40 years ago this month, Van Halen were the penultimate act at Monsters Of Rock, Castle Donington, part of what is generally considered the greatest ever bill at the illustrious rock festival.

And now some sizzling side-of-stage footage from Saturday 18 August 1984 has emerged (but sadly has been removed from YouTube as of March 2025…), shot by Ross Halfin, showing the first iteration of the band at their commercial peak (they would break up in acrimony shortly after, and this was their last ever British concert).

The sound is not brilliant and some fans have complained about the setlist and length of both the Van Halen brothers’ solos, but it’s instructive and exciting to see exactly what goes down backstage/onstage.

Lee Roth is a superb master of ceremonies, singing well, dancing his tail off and firing off some amusing bits of banter: ‘Don’t stick your tongue out at me unless you’re gonna use it… If you wanna throw something at me, I’m gonna come down there and f*ck your girlfriend!’ etc. etc.

Though the footage starts off with Lee Roth and Alex Van Halen sharing a laugh (in a recent Classic Rock piece about the gig, Halfin claims the former was ‘stoned’ throughout), tensions among the band were high and nobody present was very surprised when they went their separate ways shortly after.

But it’s quite a thrill to get such a close-up view of such a legendary gig. The tempos are brisk but everything has VH’s inimitable swing and swagger.