Lost Van Halen ‘So This Is Love?’ Dinosaur Video Surfaces After 40 Years

A never-before-seen promotional video of Van Halen lip-syncing to their 1981 song “So This Is Love?” next to life-size dinosaurs in Italy has surfaced on YouTube.

“These videos aired on Italian state television, RAI 1, during a TV show called Happy Circus,” reads a caption by the Van Halen Italia Fan Club on YouTube. “Van Halen Italia Fan Club found those video clips and shares [sic] them with fans all over the world.”

Word of this lost Van Halen video first spread in the 1995 inaugural issue of the Van Halen fan magazine The Inside, which included photos of the shoot taken by a Van Halen roadie. “We’re not quite sure what the video concept was for,” reads a reprint of the article, which appears on the Van Halen News Desk, “but we do know that the dinosaurs never made it off the cutting room floor.”

It turns out the clip was more of a TV shoot than an official music video (although the lines were often blurred in the very early days of MTV) and it took place November 14th, 1981 at the Prehistoric Park in Rivolta d’Adda, which is near Milan. It’s unclear exactly how the footage appeared after all these years, but it’s an incredible look at the group during the Fair Warning era.

Van Halen ceased to exist the moment that Eddie Van Halen died in October 2020, but there’s talk of a tribute concert in his honor that could include every surviving member of the band. In the meantime, David Lee Roth recently shared his new song “Giddy-Up,” and Wolfgang Van Halen has announced plans for his first tour with his band Mammoth. They’ll be opening up for Guns N’ Roses and U.S. stadiums in the summer.