Van Halen - 7/24/1982 - Biloxi, MS @ Mississippi Coast Coliseum [SOUNDBOARD]

Home 1982 - Diver Down

SOUNDBOARD recording just 1 week into the Diver Down tour. In 2024/2025 a dozen or so soundboard recordings were liberated from a collection of Van Halen’s FOH sound guy (Roy). It’s been said they would do this for most/all shows.

Many thanks to By-Tor X-1 for unleashing a batch of these Soundboard recordings. If you’d like to help his efforts releasing super rare Van Halen soundboard recordings all for free, please consider donating whatever you can to him here > https://ko-fi.com/musicmediaarchives

The setlist order here is pretty unique compared to most from this tour and a big difference is a cover of Edgar Winter’s “Keep Playin’ That Rock N Roll”

Date: 7/24/1982
Location: Biloxi, MS
Venue: Mississippi Coast Coliseum
Source: SOUNDBOARD

Bootleg Notes:

Here we have a totally unheard, uncirculated soundboard recording, capturing the Van Halen concert in Biloxi during their Diver Down tour (Hide Your Sheep tour) in 1982. Not even an audience recording of this show has circulated previously. Due to being so early in the tour, this is one of very few recordings that documents this earlier setlist arrangement, which would soon be significantly reorganized sometime between July 27th and 30th.

The true treasure of this recording, making it likely the most special of any of these 1982 live tapes, is the super rare appearance of Keep Playin’ That Rock N Roll, an Edgar Winter song that Van Halen played during their early local gigging days prior to their debut album. The song is played where Bottoms Up would usually be slotted in the setlist, with Bottoms Up being pushed down to the first encore where The Full Bug would usually be slotted in the early setlist arrangement. In effect, The Full Bug was not played on this night in Biloxi. It’s been known that Van Halen would throw curveball songs into their setlists on very rare occasion, however this song has not previously been known to be one of them.

There are only three other dates confirmed to have had VH perform Keep Playin’ That Rock N Roll, all preceding their debut album. One is from the Pasadena Hilton on June 13th 1975, and is an excellent soundboard recording of the band’s early years. The next is a really short version from Gazzarri’s in West Hollywood on an unconfirmed 1975 date, and the other is from the Eros and Bogart’s bar in San Bernardino on September 18th 1976, but the latter is simply unlistenable (and I don’t say that easily about bootleg recordings). While the song had never been known to have been played after the release of their first album, an attendee who was at the August 30th 1981 Fair Warning show in Nashville claims they opened the show with Keep Playin’ That Rock N Roll instead of On Fire. While that can’t be totally confirmed without finding a recording of that concert, it’s not an impossible claim, seeing as this Biloxi 1982 tape now confirms this song in particular was in VH’s arsenal of potential curveball rarities.

This Biloxi recording starts a bit late, a little over a minute into Romeo Delight, but over half of the song was still captured. The first side of the 90 minute master tape runs only about 35 seconds into Somebody Get Me A Doctor, and while no songs are missing in between, it seems it took a while to realize to flip the tape because the second side doesn’t start again until about a minute into Cathedral. Luckily, this recording captures the remainder of concert.