crew as well shooting for the IMAG video screens at the festival. Those cameras consist of 2 handheld tube video cameras in the pit downstage left and right, as well as a tube video camera on a dolly on Ed's side that doesn't move much. You can see the video truck these cameras were connected to early on in this video behind Ed and Al when they were waiting to go onstage.
Who knows where that footage is?

[So this is love]

I had never seen this until last night. This is clear for 1984 and they were to release it back then...(what is professionally shot).

[FORD]

The Hot For Teacher clip from this show has been floating around YouTube for years, but this is definitely the first time the full set has shown up in any capacity I know of.

[Vinnie Velvet]

Wow!

[ZahZoo]

Now that's a fucking Van Halen concert!! Hell yeah!

[Fairwrning]

Awesome stuff after all these years...still skipped the bass solo

[Seshmeister]

£11 ($15) for AC/DC, Van Halen, Ozzy Osbourne, Gary Moore, Y&T, Accept and Motley Crue, 13 000 people turned up on the day and bought their ticket at the door.

[Fairwrning]

Last gig as the true Mighty Van Halen right?

[Fairwrning]

Shame you cant hear the audio after show..especially Entwistle and Ed..curious what Val said to Mike..not surprising no Dave..

[Seshmeister]

Last gig as the true Mighty Van Halen right?

No the festival actually toured Europe a little with different lineups, the last gig was in Nuremberg.


SEP 2 1984
Van Halen at Monsters of Rock Nuremberg 1984
Artist: Van Halen, Tour: Monsters of Rock 1984 , Venue: Städtisches Stadion, Nuremberg, Germany

SEP 1 1984
Van Halen at Monsters of Rock Karlsruhe 1984
Artist: Van Halen, Tour: Monsters of Rock 1984 , Venue: Wildparkstadion, Karlsruhe, Germany

AUG 31 1984
Van Halen at Monsters of Rock Switzerland 1984
Artist: Van Halen, Tour: Monsters of Rock 1984 , Venue: Schützenwiese, Winterthur, Switzerland

AUG 25 1984
Van Halen at Monsters of Rock Sweden 1984
Artist: Van Halen, Tour: Monsters of Rock 1984 , Venue: Råsunda Stadion, Stockholm, Sweden

AUG 18 1984
Van Halen at Monsters of Rock England 1984
Artist: Van Halen, Tour: Monsters of Rock 1984 , Venue: Donington Park, Castle Donington, England

[Rikk]

The Holy Fucking Grail. I just downloaded this to my personal collection...in case they take it down.

I love how life just jumps out and throws you a surprise out of nowhere.

This is...insane.

[Silexxx]

Original video has been taken down. Here's another link. Download it while you can.

[Seshmeister]

Fucking Alex Van Halen - we've waited 39 years for this...

[Jérôme Frenchise]

Better fuckin' late than never!

[Seshmeister]

Original video has been taken down. Here's another link. Download it while you can.

Has anyone got a reliable way to download YouTube videos?

[Silexxx]

Has anyone got a reliable way to download YouTube videos?

I just typed 'Youtube Downloader' in Google, picked the first link and pasted the youtube video link in the url box at the site.

I also have one of those Mozilla Firefox add-ons for downloading Youtube videos.

[Seshmeister]

Some of those online downloaders seemed dodgy. I've installed Firefox and the YouTube add-on and that's worked ok thanks.

[Vinnie Velvet]

This footage once again truly showcases Van Halen as they were....MIGHTY!

Sad that just four more shows afterwards it was going to be the end. Of course that was neither the plan nor was known to anyone at the time. Just like every other tour, Dave would go out to the jungles and the rest of the band would revert back to whatever they would do.

Then reconvene.

[twonabomber]

I just typed 'Youtube Downloader' in Google, picked the first link and pasted the youtube video link in the url box at the site.

I also have one of those Mozilla Firefox add-ons for downloading Youtube videos.

Struggling with Video Download Helper this morning but the first thing that came up on Google worked great.

[Seshmeister]

This footage once again truly showcases Van Halen as they were....MIGHTY!

Sad that just four more shows afterwards it was going to be the end. Of course that was neither the plan nor was known to anyone at the time. Just like every other tour, Dave would go out to the jungles and the rest of the band would revert back to whatever they would do.

Then reconvene.

Dave and Alex seem to still be on decent terms there, but not much interaction between Dave and Ed.

One can speculate that Yoko Bertinelli being there is possibly not helping things...

[Seshmeister]

Struggling with Video Download Helper this morning but the first thing that came up on Google worked great.

What was that first thing? It's probable that your google algorithm is pretty different from mine at this point...

[Vinnie Velvet]

Not that we needed any reassurance but this also shows the brilliance and energy of Dave. Its non stop. Even without even doing a high split jump during the show (I take it his knee was bothering him) And on top of it all singing his ass off. Try doing that while running a marathon which is what Dave was doing.

[Rikk]

I've used a program called Wondershare UniConverter for years. It's not free...I paid for a license...but it works flawlessly and I can download anything from YouTube in any resolution I like and quickly. I downloaded this Donington file in 30 seconds.

[Seshmeister]

The Mozilla thing worked fine but I think it may have lost a bit of resolution.

I want to get the best possible version so we can have it here for download if/when it gets pulled from YouTube permanently.

[twonabomber]

What was that first thing? It's probable that your google algorithm is pretty different from mine at this point...

https://en1.y2mate.is/CZA/

Didn't throw up any warnings in either Chrome or Firefox

[Seshmeister]

Looking at this more I think Firefox downloaded at 360p and the original was 480p so I'll try the y2mate thing again. First time I tried it didn't seem to work but it may have been because of my popup blockers and AV.

[Seshmeister]

Rumors that this video was part of Neil Monks private collection which would make sense...

[Rikk]

Rumors that this video was part of Neil Monks private collection which would make sense...

If true, I'm hoping that the pro-shot 1984 Largo show is coming too. THAT is the ultimate holy grail (and was listed in an official listing of Monk's archive possessions)...though this comes close.

[Vinnie Velvet]

If true, I'm hoping that the pro-shot 1984 Largo show is coming too. THAT is the ultimate holy grail (and was listed in an official listing of Monk's archive possessions)...though this comes close.

I have a feeling that will be the next thing to drop.

[Vinnie Velvet]

Wasnt there a story that said Ed and Al visited Noel?

Probably sometime in 2017-18. Around then.

To take a look at old videos for any potential release.

[FORD]

Looking at this more I think Firefox downloaded at 360p and the original was 480p so I'll try the y2mate thing again. First time I tried it didn't seem to work but it may have been because of my popup blockers and AV.

I tried downloading with the Firefox plugins and through Invidious, and 360p was the best resolution available for download unfortunately. Not that I expected 4k on footage that's 39 years old, but 720p might have been good enough.

[Seshmeister]

When I tried the https://en1.y2mate.is/CZA/ thing again I realized I had already downloaded the video 5 times already in the background.

It downloads in the background when you click the button.

It does do it at a higher resolution 680 I think.

[FORD]

I got 480 from that link. That seems to be the best possible. Even on YouTube that's the highest resolution I can see. 480 was probably considered "high resolution" in the mid 80s, before digital TV existed, so that's probably the true resolution of the source tape. If they ever intended to make this an official release of any kind, I'm sure they would do some sort of digital remastering like Page did with the old Zeppelin videos or whatever.

[Rikk]

I got 480 from that link. That seems to be the best possible. Even on YouTube that's the highest resolution I can see. 480 was probably considered "high resolution" in the mid 80s, before digital TV existed, so that's probably the true resolution of the source tape. If they ever intended to make this an official release of any kind, I'm sure they would do some sort of digital remastering like Page did with the old Zeppelin videos or whatever.

This was shot originally on film. If they ever tried to professionally release this, they would edit the (at least) three film sources together in 4K (or 1080p). Presumably, if they bothered to shoot the whole thing on film, it was also recorded on multi-track.

For all we know, this was some originally-considered concert video they were planning that was thrown away as an idea because Dave left the band. BUT...I've never heard anyone even mention before that this whole show was filmed. But clearly, with this particular camera and the others cameras seen, this was shot in its entirety.

I agree with Vinnie. This probably was leaked from the Monk tapes and I wouldn't be surprised if the Largo '84 vid drops any day now on YouTube...similar to that whole drop of KISS vids that occurred last year on YouTube under the name Sam Loomis...

[Rikk]

But yes...480p is the source we're getting because this was obviously taken from a videotaped copy of the film source.

For all we know, the original film reels were lost years ago.

[Rikk]

This download link was at idiot Brett's links, if anyone is still having trouble downloading the footage:

https://mega.nz/file/nJ1TjbBK#EZVOLg...r1ttfHRPzYalnk

[Seshmeister]

Now impossible to look at any pics from that gig without trying to see 'our' new hero camera man guy...

[Seshmeister]

But yes...480p is the source we're getting because this was obviously taken from a videotaped copy of the film source.

For all we know, the original film reels were lost years ago.

Shit yeah that's a good point.

It must have been the early days of video screens but it seems weird that noone would think to record the feed.



I guess that the quality of those videos would have been much lower quality than the film of the guy onstage but continuous.

[Rikk]

Shit yeah that's a good point.

It must have been the early days of video screens but it seems weird that noone would think to record the feed.



I guess that the quality of those videos would have been much lower quality than the film of the guy onstage but continuous.

Shit...I never even thought of the screen vids!!

Good point. Who the hell knows if those exist in some warehouse somewhere? I don't really know if in cases of festivals, the organizers would keep the vids. I don't even know if they were always recorded. I know the Dead always archived their screen-recorded vids with stereo soundboard (that's why they have literally 100s of pro-shot/stereo concert vids in their archives). BUT...most bands weren't The Dead.

I suppose if the original film reels never showed up, one could make a really great professional concert video by using a combination of the screen vids, the on-stage film camera(s) and the BBC shot (that included, at the very least, HOT FOR TEACHER). But someone gathering all this footage and then syncing it with a professional soundboard recording is unlikely.

I still think that this newly-leaked video is part of a bigger attempt at professionally-filming and multi-track recording the entire show for possible later release. Why else would almost the whole gig be filmed? That's expensive. Bands didn't film virtually entire shows ON FILM unless there was commercial potential.

I would be very surprised if there aren't 16-track or 24-track multitrack masters of this show sitting around somewhere.

I would love to speculate on what the band could release from this...but no band treats their fans worse than Van Halen. I wouldn't expect we'll ever see anything. Wolfgang was practically bragging that fans shouldn't hold their breath for any new releases of anything from the archives. (I hate that guy now.)

[Seshmeister]

In many ways it's all been left too long now.

Firstly because so much has been lost but mainly because it's difficult to monetize now and that's always the bottom line. No one buys DVDs any more or expects to pay for any video content really. Maybe enough revenue to pay for a couple of editors to do some work but nothing much to the Van Halen's or Roth. Thinking about it the only time a professionally shot Van Halen show could have been marketed well would have been in that little 1996 window because any other time is either too early or too late?

Still who knows, in my little bubble at least this has been big news online and among some friends including my bass player whose school janitor drove half a dozen 15 year old pupils over 300 miles from Scotland to England in his old van to their first gig - different times.

Maybe the interest from this will lead to more stuff...