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Van Halen's TV performance with frontman David Lee Roth for Jimmy Kimmel Live! last night started with a little hiccup. While Roth was rocking out on stage and twirling his mic stand, he hit himself in the face.
This was all edited out when Jimmy Kimmel Live! aired on TV late last night, showing Van Halen starting the set with Roth sporting a bandage on his nose. However, the huge crowd standing on the blocked-off Hollywood Blvd. in front of the Jimmy Kimmel Live studio were witnesses to a different earlier outdoor performance—and it was caught on video.
When the band kickstarted their set with "Panama," Roth twirled his mic stand like a baton (a signature move of his) and at some point hit his nose with it. He continued to perform for a few minutes, doing some jump kicks before he walked off to the side of the stage, and got a towel to wipe off the blood from the cut on his nose. TMZ posted photos of the cut on his nose here.
You can see Roth swinging around the mic stand at the beginning of the clip below, and leaving the stage at the 2:58-minute mark:
"Ladies and gentlemen, give us one second here," Roth says in the video. "We're filming on a take and I just cut my nose here on the microphone or whatever. Let me get this taped up and we'll start again. I'm really sorry."
And then for a few more minutes, his bandmates, who looked kind of confused and concerned, had to awkwardly jam on stage while their lead singer went MIA. But then again, the crowd did get a pretty elaborate Eddie Van Halen guitar solo, so it wasn't so bad.
Roth returned to stage with a bandage on his nose and the band went into "Panama" again, which was the recorded performance that aired on the show. They followed that with "Runnin' with the Devil," "Hot for Teacher" and "Dance the Night Away."
It's the first time Van Halen has had a TV performance with Roth since he rejoined the band in 2007. Jimmy Kimmel Live! will air the rest of the performance tonight. The outdoor concert promoted the band's upcoming North American tour that kicks off on July 5 in Seattle and ends on Oct. 2 at the Hollywood Bowl in Los Angeles.
Here's the performance of "Panama" that aired on the late-night talk show:
And here's Van Halen performing "Runnin' with the Devil":
