Van Halen was as rowdy backstage as they were onstage at the 1983 US Festival. A recent article from Ultimate Guitar shed some light on what fans didn’t see that Memorial Day weekend.
Here’s an excerpt from a recent article by Ultimate Guitar’s Greg Prato:
The line-up was stellar: headlined by Van Halen, supported by the Scorpions, Triumph, Judas Priest, and Ozzy, and introducing the metal masses to a then largely unknown Mötley Crüe and Quiet Riot.
Interestingly, early promotion for the event also listed Joe Walsh for that day, but it was ultimately decided he would perform 24 hours later on “Rock Day,” headlined by David Bowie.
But in order to convince Van Halen to halt work on their next album, which turned out to be the classic “1984”, they would have to receive some big bucks. And big bucks is certainly what they received: they were reportedly paid $1.5 million for a set that would ultimately last two hours.
And not only that, but Van Halen had built their own special backstage party area. In the 2011 book, “MTV Ruled the World: The Early Years of Music Video”, one of Van Halen’s music video directors, lighting designers, and collaborators, Pete Angelus, was willing to share his memories about what was going on behind the scenes.
“I remember Dave [Lee Roth] thinking that it would be a good idea to take a substantial chunk of that money, and create a ‘backstage compound’ – that he could hang out in for like five days leading up to the event. And he could have his friends out there, and there were different trailers, and there were a lot of dancers that were coming in from strip clubs – that were being driven and flown in and out.”