Of course, Diamond Dave was great and the show featured a heavy dose of the Van Halen catalog along with his new stuff. The opening band was Cinderella and they were completely unknown to me walking into the arena. They were an absolutely fantastic live band and the sound made a huge impression on me. I got Nightsongs the very next day and have been a huge fan ever since.

So here’s my look back on another great San Diego concert, another great night of DLR live and some memories from 37 years back:

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When Van Halen toured, they played the crap out of the album they were touring for and on this night, they played all of Diver Down except for “Dancin’ In The Streets” and “Big Bad Bill Is Sweet William Now.” And they nearly played Side One of the record in order.

After opening with “Romeo Delight,” always a crowd favorite, they hit the audience between the eyes with “Unchained.” Then came a drum solo, followed by the first Diver Down song, “The Full Bug.” My memories of this show mostly involve the energy and the crowd response, which was to absolutely lose its mind. I locked in on Edward Van Halen for long stretches and he delivered his usual dazzling performance.

Looking at the setlist, I remember the two opening songs pretty well and “Little Guitars,” which was the seventh song. Song number eight was the beginning of the extended Diver Down run with “Where Have All The Good Times Gone” followed by a bass solo that went into “Hang ‘Em High.” They continued with “Cathedral” and “Secrets” before “Everybody Wants Some!!,” saving “Intruder” and “Pretty Woman” for a little bit later.

It was a tour de force, with a ton of hits and crowd favorites still left, despite the band only being five albums into its career. “Ain’t Talkin’ ‘Bout Love,” “Dance The Night Away,” and “You Really Got Me” all got played and they did four songs total off of Van Halen II.

The mighty Van Halen at that point in time was a force of nature. No matter what was going on behind the scenes, they played live like they invented it and there wasn’t any other band out there that could put on the kind of show they did. Blue Oyster Cult and Triumph had incredible laser light shows, Ted Nugent was a crowd-pleasing maniac and KISS was KISS. But Van Halen had its own vibe and a unique energy and with all that going on, they were hit-makers that delivered killer song after killer song that whipped audiences into a frenzy.

This was the second of my five Van Halen shows and my next go-round with them would be on the 1984 tour. These first three, all in the first Roth era, were my idea of a great time. I wasn’t disappointed by any of the other bands that I saw live during this time period because Van Halen was my favorite band and nobody else was supposed to be putting on that kind of show. It was theirs, alone.

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Loverboy was on top of the world at the time, touring their third straight multi-platinum album. Joan Jett was one of the big names in rock after her previous album, I Love Rock And Roll. And The Fixx had made a big splash the year before with Shuttered Room and were now MTV darlings with “One Thing Leads To Another” from their Reach The Beach record.

The adventure started the night before as we made the hour-drive up to Fresno and rode around to various places like The Wherehouse record store on Blackstone not far from the stadium. We slept in the parking lot and lined up outside the gates early in the morning to get a spot up front near the stage.

It was blazing hot that day and we spent most of it on the grass about 30-40 feet from the stage. Even as young as I was, it took a lot out of me and when Loverboy took the stage with the sun finally relenting the cool air felt great, but we had moved up into the seats on stage right by that time.

This was a great event, one of just a few stadium shows I have been to over the years. For whatever reason, I don’t really get charged up for something like Aftershock or the Day On The Green events. I’ve seen the Rolling Stones/GnR, The Who and Iron Maiden in outdoor venues but that’s about it except for the Hair Metal Festival and Cathouse Live! at Irvine Meadows before they tore it down.

Here it is, a look back at a great event just before I left for the military:

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Judas Priest was on an epic run with British Steel, Point Of Entry, Screaming For Vengeance and Defenders Of The Faith all having been released in the last four years and the arena was filled to the top. I have vivid memories of arriving in the parking lot and making our way into the arena through all of the metalheads who were partying hours in advance of Priest hitting the stage.

When I was in high school, Judas Priest came through on both the Point Of Entry and Screaming For Vengeance tours and I missed them both. While I had friends that told me both of those shows were incredible, I felt like I had topped all of it by making it to this show. I got to see them do the songs from Defenders of the Faith, plus everything that came before, and they were even bigger at this point.

Here’s the setlist.

Great show on the eve of the 4th of July holiday.

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This was a change from the two arena shows as it took place at the Warnor’s Theater, a regal old venue of about 1,800 seats. Also different was the audience, which had a different vibe from the other two shows. There were a lot of fans from the punk sided of the fence, dressed like Joan Jett and her band with lots of leather, eye-liner, spiked hair, etc. Great energy.

So, here’s a look back to the early days for me and one of the events that showed me that concerts take a lot of different shapes and involve lots of different kinds of people. This was one of the most energetic shows I’ve seen to date.

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Triumph was five records into a brilliant catalog and I was dying to see them on a night when it was pouring down rain in the central California desert. They delivered, with a blistering set of great songs and a light show that gave me a sunburn.

I would only see Triumph once more after that, on the Sport Of Kings tour in San Diego in 1987, and as great as that show was, it wasn’t quite up to this one. First time, touring probably my favorite Triumph record and I got to be right up front in the middle. This was definitely one of the my top-5 shows ever.

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They couldn’t and they didn’t. Soon, Vince was out of the band, and away they went on the strange journey of the 1990’s.

But on this night, the show was an extravaganza with a killer setlist and a great stage show. Prime Vince was as good as any frontman of the era and he was the grandmaster of this show.

Faster Pussycat opened and got some rude treatment from some folks right up front who spit on Taime mercilessly until they got thrown out. I dug Faster Pussycat and they played a good set despite the showers.

With a catalog of five killer records and a stage setup that was part biker bar/part strip club, Motley Crue tore the roof off of Selland Arena.

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The opening band, The Starfighters, didn’t play because somebody in the band was too wasted to play. This led to a long delay before the one and only act of the night played.

The castle facade was incredible to see live and the band was a great visual with Rudy Sarzo on one side and Randy Rhoads on the other in their designated spots, while Ozzy was the ringmaster. They did the intro to “Diary Of A Madman” and then went into “Over The Mountain”, which was my favorite song from the record at that point.

It was a great night for 16-year old me as Ozzy was a superhero in my mind and I was devouring his two records leading up to the show. We tried to stand up in the jam-packed floor area in front of the stage but with the long delay trying to get the opening band going, we ended up finding seats on Rudy Sarzo’s side of the stage. I don’t remember whose idea that was, but it was hot down there and we’d been standing up for the whole time so without knowing how long it would actually take for the show to start we headed up to the seats and it turned out ok.

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A quick video here for an “On This Date” post for December 30, 1988. One of my trips up the freeway from San Diego to Long Beach, CA to see Ozzy Osbourne, Anthrax and Lita Ford at the Long Beach Arena. It was my second show at this arena, following an Aerosmith/Dokken show earlier that year.

The property that the Long Beach Arena sits on has had a big facelift in the years since, and we’re spending our New Year’s weekend here, so I drove over there and checked it out. The building where the show was is now used for events not associated with banging heads, but they do have concerts elsewhere on the property.

So, Ozzy was on No Rest For The Wicked and had new gunslinger Zakk Wylde on guitar. Anthrax was touring for State Of Euphoria and Lita Ford was on Lita.

More to come on this show.

Ozzy Setlist

Anthrax Setlist (Incomplete)

Lita Ford Setlist (Incomplete)

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Tommy Skeoch was still in the band and we were treated to the two-guitar magic that he and Frank Hannon were known for. Jeff Keith was in fine form both with his vocals and his flamboyant frontman skills throughout. There isn’t anything up on Setlist.fm for this show but it was the familiar Tesla show with all the big songs up to that point in their career.

I was just glad to be able to see them again after my music had been banished from the outlets that had been so heavy with hard rock and heavy metal throughout the 80s and early 90s. I got one of Frank Hannon’s picks but it wasn’t personalized, just a regular Tortex pick. The 2,000-seat Warnor’s Theater was mostly full and it was rocking throughout. The likes of Limp Bizkit were just a bad dream at least for a night.

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