Back in 2015, legendary rock band Van Halen headed to the Hollywood Bowl for what would be their final show with Eddie Van Halen. The legendary guitarist would pass away in 2020, marking the official end of the band.
It’s difficult for some fans to look back at old tours and concerts fondly, the sting of Van Halen’s passing still raw. But I think there’s something healing about looking back at the good times. And Wolfgang Van Halen, Eddie’s son, has a hilarious story about a prank that the band played on David Lee Roth at their final show.
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Van Halen Was Coming to an End, but Not Without a Little Bit of Fun at David Lee Roth’s Expense
Back in 2020, Wolfgang Van Halen spoke with SPIN magazine about the band’s final show. The concert took place at the Hollywood Bowl in October 2015. While talking about the end of that glorious era of rock music, Wolfgang told a pretty hilarious story about a prank the band played on David Lee Roth.
The band’s road crew played the prank in question on Van Halen’s frontman, and Roth wasn’t particularly thrilled about it. The band certainly was, though. According to Wolfgang, Roth hated it when audiences would bring inflatable beach balls to their shows to toss around in the crowd. This was something that apparently happened often during their California sets.
“It’s not out of the ordinary,” said Wolfgang. “But every time he [Roth] saw them, it would really upset him for some reason. And he would stop singing and then stand at the front of the stage and say, ‘Throw the beach ball up here, throw the beach ball up here, throw the beach ball up here’ eight times until it eventually got up, and he would stamp it out. Then he’d throw it off the stage.”
According to Wolfgang, the band’s tour manager approached him and his father, Eddie. He divulged his plan to prank Roth at their last concert.
“‘At the very end of ‘Jump’ when you’re doing the ride out, we’re going to release fifty beach balls from the top of the audience,’” Wolfgang remembers their tour manager saying. “‘And we’ll just see what happens.’ But even if he [Roth] gets pissed off, what was he gonna do? It’s the last f*cking show.”
Once the band got to “Jump”, an “avalanche” of beach balls ascended from the heavens.
“Dave was just, like, short-circuiting,” Wolfgang concluded. “He didn’t understand how to handle it. But we all laughed it off. And it was just a really fun, almost like a fun practical joke. And yeah, that was a really fun memory of that show.”
Photo by Chris McKay/Getty Images for Live Nation