You can’t return if you never really left
“I view the reunification of Germany in much the same
way I view a possible Dean Martin-jerry Lewis reconciliation: I haven’t really enjoyed any of their
previous work and I’m not sure I need to see the new s--t right now.”
— Dennis Miller
Much has changed since that was first quipped (joked, cracked or wiseacred) more than 20 years ago.
Dean Martin is dead, for one. Jerry Lewis looks it. And the man who zinged (joshed, whammied and, um, wisen-heimered) that zinger (etc.) ditched his sense of humour and comedy career in the back of Parsident Dubya’s limo sometime after realizing it was a liability in a post-9/11 world.
As for our reunited Deutschey friends? Well, they seem to be doing quite well, thanks for presumably asking. They have one of the few euro economies that is actually weathering the current tumult and we’ve apparently forgiven them enough for past transgressions that even Space Jam star and noted gambler Michael Jordan is comfortable sporting — along with handsome, non-bacon-collared undershirts — the same facial hair (or is that Herr?) Germany’s moustachioed former despot made famous.
Which all goes to show (in an entirely roundabout and unnecessary tangent that was embarked upon only to use the word “moustachioed” in a sentence) that those who mock the newly announced reunion of Van Halen do so at their own peril.
On Thursday night, the Rock and Roll Hall of Famers revealed to a select group of New York journos and insiders that it has once again welcomed original frontman David Lee Roth back into the fold, recorded an album set for an early February release and will embark upon an extensive tour which will bring them to the Saddledome May 9 (ticket info to be announced in the coming days followed by a high-pitched yi-yi-yi-yi!).
Now, there are many, many, many points a cynic could use to attack this particular news. Many. A lot, in fact. And surprisingly few have anything to do with Kool and the Gang being the openers for some of the tour (along with KC sans Sunshine Band and, probably, Foghat).
For example, how is it a reunion when they never really went away? The band last toured with Diamond Dave, his soot-stained voice and golden weave four years ago. That was newsyish because it gave fans of the classic (add your own quotes around that word should you desire or detect irony) lineup what they’d been pining for and teased with after suffering through several other incarnations over the past two-and-ahalf decades.
There was the one fronted by tequila pitchman and extraterrestrial proctological outpatient Sammy Hagar, another with some other guy, Lawrence Gowan, I think, and then Hagar the horrible again. (Pretty sure there were a few others in there, too, like maybe one with the dude from Journey, then Hagar, Paul Rodgers possibly, Hagar, and, through an unfortunate but zany mix-up, an old Scottish tailor named Sammie Heger.)
As for the Feb. 7 album, the band’s first studio effort since their 1998 atrocity III, and first with the Gigolo avec ego since the cleverly titled 1984 (it is when it says it was), it’s already raising some fans’ eyebrows (the un-botoxed) thanks to comments from le Rocker Rouge, who told Rolling Stone that he understood it was merely unwanted leftovers from the old days that had been reheated to be served up (with a side of creamed corn and applesauce) to the Halen hungry. Of course, Hagar could merely be talking out of his (de) X-filed orifice and A Different Kind of Truth may actually also be what it says it is — who knows? And, who really cares?
Certainly not longtime fans who’ve been smacked around so many times by the band that new songs from a long artistically dormant oldies act or discarded scraps from when they were in their prime both will be welcomed with open arms, as they tell their friends and family and themselves, oops, clumsy them, they walked into a door.
And they’re certainly not going to balk at seeing them perform a smattering of those with a heaping helping of the hits and merch for dessert when the reunited band returns. Again.
Which brings us back to the final point. That being the fact that, technically, this can’t really be billed as the original VH lineup purists have been waiting and waiting and waiting and waiting for.
Sure, hatchets and Hagars have been buried and Dave’s been brought back, but they are without bassist and backup vocalist Michael Anthony who was ousted from his duties, replaced by Wolfgang Ludwig Stravinsky Chopin Van Halen (son of guitarist Eddie Van Halen and the girl from One Day at a Time who didn’t allege she had carnal relations with her papa).
So, no, it isn’t the original Van Halen.
Maybe that’ll be in four more years.
After a quick tour of Poland.