Newly remastered versions of Van Halen II, Women and Children First, Fair Warning and Diver Down will be released on Friday, July 10, 2015. Pre-orders for Van Halen II, Women and Children First, Fair Warning and Diver Down, on vinyl and CD are available now. Fans who prefer the digital version can purchase those albums now.
Mastering engineer Chris Bellman, who remastered the original albums for Bernie Grundman Studios, Hollywood, CA, was enlisted for the new versions of these six early Van Halen albums with David Lee Roth. In order to produce the original sound the band intended, Bellman cut straight from the quarter-inch, original analog tapes for CD; for 180-gram vinyl; and for the digital version. All six newly mastered albums will be available as a special set.
Remastered versions of Van Halen and 1984 were released on March 31, the same day that Van Halen released Tokyo Dome Live in Concert, a newly recorded live album featuring 23 songs that span of the band’s albums with Roth. Tokyo Dome Live in Concert is available as a double CD; four-LP set on 180-gram vinyl; and digitally. A deluxe collection featuring Tokyo Dome Live In Concert and the newly remastered Van Halen and 1984 albums, as both a four-CD set and a six-LP vinyl set in special packaging, is also available.
Van Halen announced a 2015 Summer/Fall North American Tour, which kicks off July 5 in Seattle, Washington at the White River Amphitheatre, with concerts scheduled through October 2nd when the band performs its first-ever performance at the iconic Hollywood Bowl. The tour will feature some of the classic hits included on Tokyo Dome Live In Concert, such as “Dance The Night Away,” “Beautiful Girls,” “And The Cradle Will Rock…” “Unchained,” and “Everybody Wants Some!!” as well as blistering versions of “She’s The Woman,” and “China Town” from the group’s most recent studio album, A Different Kind of Truth. Most notably, the band will be playing deep cuts that have never been played on stage before.
Formed in Los Angeles in 1974, Van Halen changed the rock and roll landscape forever with the release of their self-titled, 1978 debut album and subsequently produced a repertoire of hits that remain some of the strongest and most influential rock songs ever written that fans will admire for decades to come. With more than 75 million albums sold worldwide, and more No. 1 hits on the Billboard Mainstream Rock chart than any other artist, the band’s record of achievement is hard to top. The eponymous debut album and 1984 were both certified Diamond, for U.S. sales in excess of 10 million, placing them on an elite short list of double RIAA-certified Diamond Award honorees. Van Halen was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2007.