As they announced it on Monday on their website, Van Halen will tour in 2012 to celebrate the band’s 40th anniversary. There are no dates yet but they should come shortly as the first tickets will be on sale January 10th.
The lineup for the 2012 tour will include singer David Lee Roth, guitarist Eddie Van Halen, bassist Wolfgang Van Halen (Eddie's son) and drummer Alex Van Halen.
The famous Roxy club, on the Sunset strip, revealed on Thursday that, for the past 2 months, Van Halen has been rehearsing in their walls 2 or 3 times a week!
On the club’s blog, theroxyonsunset.com, it is said that the famous rockers were in fact shooting a video in the Roxy for their new single (we don’t know much more about this), totally fell in love with the place, and decided to rehearse there for the upcoming tour.
Apparently, the writers of the blog had a hard time to keep it for themselves for obvious reasons:
‘Do you have any idea how hard that was to not tell you?? When you come in at 10:00AM and David Lee Roth, Eddie Van Halen, Alex Van Halen, and Wolfgang Van Halen are on stage with 3 other people in the room playing “Running With The Devil” and you can’t say anything?! It’s tough, to put it simply.’
Here are the best I-can’t-believe-Van Halen-is-rehearsing-in-front-of-me moments shared by the staff of the Roxy:
My favorite Van Halen moment was when I came out of the kitchen and they were doing Panama. I was one of the only people standing in the room by the stage. David Lee Roth looked at me, smiled, and waved. I thought to myself “that is the only time in life I will know David Lee Roth was actually singing to me.” – @LizzyDStadler
“It was so nice being at my desk listening to “Jump” & “Panama”, the songs I grew up with by the actual Van Halen. I mean, really – it’s the actually fucking Van Halen!” – Tina
“Watching David Lee Roth film the opening part of this video was one of the most awesome things. He was standing there smiling with a gigantic grin on his face for at least 5 minutes and HeKo & I were standing off to the side trying not to laugh (or get in the shot), but it was incredible. The week they finally brough in the synthesizers and played the opening to “Jump” over & over made it really difficult to not jump out of my seat accordingly with the song. JUMP!” – @toneyeah
“What was my favorite part about it? Everything. I know it sounds stupid, but I can’t put it any other way. To walk through the club and have Eddie Van Halen smile at me or pat me on the back, the guys were so nice, it was unbelievable. In my 9 years at the club, this is by far one of the best things that’s happened.” – Scotty
“The positive energy VH brought to the daytime was fantastic. During the day, it’s always so quiet and work, work, work and even when a band does rehearse, it’s always so serious. Van Halen was having fun the entire time and we could feel it throughout the building.” @Heko310
“I just loved the first time they played “Running With The Devil” it sounded exactly like it did when I was working box office at The Whisky.” – Kathy
The 80s are back in a big way, but this period seems so far away for me, when did I hear 'Jump' for the last time? No idea, but man, how it looks far away in time in my memory.
This new album will be their first with David Lee Roth in almost 3 decades! But in November, when Van Halen’s signing with Interscope Records was announced, Sammy Hagar revealed to Rolling Stone that the new album will not be as fresh as expected, but will actually contain ‘old outtakes from the old days. I mean, stuff from before I even joined the band’, and that ‘Ed and Dave didn’t actually write new songs’.
I don’t know about this but Hagar also thinks his mind was taken over by extra-terrestrials, so what kind of credibility does he still have?
Anyway, the Roxy has posted a few Vimeo videos, all filmed inside the club, like this one for Van Halen’s hottest hit ‘Jump’: