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When you think about it, Van Halen and Christmas are a lot alike. The color red is a big deal for both of them, they're extremely popular among Americans but also around the world, and most people think they're great while others are totally over it. They also, like the holiday itself, evolved through many different incarnations over the decades.
OK, don't think about the metaphor too hard, but I am going somewhere with this. To explain, let's go back, way back to the halcyon days of December 1991, in the city of Dallas, Texas, where Sammy Hagar had a promise to keep with Van Halen's legions of Texan fans.
The "Van Hagar" incarnation of the band had previously come through Dallas back in 1988, in the middle of a lengthy and demanding tour. By the time he took the stage, Hagar's voice was so shot he couldn't sing and, to hear him tell it, nearly broke down in tears onstage. That's when he made a deal with his Dallas fans: He gets a do-over at a later date, and they get a completely free concert from one of the biggest rock bands in the world.
Eddie and Alex Van Halen were, according to Hagar, not at all happy about the commitment he'd just made to essentially spend tens of thousands of the band's dollars to put on a show without ticket sales to recoup expenses. Eventually, though, the show happened, on a sunny Wednesday morning in December. But this wasn't an arena show. No, this free concert would unfold at the historic West End Marketplace in downtown Dallas, where streets were closed off to accommodate something like 80,000 fans. There, with a glittering shopping center Christmas tree towering over Alex Van Halen's drum kit and an announcer shouting "Merry Christmas, Dallas, from Van Halen!," the band launched into their set with "Poundcake," the lead single from their latest album, Unlawful Carnal Knowledge. And that's when Dallas Lost. Its. Damn. Mind.
Let's be clear: "Poundcake" is a banger. I say this as a Van Hagar guy, but even if you're not, this song rips. It's the one where Eddie famously uses a cordless drill on his guitar to create revving sounds, and is honestly one of Sammy's best vocals with the band. It's also a great way to kick off a set, because energy levels are immediately through the roof. In the video above, you'll see what I mean.
Again, this was not a concert venue. This was a shopping center with a stage and sound towers thrown up in the middle of it. There are street signs right in the middle of the crowd, maybe 20 feet from the stage. There are fans hanging from lamp posts, fans throwing ball caps at the stage, fans standing on rooftops as people close to the band surge forward in a way that looks, frankly, terrifying. At one point someone in the crowd even found a bright red, giant plastic trash can to toss up over everyone's head like a beachball, and it kinda works. It gets so nuts that, at one point during the opening song, Sammy turns to Eddie in the middle of playing and says "How' bout this shit, Ed?"
Van Halen didn't invent free concerts, and they're far from the first band to stage a raucous show outside of a traditional venue, but there's something so improbable about all of this, from Hagar's awkward promise to the shopping center decorated for Christmas to Sammy Hagar opening a beer mid-set while opining that it's probably too early to be drinking. They got to a free Christmas concert at a shopping center in Dallas through a weird set of circumstance, and they ended up giving the crowd a hell of a Christmas present. Does this mean Sammy Hagar is Santa Claus? At the very least he gets the honorary title of Tequila Elf. And that is why Van Halen's 1991 free concert at the West End Marketplace in Dallas is technically a Christmas special.
You can find the whole Dallas free concert in various places online, as well as on Van Halen's 2024 For Unlawful Carnal Knowledge reissue.
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