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List Price: $14.99 | | Label: PASSPORT VIDEO
Salesrank: 38643
Released: December 9, 2003 |
| Our Price: $7.99 |
| Used Price: $4.00 |
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MPAA Rating: NR (Not Rated)
Media: DVD |
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| Features:
Color DVD Full Screen NTSC | |
Editorial Review:
"The VAN HALEN Story: The Early Years", chronicles the rise of four young musicians from their formative years to their transformation into a worldwide phenomenon.
Hear the group's gripping tale told by the people who were there when it all began childhood friends, fellow musicians, roadies, bodyguards, producers, and the band themselves. Rare footage and never-before-seen photos help to further document their remarkable story.
The Van Halen Story: The Early Years Reviews:
Short but decent unauthorized doc on the early years 
2008-07-10 - As far as unauthorized band docs go, this one is pretty good because it has a mix of people who worked with VH before their rise to fame as well as being there at their peak. The interview with Stone, the bassist prior to Mike is worth watching to find out the reason why he left right when they were on the edge of stardom. There are interviews with VH (and some of their "inner circle"), but obviously taken from other sources. There's very little in the way of archive footage, and the only song they were able to get the rights to were "Happy Trails", but it's about their rise from a backyard party band to being a smash success, but the photos and flyers (and even a copy of the infamous "no brown M&Ms" rider) are sufficient. And it goes into some of the reasons why Dave left (mostly through Mike and Alex's words.. but Dave and Valerie's books truly detailed the reasons why).
If you want some of the blanks filled in, just read any of Ed's Guitar Player interviews, Dave's "Crazy From the Heat" and Valerie's "Losing It" books and put their music on. And there's plenty on You Tube as far as archive footage and the demos go. The band should put their own official documentary together while there are good feelings between Ed and Dave.
It is worthwhile for someone starting in a band and a hardcore VH fan who gets a kick of seeing old photos.
Awesome insight into the early years of the band 
2007-07-25 - This DVD is full of great interviews with people who knew the band in the late seventies and early eighties. Roadies, friends, bodyguards, producers, people from other bands that they played with, people who went to high school with them; all of these people share their own experiences with the band. As a huge fan of VH and a musician myself, I found the details on how they made it invaluable.
If you're looking for VH music, it's not here. If you're looking for a VH documentary on before they were famous and the first seven years after they were famous, this DVD is PERFECT.
Very disapointed 
2007-07-06 - I wanted to see David Lee Roths videos ot the songs with Van Halen. His performing was the greatest. I've tried to get a DVD with his videos and can't find them. They were great. Tins
Not a single lick of van halen music ???
2007-06-12 - What kind of "early years" band documentary doesn't even have a lick of music from the band its covering ? A bad documentary you say ? Correct. This reminds me of something you would see in 1985 high school science class...projector and all. The narration is horrible, clearly from some old guy who had never heard of Van Halen prior to excepting the minimum wage job of "narrarator" for this C class documentary.
The box is way misleading. There are no interviews with anyone from the band. They play a few public recordings of Alex or Eddie saying something that you have heard before on VH1. And thats what this is, a bad VH1 documentary. The bulk of the interviews are from people like "Childhood friend of Alex" or "childhood friend of David Lee Roth".. also they interveiw some guys in totally unrelated bands that were influenced by Van Halen.
Do yourself a favor and don't spend $$$ on this. If they show it on Vh1 (bound to happen eventually), then you MIGHT want to watch parts of it...but if you spend money on this, you'll probably regret it like I do.
WB, what are you waiting for????? 
2007-04-11 - OK, I get it now after all these years. WB (Warner Bro's) decided to hold all the early Van Halen footage in a vault hidden somewhere until the next life killing asteroid blasts the earth. Then evolution will recreate man and the new explorers will dig up the vault and find the vintage footage, watch it, and say, wow, what a cool band, lets sell this stuff on the black market. Thats about the time your gonna have to wait until you actually see a good DLR erra DVD, so, back to my 5th generation copied VHS to DVD US Festival from "83"........
