What If????

[Carloscda]

Watching Rock Doc's on VH 1, They have Rush Beyond the lighted stage. Kiss had them open up for them back in the day.

What if Van Halen opened for them?!

Hmmm.... if they blew Black Sabbath off the stage every night just imagine what they would have done to Kiss?!!

[joe d'amato]

... someone mentioned black sabbath touring with van halen on this site recently. i don't know if the pairing works in terms of the audiences of both bands, but the bill has a hardcore, heavy vibe to it that works ...

[Dan]

You Can Kiss My Ass.

[Anonymous]

Oh yeah, Van Halen opening for Kiss. Makes a helluva lotta sense.

Maybe, just maybe, if they're REALLY lucky, they'll get to open for Milli Vanilli.

Cheers! :bottle:

[bueno bob]

Van Halen opened for me once. And an octopus. The octopus blew us all off the stage. It's kind of hard to keep up with a multi-instrumentalist like that, alright?

[VanHalenFan5150]

Sammy Hagar opened for Van Halen

[Carloscda]

You guys are so busy trying to be sarcastic with your weak ass jokes totally missed the post!!

What was stated was if Back In The Day if VH opened for Kiss..

[FORD]

If Chaim Witz had gotten them signed to Casablanca Records, they probably would have opened for KISS in 77 or 78. But fucking dickhead Neil Bogart (a veteran of the bubblegum industry who wouldn't know REAL talent if it slapped him upside his empty head) listened to the demo Chaim produced (known these days as "Zero") and rejected Van Halen.

Oh well..... Ted Templeman was a better producer than Chaim anyway, and since he was an in-house producer at WB records, he never would have met Van HALEN had they signed with KISS's label. And just as Casablanca might have toured them with Kiss, WB toured them with one of their biggest rock bands, Black Sabbath.

And the rest as they say, is fucking history........

[Seshmeister]

KI$$ are a musical desert. It takes a really cynical useless cunt to strip the energy and greatness out of early Van Halen but $immon$ somehow managed it.

What a fucking dick. A tape recorder in the middle of the room of Van Halen at that time sounded spectacular but his demo somehow manages to to make them sound much worse.

Ki$$ have never been about music at all it's always been about seeing how much money they can make.

[78/84 guy]

Kiss FUCKING SUCKS !! always have always will !! I like Ace as a guitarist but Gene and Paul didn't !! Not after hearing Ed play in a club one night !! Thank god Dave figured it out after the demo's that all Gene wanted out of VH was Ed. Fuck him and his bubblegum rock !!! Long live the 6 pack !! Thanks Dave Roth for telling Ed too tell Gene to fuck off if he didn't do it for him !!

[Carloscda]

If Chaim Witz had gotten them signed to Casablanca Records, they probably would have opened for KISS in 77 or 78. But fucking dickhead Neil Bogart (a veteran of the bubblegum industry who wouldn't know REAL talent if it slapped him upside his empty head) listened to the demo Chaim produced (known these days as "Zero") and rejected Van Halen.

Oh well..... Ted Templeman was a better producer than Chaim anyway, and since he was an in-house producer at WB records, he never would have met Van HALEN had they signed with KISS's label. And just as Casablanca might have toured them with Kiss, WB toured them with one of their biggest rock bands, Black Sabbath.

And the rest as they say, is fucking history........

Thank God they got with Ted or the 6pk might have never been?!

[VHscraps]

Watching Rock Doc's on VH 1, They have Rush Beyond the lighted stage. Kiss had them open up for them back in the day.

What if Van Halen opened for them?!

Hmmm.... if they blew Black Sabbath off the stage every night just imagine what they would have done to Kiss?!!

Van Halen and Rush did cross paths way back. I read - in a book called 'Motley Stories' by a guy called Jack Valentine - that Rush played Gazzari's (probably only passing thru) at the same time as Van Halen, although VH were still called Mammoth at the time.

Valentine was in a band with Mick Mars (then known by his real name Bob Deal) called Whitehorse, and their paths crossed with Mammoth a lot in those early 70s days. He is a bit fuzzy on dates - as Van Halen members always are as well - but it could be as early '73, probably not long before the name change to Van Halen. Anyway, he says that when his band first played on the Strip seeing the sign at Gazzari's amped them up. It read: Whitehorse, Mammoth and Rush.

Not on the same bill, though - 'cos Gazzari's was a dance club where bands played cover tunes - but appearing on the same week.

He says he wasn't sure if it was that Rush, because he never actually saw them onstage - but then again, he says they were a three-piece, so it probably was them. And you got to remember these were all unknown bands - even to each other. The author says, for instance that while he knew and would hang out with Mammoth when they did play bars and stuff together, he never actually knew their last names! So when Mammoth changed to Van Halen, he didn't know it was them until he saw them walk on stage - he just knew Mammoth as Eddie, Alex, Dave, etc.

Anyway, I copped this pic from his book - it is an advert for coming attractions at a California club called 'The Environment'.



I'd love to know exactly when this dates from. Note that it says Mammoth - currently appearing at Magic Mountain. Isn't that where Kiss made that movie, Kiss Meets the Phantom of the Park.

Jack Valentine's book can be found (and read) on Google Books by searching for the title 'Motley Stories'.

BTW - a lot of those bands mentioned in that ad - especially the ones in large type - are 60s bands. This, to me, gives good perspective on how close Van Halen were to the end of that decade, and how long it took them to actually make it. I wish somebody would do a proper history of this period of Van Halen. But without speaking to actual witnesses and participants, it's difficult to know what's what. And, of course, the Van Halen brothers seem to have refused to co-operate with biographers.

But, my guess is (and it is only a guess) - based on reading between the lines in various interviews over the years - that the Van Halen brothers and whatever their bands were called (way before Mammoth, for instance) had auditioned to get a gig on the Strip as early as '71.

[Va Beach VH Fan]

You guys need to pay attention to "The Calendar"...

6/20/80 DeMont Fort Hall, Leicester, UK

Notes: Van Halen and Rush stay at the same hotel. Geddy Lee plays a tape for
Edward and whispers something into the guitarist's ear. Ed in turn pours his beer,
glass and all, into Lee's tape recorder. As payback, Van Halen is banned from Rush's
show when the two bands performed in Las Vegas, NV, one year later.

6/16/81 Aladdin Hotel, Las Vegas, NV

Notes: Van Halen is banned from Rush's show when the two bands perform in Las
Vegas, NV, together on separate bills as a payback from an earlier altercation on
6/20/80. To further heighten tensions, Geddy Lee and Eddie Van Halen cross paths in
a casino later that evening and an unwitting bodyguard gives the boot to Lee when
the bassist attempts to mend ways with Edward.

[Jagermeister]

VH1 has beem playing Beyond the Lighted stage all week. I have not watched the whole thing yet but have enjoyed what I have seen. Any mention of VH in it?

[chefcraig]

Van Halen and Rush did cross paths way back. I read - in a book called 'Motley Stories' by a guy called Jack Valentine - that Rush played Gazzari's (probably only passing thru) at the same time as Van Halen, although VH were still called Mammoth at the time.

Valentine was in a band with Mick Mars (then known by his real name Bob Deal) called Whitehorse, and their paths crossed with Mammoth a lot in those early 70s days. He is a bit fuzzy on dates - as Van Halen members always are as well - but it could be as early '73, probably not long before the name change to Van Halen. Anyway, he says that when his band first played on the Strip seeing the sign at Gazzari's amped them up. It read: Whitehorse, Mammoth and Rush.

Not on the same bill, though - 'cos Gazzari's was a dance club where bands played cover tunes - but appearing on the same week.

He says he wasn't sure if it was that Rush, because he never actually saw them onstage - but then again, he says they were a three-piece, so it probably was them. And you got to remember these were all unknown bands - even to each other. The author says, for instance that while he knew and would hang out with Mammoth when they did play bars and stuff together, he never actually knew their last names! So when Mammoth changed to Van Halen, he didn't know it was them until he saw them walk on stage - he just knew Mammoth as Eddie, Alex, Dave, etc.

You can find a complete listing of RUSH's tour history at the POWER WINDOWS website. The band did not start touring outside of Canada until August of 1974. In October of that year, RUSH played 4 dates in the Los Angeles area, but the venue is not mentioned. Later in November, they played the Shrine Auditorium and the Whiskey, opening for Rory Gallagher and Wet Willie. By comparing a list of VH's performances from that era, it is possible to cross reference things and come to the conclusion that other than the remote possibility of the above mentioned '74 October dates, the bands did NOT cross paths until later in their careers.