The absolute trainwreck behind Van Halen’s US Festival performance
It could be argued that hard rock and metal had its golden era in the early 1980s. Despite a bumpy crisis in confidence through new wave’s chart challenge, AC/DC, Ozzy Osbourne, Judas Priest, and Def Leppard all dropped some of the most commercially successful records of their respective careers and proved to be the perfect cartoon personalities for the fledgling MTV network’s eager hunger for the next promo video.
Leading the fore in the rock explosion, Van Halen had already hit global stardom off their eponymous debut album in 1978, winning a glam-lite arena rock audience left cold by punk’s cynical salvo. However, 1983 was the year that the Pasadena metal pantomime hit the absolute stratosphere.
Founded by Apple Computers’ co-founder Steve Wozniak, the series of US Festivals in San Bernardino’s Glen Helen Regional Park held May ’83 attracted some of the biggest names of the era. Spread across four days focusing on new wave, heavy metal, rock, and country, respectively, the Sunday 29th billing drew the crème de la crème of big hair and spandex cock rock. Mötley Crüe, Ozzy Osbourne, and Scorpions all played for the hard rock crowd intoxicated with the new flash of MTV pop rock. This was their moment, the festival’s ‘metal day’ selling over half of the full festival programme’s 670,000 tickets.
The ‘metal day’s headliners were paid an astronomical sum for their appearance. Earning the Guinness Book of World Records distinction for ‘Highest Amount Paid to an Act for a Single Performance’, Van Halen was $1.5million richer for their booking, higher than David Bowie, who headlined the ‘Rock Day’. This did not go unnoticed by The Clash, who accepted a paltry $500,000 to play. Ever the bourgeois revolutionaries, “The Only Band That Matters” played in front of a banner stating “The Clash not for sale,” and a crewmember with a sense of humour flashed up the total of their paycheque on the jumbo video screens
As you’d expect, Van Halen was set on having a good time as they awaited their headline slot. Helping themselves to the backstage complimentary rider and exclusive bar, acrobatic frontman David Lee Roth was more than tipsy as their time came up. According to Wozniak, Roth was “practically falling down onstage. He was so drunk, slurring and forgetting lyrics and everything.”
Arriving late, a sozzled Roth tore into ‘Romeo Delight’ while loudly blurting “I forgot the fucking words, man!” halfway through. Not too drunk to take a swipe at ‘new wave day’s headliners, Roth swigged from a bottle and declared: “I wanna take the time to say that this is real whiskey here. The only people who put iced tea in Jack Daniels bottles is The Clash, baby!”
Slurred, a little wobbly, and with an alcoholic fug glazing over his eyes, Roth gives it his all and conjures a more than passable performance. It helps to have Eddie Van Halen in fret-tapping form, and the crowd were likely as inebriated as he was. With hair metal’s unabashed embrace of hedonism about to burst into the pop charts, swigging a bottle of whiskey and owning your boozing excess was part of the whole appeal.
Roth and Eddie didn’t just escape US Festival unscathed but positively thrust to a new stratum of fame. With the monster-selling ‘Jump‘ just around the corner, Van Halen’s biggest show yet was just the beginning.
