VH II, WACF, FW, DD Remasters Now Available For Pre-Order

[Kristy]

Why is this even news.

Bound to happen. This is a homoerotic website after all.

[Terry]

I logged in just to agree with you. I don't log in much anymore. No need after 10 years of hoping and wishing. Think they can hang it up after this tour. No new studio album in 3 years ?? A lazy live album. This isn't a band anymore. It's a business to make more retirement money. Dave need's to release the album he did with John 5 and start having fun again. VH has became beyond boring !! Still decent but..................the thrill is gone. That's Van Hagar. Well not the decent part.

Dave is just no longer up to putting out what is necessary to make the shows sound good.

A bit of a shame, because for my money Dave was really the only thing that made the 2008 show I saw bearable. Honestly, my reaction to the 2008 show I saw was less favorable than when I last saw Roth solo in 2006 in a small venue with his last solo touring band lineup. To put it plain, what I saw in 2008 made me say "THIS is what I had wanted to see so badly since 1996?" However, Dave was actually in very good form on that 2007/2008 tour. He kept the stage patter to a minimum, he "remembered the fucking words, man!" and sang the tunes as well as could be expected considering his age.

Flash-forward to 2012, and the rest of the band is well-rehearsed and serving up competent renditions of the CVH material. Ed is sober and playing well. Wolfgang has found his place in the band. Alex is playing well. Dave is treating the gig with even less seriousness than he was in the later years of solo touring (say, from 2003 to 2006). He's "forgetting the fucking words, man!"...again. He's yelling what words he can actually remember between mugging for the back screen projection cameras and doing bizarre backward sliding chicken dances on his center stage mat. And this has persisted from 2012 onward.

Honestly, who gives a fuck if Roth quits the band again now? It's done. Couldn't even be bothered to get tickets this time around, and won't be bothering should a "farewell tour" with Mike Anthony materialize a couple of years down the road. It feels like I'm just lining Van Halen's pockets for whenever they stop touring, and the band is barely willing to work for my money now. Sorry, but living legends don't get a premium from me just because they have a long tradition of existence. Van Halen as a current entity are only as good as what they are able to produce live, and that just isn't worth much to me anymore. Maybe 20 bucks a ticket, max...and that's for the good seats. Sadly, Van Halen du jour have now entered the same sphere as The Rolling Stones, The Who and Black Sabbath - have no interest in seeing any of them live anymore, because on the whole they can't deliver the goods. Certainly not even close to the level of the prices they charge to be seen onstage.