On October 9, 1982, Van Halen brought the Hide Your Sheep Tour to Syracuse’s Carrier Dome, a Saturday-night stop between Madison Square Garden the night before and two nights at the Capital Centre in Maryland. Box-office figures put the crowd at 30,128, and a $10 Ticketron ticket bought a seat in a building barely two years old. With After the Fire opening, David Lee Roth, Eddie and Alex Van Halen and Michael Anthony leaned on the new Diver Down album, working “Little Guitars,” “Secrets,” “Hang ‘Em High” and their covers of “(Oh) Pretty Woman” and “Where Have All the Good Times Gone” in among “Runnin’ with the Devil,” “Ain’t Talkin’ ’bout Love” and an Eddie guitar solo that folded in “Eruption” and “Spanish Fly.” Forty-four years on, that $10 stub is a snapshot of the original lineup at the height of its arena-rock reign.
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