1978 HD LIVE!!!

From VHND.

HUGE Van Halen news regarding old concert footage! Yesterday, out of the blue, newly upgraded footage of Van Halen’s 1978 and 1979 performances at the Selland Arena in Fresno, California appeared on Youtube. There’s five video clips, all of them obviously nothing more than teasers. And teasers they are! These new INSANELY GREAT Fresno upgrades are by far the highest quality audience-filmed footage of early van Halen!

The new Youtube channel boasts that the footage has been “remastered Frame by Frame HD Uncompressed…from my original Fuji single-8 films.”

Four years ago, we featured the 2010 upgrades of this footage, which was better than the ultra-blurry stuff that was previously circulated among collectors. But this new stuff is MUCH better, and it’s straight from the master reels.

Just don’t hope for the complete shows to come out, because the original taper didn’t film the complete shows. (He filmed only around 25 minutes of each of the two shows.)

This amazing footage shows what an unstoppable force the band was in the early years. Granted, these clips are only short teasers, but when you watch any of the old VH footage, you see that no rock band was EVER as fierce, energetic, and as entertaining as these four boys from Pasadena. There’s precious little footage that proves this, making these teaser clips a real treat! So crank it up, crack open a beer, set your setting to widescreen and 720p, and ENJOY!

Read more: http://www.vhnd.com/2014/03/29/unearthed-van-halen-video-fresno/#ixzz2xP4CsO2a

Hey guys! Jeff H. here. Love this site. And this footage is KILLER.

Some random thoughts…

1) Even though this guy uploaded old footage from several bands at once, it’s interesting that 99% of the views & comments that the clips are getting is on his Van Halen clips.

2) Two of his clips are evidently of local bands that never went anywhere. It’s probably a bad sign for us that those clips are much longer than all the other clips. (If he knows its a band that nobody wants it, he puts out the whole thing (or at least much longer clips), but if he knows it’s a band that people want, he doesn’t. (So far, at least). Hopefully he’s not holding out for money, and is just dangling the carrot just for fun, before he puts it all up. I don’t think the footage is worth much money, as it is illegal for anyone other than the band to sell it.

3) Lots of comments are from people saying “Wow! They did a great job cleaning up this footage!” I wonder if people realize that you can only “clean up” old footage so much. The only reason why this looks much better than the stuff that was previously circulated is because these are obviously straight from the master reels. (Of course, he did some cleaning up afterwords). But the source makes ALL the difference.

4) Weird how DJ Johnson always claimed that he taped these, and now the clip’s credits say that some other guy did. DJ said that the master reels were lost in a house fire, and that his VHS backup was all that he remained. That definitely was not true! Who knows what happened there…

Here’s something from DJ:

https://www.youtube.com/user/video64/discussion >

If you would have just asked, I would have sent you the Original Footage on DVD to do the correction. It looks much cleaner than any of the YT postings, including mine. I purposely posted it in very low resolution so the DVD would keep moving.

Is it possible that DJ’s is the one behind all of this just released footage?

I find it interesting he had a Def Leppard video up from 1980 and now its gone

Well well keep our fingers crossed. Maybe we will see some of this stuff.

PT5150: Some good points from TB at links. Sorry if that is someone here.

T.B. I’d guess the owner of this footage is looking for money for the full reels, judging by a few of his replies to comments on the clips. Interestingly, all his clips come from late 70′s Fresno, CA area shows.

Regarding the Montreal 1984 show, that was shot on standard def vhs like numerous other shows (including the VH and Roth solo ’86/’87 shows there) from that arena from a few year span during the early to mid 80′s. It’s not going to get much better if the original master shows up somehow then the best quality that’s been out up ’til now.

The reason this “new” upgrade of the 78/79 footage looks so comparatively good is because it’s shot on actual film at the behest of the band and/or record company, even if it’s 8mm and if stored and cared for properly, it won’t degrade as badly as video tape (especially commercial vhs) does over a 30+ year period. This guy probably spent some decent money to have a lab transfer to video the footage from the master film and do some minor color correcting or else he nabbed it from someone who did.

T.B’s right about almost everything, except DJ was not filming at the behest of WB (the record company), obviously.

Thanks for the heads up on the links. This footage is amazing! Hopefully the entire show, or what was shot comes out soon. I remember hearing about the 78 stuff on here a long time ago but gave up on it coming out.