Van Halen's original members (mostly, anyway) hit the road for the first time in over 2 decades. Will the reunion be too good to last?
It’s official—Van Halen is back!
Well, mostly.
The band, now consisting of original members David Lee Roth, Eddie Van Halen, and Alex Van Halen (they dumped original bassist Michael Anthony and replaced him with Eddie’s son Wolfgang) made their reunion tour announcement in Los Angeles on August 13. The 50-city tour is expected to kick off in October, and many of those dates have already sold out.
As most music lovers know, the band has gone through more lives than a roomful of cats. This tour marks the band’s first with original lead singer Roth in over two decades. The band dumped Roth as their singer and brought former solo rocker Sammy Hagar into the fold in 1986. Hagar led the band through their most commercially successful period, but was then ousted in 1996 following a much-publicized feud. Hagar’s replacement, ex-Extreme lead singer Gary Cherone, was with the band for a few albums, but then left.
Roth has had his share of feuds with the brothers Van Halen as well. They reunited briefly at the MTV Video Music Awards in 1996, where they received a lifetime achievement award. Even that brief reunion was tense—Eddie Van Halen claimed that Roth was trying to steal the spotlight during the band’s acceptance speech, and the feud continued. Many fans had initially hoped that their appearance at the VMA’s would lead to some kind of reunion announcement shortly thereafter. Tour, album, it really didn’t matter. The best the band could do was release a greatest hits collection with 2 new songs with Roth on vocals.
Since Hagar left in 1996, Van Halen has floundered a bit commercially. Their last few albums bombed, and they haven’t been able to hold on to a lead singer. The band members haven’t been completely out of the spotlight, however. Roth and Hagar teamed up for their short-lived “Sam and Dave Tour” in 2002; Roth took over as the host of Howard Stern’s morning radio show amid much media hype in 2005, only to leave a few months later, and the brothers Van Halen have seen their own share of media attention. Eddie Van Halen has fought cancer, survived the divorce from Valerie Bertinelli, his wife of 20+ years, and entered rehab only a few weeks before the band made their tour announcement. Original bassist Michael Anthony has battled his own drug demons and will be going on tour with Sammy Hagar this fall.
It will be interesting to see if the band can manage to stay together this time around, even for a few more albums. During the press conference, Eddie Van Halen assured both the fans and the media that the band is “at our best”, and Roth promised fans that their setlist will include plenty of old favorites. Stay tuned to see whether one of the biggest rock bands in history sets the world on fire again, or simply implodes.
