Van Halen Live at the Spectrum- On Fire 7/21/1981

0:05 SPEAKER_00: Hey everybody, welcome back to the concert room. I'm your host Bob Hill. The concert room is a podcast session dedicated to the concert experience inside the legendary Philadelphia Spectrum Arena. The Spectrum held numerous performances and concerts over its 40 plus years of existence, earning the nickname The House That Rock built. So today in our podcast session, this is going to be dedicated to Van Halen, and uh I have queued up a performance of Van Halen at the Spectrum. So this Spectrum show is in my top three of all time.

0:41 SPEAKER_00: So Van Halen rolled into the Spectrum on their 10-month tour in support of Fair Warning in 1981. They rolled into the Spectrum on July 20th, 21st, and 22nd. And I was lucky enough to get tickets to the July 20th show. Okay, so I just turned 17 and I saw Van Halen the year before, 1980, on the World V invasion tour at the Spectrum, and that was absolutely phenomenal. But this uh there was something special about this 1981 tour, and I think uh, well, for me, they're touring in support of Fair Warning, which was a little bit of a heavier and darker album than Women and Children First.

1:29 SPEAKER_00: So in 1980 they toured on uh, you know, Van Halen 1, 2, and then their new album Women and Children First. Now in 1981, uh they now they have a few other songs to tour with. And those songs off of Fair Warning were absolutely great. One one standout is unchained. And also Mean Street, um, but 1981 it was I think they were peaking. To me, they were just peaking in 1981. Firing on all cylinders, that and uh they were just really on and really tight and a lot of fun. Hard to beat. Um ticket prices anywhere from eight dollars to ten.

2:14 SPEAKER_00: So as far as Van Halen shows, uh it was very exciting because when you got your tickets uh months ahead of time, the uh regardless for me at least, regardless of who we saw in the meantime, it was always Van Halen that I looked forward to because I knew this show was going to be great. Uh I loved all their albums up to that point, and I just could not wait to see them. So I was very excited. The day of the show, uh to me it was just very exciting and electric. The parking lot uh just was cranking with Van Halen from the radio stations, and and it was just a big party.

2:50 SPEAKER_00: I mean, Van Halen was a big party. So the experience inside the Spectrum when Van Halen was playing was really just electric. Beach balls were flying around, uh the famous spectrum fog uh from certain things being lit up, and it was just very communal, it was fun, and everybody was just having a great time. Music was blaring really loud, and it was really a party atmosphere. It felt like you were just at one it felt like so the spectrum is very intimate for concerts, and that's what my performers and fans loved playing the spectrum and loved going to the spectrum because the way the room was built.

3:35 SPEAKER_00: And even though there was 18,000 people in there, it just felt like a very small room that you were partying with with your friends, and uh music gets really louder, and and this is the one thing I don't know a lot of people picked up on at the I don't know if it was a spectrum thing or if it was just a touring thing, but you can always tell with the anticipation was getting uh kind of really high when the music got louder and louder over the PA system. Because, you know, at that point there was just so much anticipation.

4:14 SPEAKER_00: The louder the music got on the PA, it sounds like they were cranking it up, getting it up to concert level. That was sort of like a signal to everyone that we are about to go any minute. And I can't remember, like a lot of times bands would have a walk-on song, so when you heard it, you knew that they would cut this song within 30 seconds, 45 seconds, and then the band will just plow into their opener. Or an announcer would come on, announce the band, and then you know, lights off, announcing band hits.

4:51 SPEAKER_00: And I can't remember, I don't think Van Halen had a walk-on song. So when you heard it, you knew they were coming on. So anyway, music's very loud, it's it's blaring now. The anticipation is uh, you know, it's just gonna be ready to burst. In mid-song, the lights would cut and the crowd would absolutely go crazy. And with Van Halen, what they did was they used on this tour, they used uh strobe lights. So the strobes would go on, and then you would hear Eddie Van Halen. It sounds like he's warming up, but he's maybe is warming up.

5:26 SPEAKER_00: Uh, but it's it's sort of like that's what the intro was with the strobe lights. So you're gonna hear this on this um this recording, and that's what you hear in the beginning. You hear the lights go out, and you hear Eddie Van Halen with the introduction, not of a song, but just the introduction of the concert. And then you hear this great announcing of Van Halen bringing them on, and then they barrel into On Fire, which is, if I remember on top of my head, it's on side two of Van Halen 1, On Fire.

6:01 SPEAKER_00: Great opening song, and you will hear the moment that David Leero jumps off the riser and does his signature split when the lights come up on him, uh, because the crowd absolutely goes crazy, and it's after the first uh Eddie Van Halen opens the riff with On Fire, and then after the very first uh riff that he does, the crowd goes crazy, and you'll be able to hear the crescendo the barrel onto it, it sounds great. Now the recording itself, this is a bootleg, it's out there. It's kind of great at B, but it's really it's from the audience, so it's not that great.

6:42 SPEAKER_00: But unfortunately, there's really not a lot of great recordings from 1981, at least from the spectrum. But it's the only one I can really, you know, present to you and take you inside the spectrum that night. So you get a sense of what it was like to be at a Van Halen concert on July 21st, 1981, in support of Fair Warning, and the opening song is on fire, so you will get a sense of what it was like. And also, uh, I'm gonna put the radio ad in there because it's uh just a short, you know, 15-second radio ad of uh Van Halen at the Spectrum.

7:20 SPEAKER_00: It was on uh WMMR, and this is what we heard uh a lot of times, you know, when uh fans were in town. And so here it is. Uh let's listen now. It is on fire right after the radio ad. Van Halen at the Spectrum. July twenty-first, nineteen eighty-one.

7:40 SPEAKER_01: Van Halen, Granadi brothers, tonight of the Spectrum.

11:49 SPEAKER_00: Yeah, Philadelphia. Listen to that crowd. I was there the night before. It was amazing. And I hope you can really feel the um the energy and just all that anticipation before the show, that balled up tension, uh, just absolutely exploded as soon as the lights were cut, and the uh that great announcing uh of the band and the opening riff, and then David Lee Roth jumping off the riser, and the crowd was just it just exploded. It was one of the loudest concerts I've been to uh ever. Um and not ear piercing loud, it was just the crowd was just yelling all night.

12:38 SPEAKER_00: So after that show, two and a half hours, you know, we just came out of there ears ringing, exhausted, uh just you know, it took you a day to recover. It was just amazing. And you know, and we just came out of there, you know, just ears ringing and you know, and what an experience, and I hope that gave you some kind of idea of being inside the spectrum that night for Van Halen um on that tour. It was uh really quite amazing time. Well, thanks for listening to the concert room inside the Philly concert experience.

13:21 SPEAKER_00: I do appreciate it. Uh, please feel free to subscribe, stay tuned for more sessions. We have some uh good interviews lined up coming up, and uh in the meantime, please leave a comment, subscribe, and thanks again for listening. I hope you enjoyed it and take care of