Van Hagar To Tour In 2017

[Terry]

Yeah, the more time goes on, the more I think this dual singer setup is gonna happen.... With Mike.....

And as speculation has grown, coinciding with the VH I 40th anniversary next year.....It links up with the 3 year hiatus between tours they've been doing.... Do one more big tour, pocket one last retirement cash cow, and call it a day.....

But the format is a no-win situation.... Doing half the show with Roth and the other half with Bette WILL most definitely result in people leaving at halftime.... And if they did it a few songs at a time, that would suck bigtime....

Seemingly the only way we're going to see Mike onstage with the Van Halens is if Sammy is somehow involved. The extension of that is seemingly the only way we're gonna see Mike and Dave onstage with the Van Halens is if it is that Hagar/Roth co-headlining tour with the Van Halens.

To be sure, for Hagar and Roth such a format is a no-win situation, because both of those guys want to close the show...or at least perform the closing set: I tend to think Roth would feel more uncomfortable with this than Hagar. Hagar is clearly up for anything as long as he gets to play with the Van Halens again, even trading off songs with Dave. Dave just doesn't feel Hagar's contribution to Van Halen was even deserving of it being done under the name Van Halen, much less standing up side by side to what Roth brought to the band.

At this point, how badly do I want to see CVH perform live in front of my naked, steaming eyes? Not enough to endure a night of Sam Hagar forced upon me due to some oddball setlist of alternating lineups from one tune to the next in order to accommodate the feelings of the musicians involved. I honestly don't give a shit if the Van Halens and Roth are getting along these days, or if Mike has a problem with Wolfie, or what. I'm a fan of CVH. Not a tea leaf-reading pop psychologist.

I don't care who is still angry at who for whatever transpired decades ago.

If Ed, Mike, Al and Dave want to mount a farewell tour as CVH and play a full setlist of CVH tunes with the CVH lineup (and no special guest appearances by Wolfgang or Sammy), I'll be up for one last Van Halen show. I'll make an effort to get tickets. And if I can't get tickets, I really won't be too bummed about it, since at this point such a tour would be as much a requiem as a celebration.

Anything short of that (Wolfie instead of/in addition to Mike, Hagar instead of/in addition to Roth), I'm not interested.

[Nickdfresh]

Seemingly the only way we're going to see Mike onstage with the Van Halens is if Sammy is somehow involved. The extension of that is seemingly the only way we're gonna see Mike and Dave onstage with the Van Halens is if it is that Hagar/Roth co-headlining tour with the Van Halens.

....

Mike would dive head first into a CVH reunion and I doubt he gives that much of a shit about the Sam era at this point...

[Terry]

Mike would dive head first into a CVH reunion and I doubt he gives that much of a shit about the Sam era at this point...

I dunno about that.

I mean, I don't know the guy, but...like, I could see Anthony doing it as a gesture for the fans, but I couldn't see Anthony doing it out of any particular allegiance toward or concern for his relationship with the Van Halens. Mostly because, according to Anthony, he no longer has any such relationship. Hasn't for a decade +. And he has even less of a relationship with Roth.

So it'd be hard to imagine Anthony doing a CVH reunion unless Anthony got an equal cut of the tour profits: the guy went ahead and did the 2004 tour for a reduced wage, despite neither of the Van Halens even wanting him around, and he was only there at Hagar's insistence.

Hagar has Anthony's back. The Van Halens and Roth don't. Short of a decent payday and a goodwill gesture to the fans, there's no other motivation for Anthony to rejoin Roth, Eddie and Alex: he's certainly not going to do it out of a sense of loyalty to his former bandmates. Why would he? None of them were particularly loyal to him in the end run.

I dunno. Anthony has such a publicly passive attitude toward all of it there are times where I wonder if the guy was born without a spine...or even one of two testicles.

One-nut Malibu.

[Nickdfresh]

He would do it for the money and because he was a bass player in Van Halen long before Hagar sang with them...

[ZahZoo]

Our opinions are swayed by wading through so much muck and bullshit from the Van Halen Soap Opera™ that has been the narrative of these guy's legacy.

If you were to step back from all that... The 2018 anniversary could present a simple business opportunity for all of the past/present band members. Put together a big show, cover the bases for all eras, limited performances in a few select big venues world-wide and some sort of big box set music/video product release. Something for all the fans and a final shot for the band and their legacy.

Divide up 90% the proceeds evenly for the 5 original members... and give Wolf and Cherone, if included, the remainder. Keep it short... 2 months of prep & rehearsals. 2 months of shows in the US, Europe, Japan, Australia and maybe South America.

[GreenBayLA]

For What it's Worth Dept.
I met a concert promoter last month who was dropping all kinds of name to impress our firm. He mentioned booking a big show in Florida this year and said Van Halen would be headlining. I asked for more details and that was all he had. He is prone to bs and exaggerate but I thought it was interesting that the Van Halen machine may be ramping up again.

[Terry]

Our opinions are swayed by wading through so much muck and bullshit from the Van Halen Soap Opera™ that has been the narrative of these guy's legacy.

If you were to step back from all that... The 2018 anniversary could present a simple business opportunity for all of the past/present band members. Put together a big show, cover the bases for all eras, limited performances in a few select big venues world-wide and some sort of big box set music/video product release. Something for all the fans and a final shot for the band and their legacy.

Divide up 90% the proceeds evenly for the 5 original members... and give Wolf and Cherone, if included, the remainder. Keep it short... 2 months of prep & rehearsals. 2 months of shows in the US, Europe, Japan, Australia and maybe South America.

That is really the essence of it: trying to wade through the reported (and who knows what the truth of that vs. the reality actually is) dynamics of the various personality fractures over the last 30 + years, and from all that divine future intentions. A parlor game that rarely results in an accurate prognostication for what eventually does transpire.

I mean, Cherone leaves in 1999 and all one heard was how CVH were gonna play the 2000 Superbowl, then record a new album and tour. 4 years on, you get the shambolic 2004 Van Hagar undertaking. And who would of thought when that tour ended three years on you'd end up with Roth back in the band and Ed's kid playing bass? Shit, by the time 2006 rolled around, it looked more likely that Ed was going to drop dead at any moment than another attempt at a Roth reunion would be undertaken.

Your 2018 scenario seems completely reasonable from a chronological and business standpoint.

Ed has seemed fairly stable for the last 7 or so years. He's apparently not running on what Roth during the 1996 to 2006 period coined as "Unabomber logic." Van Halen has settled into a working oldies act, so your 2018 scenario could easily be physically accomplished. Everyone is still vertical.

With that mix of egos (and I'm thinking more of Eddie, Roth, Hagar and Anthony), actually GETTING something like what you proposed DONE...I mean, I can't see why it COULDN'T be done...then again, I can't see why CVH couldn't have done more than they did in 1996...or 2001-2002...or 2006 to the present...

Maybe getting all four of CVH together now just isn't something that is doable in terms of having everything align the way it needs to make it happen.

Frankly, for me it doesn't even NEED to BE anything other than CVH. It never has been. I think it's kind of lame that input from Ed's kid or Sammy Hagar publicly brokering options is required to make something happen and get some movement out of the band. But, much like Wolfgang's participation from 2006 to the present, apparently these sort of things DO need to happen to induce activity.

It just seems so weird to think that the original lineup was able to accomplish so much back in the day - without even apparently liking one another all that much at times - and they can't simply reunite and do a tour. Reuniting and touring the old material isn't some scenario that requires them to reinvent the wheel. They did all that heavy lifting 40 years ago. They don't even have to record any new music. The setlist would pretty much write itself. They hammer out a financial agreement, rehearse the old material, go out on the road as Van Halen (a full-on reunion tour would basically promote and book itself, even at this late date), then say sayonara.

Honestly, how hard can that be? For a band that has gotten used to complicating the simple, apparently what they used to do so effortlessly has become an impossible climb.

[DavidLeeNatra]

Terry...you put more effort in one post than these fuckers in the band.

[Terry]

Terry...you put more effort in one post than these fuckers in the band.

I mean, even more sad/pathetic/lame than the inability of CVH to reunite is the amount of time and thought I've given to the subject since 1996.

Shit, when I was hitting my teens, Van Halen were fucking IT. Zeppelin were disbanded by the time I hit junior high. The Who were barely sputtering along. Lennon was dead. The Stones were entering a near-decade of not touring. Hendrix, Skynyrd, The Doors...all those guys were long fucking gone. Van Halen were MY band, you know? Not some legend I had to hear about from my older uncles. Or an act like Ozzy with Randy where I didn't get the chance to see them before Randy died. Or a makeupless/Crissless/Frehleyless KISS. Van Halen were (then) here and now, and tearing it up in arenas nationwide, releasing great music.

Van Halen, for me, were always several cuts above the bands that zoomed in behind them. The Def Leppards, Quiet Riots, Motley Crues, Ratts, Dokkens...the only other bands active when CVH was that I liked nearly as much were Maiden, Dio, Priest.

But Van Halen were...just...fucking...IT for me. And I only got a chance to see them with Dave once in 1984. Then Roth bails, Hagar steps in...it's just like, fuck me, you know?

By the time early 1996 rolled around, CVH were just a memory to me. The likelihood of Roth even rejoining wasn't something I bothered to entertain for a moment, because those guys fucking hated each other, it had been more than a decade since they had played together...it was over, and nothing was going to bring it back. Christ, unlike three years earlier, by early 1996 Roth couldn't even get arrested. I recall seeing his Slamming Blues Mambo Vegas Revue (or whatever he called it) on the Tonight Show several months earlier, and my immediate thought was that Roth was finally totally washed up: if YFLM and the NYC pot bust were warning signs, that Tonight Show performance was the confirmation.

Roth had gone off the deep end, and Van Hagar were still putting out Van Hagar music. A cheesy turn of events, but whatever. Life goes on, and by early 1996 Van Halen had been releasing Hagar-filled swill for so long I was immune to it. I didn't even bother listening to Balance: I couldn't even be bothered to try and sift through that album for the few decent instrumental passages I found on previous Sam Halen albums. I didn't give a shit anymore, nor was I interested in Dave attempting to be the 2nd Coming of Wayne Newton.

Humans Being is released, and I must say I was fairly impressed with the tune. About as good as Van Halen with Hagar was going to get, and the instrumentation sounded like it had a bit of the old school fire to it. Then Hagar leaves. Then Roth is working with the band again. I gotta tell ya, I thought MWM and CGTSNM were really promising tracks. If Van Halen could have made a full-length album with songs of that quality with Dave in 1996 and then toured, THAT would have been pretty fuckin' suh-weet.

And ever since that 1996 debacle, in the back of my mind has been the thought that CVH could still REALLY put it together in a meaningful way. Even after the Cherone album. Even after Eddie's cancer scare. Even after Dave's silly radio show and Van Strummin' album. Even after the 2004 tour debacle. Even after Anthony getting ejected for Eddie's teenaged kid. Even after Eddie's Smoking Loon/crystal meth binge which left him looking like the Crypt Keeper, and he was reduced to drunkenly wanking on his patented Trans Trem Sustainer Drop D whatever the fuck he was calling that days EVH signature guitar and making "soundtrack music" for lame porn flicks his head fluffer girlfriend was "production assistant" on.

Through all of, even up through today, I'd still like to see CVH give it a go. Even though by now I barely give a shit (as you can tell from my constant flow of multi-paragraph comments on the subject), for me this band isn't finished properly until CVH take the stage again.

Once THAT happens, THEN they have my permission to retire.

[DavidLeeNatra]

I'm 100% with you. Except for YFLM which I really like because of the Dave Extravaganza.

Gesendet von meinem SM-G850F mit Tapatalk

[Terry]

I'm 100% with you. Except for YFLM which I really like because of the Dave Extravaganza.

Gesendet von meinem SM-G850F mit Tapatalk

YFLM I came around to liking much later after it was released.

Initially, I wasn't so keen on it. About half of the album I dug right off the bat. The other more experimental (in comparison to Roth's recorded output up to that point, anyway) half I was very lukewarm about at best at the time. When it was released, for me it was quickly forgettable, in no small part because Dave wasn't really touring in a big way to support it in terms of venue sizes: I can't even remember a tour announcement back in 1993 or any local promotions for it in my area. And it got zilch in terms of radio play.

Honestly, it wasn't until about 5 years after it was released right around the time the DLR Band cd was released that I recall giving YFLM its due and giving it multiple spins to see if it would grow on me more than it had the first time around. In the end, the tracks I liked the most right off the bat still resonated with me the best (especially the first three tracks on the album, all vintage solo Roth far as I am concerned), but I could at least appreciate the other stylistic undertakings a bit more than I had for what they were instead of just focusing on what they weren't.

YFLM comes across as something where Dave might have thought by the time 1992 rolled around that his traditional "big rock" niche certainly wasn't what was gripping the pop culture zeitgeist at that moment, and an album of start-to-finish hard rock tunes wasn't going to get much of a promotional push in the midst of the grunge explosion anyway regardless of the musical content. So what better time to mix it up a bit and maybe generate a buzz by working with Nile Rodgers and trying out some different styles. It was a gutsy decision in some ways, although an easy one in others, since had Roth merely put out another hard rock album and hit the spandex-clad arena tour circuit, the response would largely have been eye-rolling indifference at that point.

YFLM and the Vegas stint a couple years later was Roth trying to find his place in the entertainment industry in a new era where rock stars of his stature a decade prior were no longer in vogue/in demand. He had to do something to shake things up, and it took gumption and fortitude to try something new and not merely lapse into nostalgic self-parody (that came later with the Sam and Dave tour).

[chuckjitsu]

Good series of comments Terry. One thing I'll always give Dave credit for is putting himself out there in different ways. The results have been very mixed, from good (DLR Band album), to ok (YFLM), to WTF (Vegas show, Backyard BBQ video, Dave's general late 90s early 2000s appearance), to yawn (radio show), but at least he was doing/trying stuff. The results weren't always there, but god bless for trying.

Ed is the only reason Mike isn't in the band right now. It all flows from him, which is a shame because I think the timing is really good to bring Mike back in. Wolf drops his solo album in summer or fall, VH goes out on tour in '18 to celebrate the 40th of VH1 with Mike back in and Wolf opening the shows. Everybody wins- Ed gets to keep his kid around and CVH fans get the original lineup back together. But, this is VH we're talking about here, so the odds of that scenario playing out are probably zero. Seems like the closest we've gotten to a true reunion was whatever they did in the early 2000s "before the lawyers got involved". I've never heard an explanation for what that actually meant, but I always figured it was some combination of figuring out the publishing/royalty stuff and Dave wanting shit in writing so there wasn't a repeat of the '96 denial (Dave) and "baby steps"/duplicity (Van Halens) debacle. Throw in other unresolved shit and adios reunion.

On an unrelated note, I recently dug back and listened to the bootlegs on YouTube from their '78 Euro tour- really fantastic stuff. Just young/hungry guys with something to prove out there dominating. I don't remember which show it was, but I was almost shocked by Ed's solo. Just the ferocity of it. It was some of the fastest playing I'd ever heard from him and it was just loud and aggressive all the way through. Bit of a far cry from the solo he does now, which has basically been the same thing for like 30+ years. There was also a great version of Voodoo Queen at one of the shows, so much that I thought to myself "And why exactly did that song not make the cut on the first couple of albums?". I envy the lucky bastards who got to see them before Dave left, but I really envy those who saw them up to/during the FW tour, which i think is the peak of their power.

[Terry]

Good series of comments Terry. One thing I'll always give Dave credit for is putting himself out there in different ways. The results have been very mixed, from good (DLR Band album), to ok (YFLM), to WTF (Vegas show, Backyard BBQ video, Dave's general late 90s early 2000s appearance), to yawn (radio show), but at least he was doing/trying stuff. The results weren't always there, but god bless for trying.

Ed is the only reason Mike isn't in the band right now. It all flows from him, which is a shame because I think the timing is really good to bring Mike back in. Wolf drops his solo album in summer or fall, VH goes out on tour in '18 to celebrate the 40th of VH1 with Mike back in and Wolf opening the shows. Everybody wins- Ed gets to keep his kid around and CVH fans get the original lineup back together. But, this is VH we're talking about here, so the odds of that scenario playing out are probably zero. Seems like the closest we've gotten to a true reunion was whatever they did in the early 2000s "before the lawyers got involved". I've never heard an explanation for what that actually meant, but I always figured it was some combination of figuring out the publishing/royalty stuff and Dave wanting shit in writing so there wasn't a repeat of the '96 denial (Dave) and "baby steps"/duplicity (Van Halens) debacle. Throw in other unresolved shit and adios reunion.

On an unrelated note, I recently dug back and listened to the bootlegs on YouTube from their '78 Euro tour- really fantastic stuff. Just young/hungry guys with something to prove out there dominating. I don't remember which show it was, but I was almost shocked by Ed's solo. Just the ferocity of it. It was some of the fastest playing I'd ever heard from him and it was just loud and aggressive all the way through. Bit of a far cry from the solo he does now, which has basically been the same thing for like 30+ years. There was also a great version of Voodoo Queen at one of the shows, so much that I thought to myself "And why exactly did that song not make the cut on the first couple of albums?". I envy the lucky bastards who got to see them before Dave left, but I really envy those who saw them up to/during the FW tour, which i think is the peak of their power.

Certainly Dave deserves credit for attempting to move his career forward, mixing things up stylistically and not being afraid of taking a chance. Regardless of my own take on the various results. I mean, I dug the BBQ Vid, myself. At the very least, Roth can say he gave other avenues a valid attempt over a sustained period of time before cashing out on a series of greatest hits tours with Van Halen. And I can't really criticize what he has been doing with Van Halen for the last ten years from the standpoint of imagining it must have been more than a bit humbling for him to return to the boards in the late 1990s opening for acts like Bad Company, then teaming up with Hagar and eventually working much smaller venues than he did when his career was at its apex in commercial terms: would you want to wind down your career playing for 10,000 + fronting Van Halen, or be a solo act stuck in the middle of a multi-band bill at a State Fair? Even if the State Fairs pay well, I'd have to imagine there's an emotional component there from a performer's perspective.

I'd tend to agree Ed is the primary reason Mike isn't with the band anymore. Who knows what the fuck CVH were really doing in the early 2000s and why THAT reunion didn't go forward? After what happened in 1996, I can't say I would have blamed Dave for wanting a signed contractual agreement before undertaking anything with the Van Halens beyond mere rehearsal/demo recording stages. And yes, it WOULD make perfect sense for the original/CVH lineup to do something next year to mark the 40th year of the first Van Halen album released. There's really no reason it couldn't happen, although as you mentioned this is Van Halen we're talking about here, so equally there's really no reason to think it actually will happen. Myself...the band has already strayed into that Rolling Stones territory: the crucial parts of their back catalog remain timeless for me, but I have virtually no interest in seeing them perform anymore. Put another way, unless the CVH lineup is touring, I probably will never see them perform again. The interest just isn't there for me. Even if the current lineup announces their next tour will be their last. Okay, so be it. If CVH tours, I'll try to make a show. THAT would be kind of neat to see, but the older the members get, the more my interest in even seeing THAT wanes.

Yeah, that band WERE fucking FEROCIOUS those first 4 tours. You can hear it and feel it even when listened to in bootleg form. I'm glad I got to catch them once with that last tour w/Dave in 1984, and that was a pretty spectacular show at the time but slightly more so for the spectacle of it than the actual performances. I really envy those who saw them up to/including the FW tour, too! For me, that band and that lineup was really the last of the larger-than-life rock bands far as I'm concerned. The acts that came out in their wake - especially the Los Angeles bands - always seemed smaller in comparison. Sort of semi-pretenders, in that none of them were as good overall. There was always some component(s) lacking. Either the level of musicianship wasn't there, or the songs themselves didn't measure up, or the live performances weren't as good (never mind better) as the recordings were. Maybe G n R with Appetite had the beginnings of something that could have measured up over time, but they really didn't in the end. They flamed out too quickly. It has more to do with just mere album sales. If that were the sole case, by rights I should be putting Def Leppard and Bon Jovi up there with CVH, and that most definitely is NOT the case.

[vandeleur]

I honestly thought once he wasnt busy with van we would have been flooded with "fake plastic seats" type songs. At least it would mean he wasnt deeeed.

[Terry]

I honestly thought once he wasnt busy with van we would have been flooded with "fake plastic seats" type songs. At least it would mean he wasnt deeeed.

More likely holed up in a Tokyo hotel room with an Asian man-servant...

...or isolated in the hills of Wyoming, wandering around with a sheepdog or two...

...fuckin' weirdo that he is.