Van Halen To Reunite
January 25, 2007 by staralicious
Filed under Music, News
A deal is almost set for David Lee Roth to return to the Van Halen fold for a summer tour of amphitheaters, sources told Billboard.com
They said a contract could be signed as early as Wednesday for tour promoter Live Nation to produce a 40-date trek, which would mark Roth’s first outing with the rock band in more than 20 years.
Spokeswomen for Roth and the band said they were unable to provide any confirmation.
Guitarist Eddie Van Halen’s 15-year-old son Wolfgang has stepped in for original bassist Michael Anthony in the new incarnation of the group, which also features Eddie’s brother Alex Van Halen on drums.
Van Halen last toured in 2004 with vocalist Sammy Hagar, Roth’s replacement, grossing nearly $40 million, according to Billboard Boxscore. Hagar refused to collaborate further with the Van Halen brothers after the tour’s completion, although he has consistently played live with Anthony in recent years. The warring factions may wind up meeting in public in March when Van Halen is inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.
Roth, who unceremoniously parted ways with Van Halen in 1985, told the music magazine’s Website eight months ago that getting him and his former hair-band brothers back together would not be “rocket surgery.”
“It’s very simple to put together,” Roth said. “And as far as hurt feelings and water under the dam, like what’s-her-name at the end of the movie Chicagoâ€‒So what? It’s showbiz!’ So I definitely see it happening.”
The former heavy metal frontman last rocked out with his fellow “Hot for Teacher” artists in 1996, when they recorded a few songs that ended up on the greatest hits album Best of Volume I. But an appearance at the MTV Video Music Awards that year by all four original band matesâ€â€siblings Eddie and Alex Van Halen, Roth and bassist Michael Anthonyâ€â€proved that the guys weren’t really ready to reconcile.
While fans hoped that their group showingâ€â€the quartet’s first public appearance together in 11 yearsâ€â€was a sign of a full-fledged reunion, Roth issued a statement several weeks later saying he’d been the “unwitting participant” in a publicity stunt engineered to sell more copies of Best of Volume I, and that he told Eddie at the time that he didn’t “think it was a good idea for the band to go to New York half-cocked.”
The Van Halen brothers and Anthony denied Roth’s take on the situation, saying “the intention all along was to do two new songs” and that Roth was “never led to believe anything but that.”
Despite the inauspicious undertones of that exchange, along with Roth’s comment to tmz.com last month characterizing a possible Van Halen reunion as “Jerry Springer meets Knots Landing,” it looks as if fans are going to get the chance to “Jump” for Roth, Eddie & Co. after all, with Billboard reporting that a contract could be signed as early as Wednesday.
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