Van Halen Announces New Tour

I was thinking about Van Halen yesterday after visiting Pia's Courting Destiny page. Pia grew up on Long Island, and in the post she talks about how she was kind of geeky growing up and into in high school. I left a comment, noting how I was kind of a geek too, and I reflected a bit on Van Halen:

I was kind of a late bloomer in high school as well. I’m a bit younger than you - Van Halen was hot when I was a junior, and I used to have a crush on this girl named Rae Marie Bonacci, and I used to think about her when “You Really Got Me” came on. When I went to the twentieth reunion a few years back, Rae Marie and some of the other hotties from back then start fawning over me (my wife thought it was kind of funny!).

So you never know how people will turn out or remember you!

I thought about Van Halen today as well, when on the way home from dropping off my course syllabi at my campus copy center Van Halen's cover of "Pretty Woman" came up on my local Jack FM syndicate.

So, with all the Van Halen-ing, I was interested to see that Van Halen announced a come back tour today:

They're in their 50s now, and they've traded their long heavy-metal locks for close-cropped cuts, but the original members of Van Halen are back in business and promise that they're better than ever.

"Usually, when a band comes back like us, it's rockers with walkers," frontman David Lee Roth told reporters at the Four Seasons Hotel here on Monday. "This is anything but."

Van Halen held a press conference to announce a 25-date concert tour beginning Sept. 27 in Charlotte, N.C. The re-formed group features three original members—Roth, guitarist Eddie Van Halen and drummer Alex Van Halen—along with Eddie Van Halen's son, Wolfgang, on bass.
"This is not a reunion," said Roth, 51. "This is a whole new band."

"It is totally blowing our minds and I think it will yours, too," said Eddie Van Halen, 52. "It's better than it's ever been."

With its flamboyant frontman, "Diamond Dave," Van Halen was one of the most popular rock bands of the 1980s. But the group split up in 1985 and the original lineup hasn't performed together since.

"I'm shocked any of us are still vertical," Roth quipped.

He and Eddie Van Halen insisted that the band's reunion isn't just a one-tour deal. After performing throughout North America, Van Halen plans to hit Asia and Australia.

"Then we make an album," Roth said, adding that the group has "lots of dreams, lots of ambitions."

"We really have re-formed this team like a brother team that it never was before," he said.
Wolfgang Van Halen, 16, brings "a young energy and a spirit" to the band, Roth said, adding that the teenage rocker chose the tour's song list, which features "close to 25 of your greatest hits."
"You know every single song, you know every guitar lick, every woo, every kick, every jump, every drum lick," he said. "We can't afford to shirk that duty."

The band has been rehearsing since October and plans to exceed fans' expectations, Roth said.

"None of us want to give you less than our best," said Eddie Van Halen. "And we are at our
best."

I faded away from listening to Van Halen in the early-1980s, as my skateboarding career took off, and along with it my Hollywood punk rocker credentials.

I listen to all the old stuff now, of course: I pump "Ain't Talkin' 'Bout Love" regularly on the Odyssey van's speakers when I'm chauffering my boys to art and swimming lessons. Usually, my oldest son plugs in his iPod ear buds to jam something a bit more cool for his pre-teen generation. He says "Van Halen's not hip, Dada."

He used to say that about Aerosmith a few years ago too, until one of his Disney Channel stars did a cover video of "Walk This Way." He now rocks back and forth to the beat when I pump that song on the radio, and we both point at each other and smile while singing, "just give me a kisssss!"