Van Halen had fairly the summer time. On Tuesday (Sept. 1), Alex Van Halen was knighted within the Netherlands. The Van Halen drummer was appointed a Knight within the Order of the Netherlands Lion, one of many nation’s highest civilian honors, throughout a ceremony in Nijmegen, town the place Alex and his brother Eddie spent a lot of their childhood earlier than their household moved to the USA. Mayor Hubert Bruls offered Alex with the royal honor on the Berchmanianum, the academy constructing of Radboud College.
And that looks like nearly as good a spot as any to start out, as a result of the previous few months have been busy for Van Halen information.
On July 30, Alex Van Halen appeared alongside David Lee Roth at TEDxFargo, marking the primary public look collectively by the previous bandmates since Van Halen’s last present in 2015. The 2 had been interviewed by artist Robert Vargas, who stated the dialog will finally be launched on YouTube. For Van Halen followers, merely seeing Alex and Diamond Dave collectively once more was notable sufficient, however the timing made the looks much more fascinating.
Only one week earlier, Roth cancelled all his remaining 2026 tour dates, reportedly due to low ticket gross sales. The one exception was his scheduled look on the annual Sturgis Motorbike Rally on August 7.
Roth already made headlines earlier within the 12 months when he joined Teddy Swims onstage at each Coachella and Stagecoach in April. These appearances put the previous Van Halen frontman again in entrance of some very giant audiences, however his subsequent tour cancellations steered {that a} full-scale return to the highway wasn’t going as deliberate.
On the identical day Roth’s cancellations had been introduced, his former Van Halen rival Sammy Hagar prolonged an sudden invitation. Hagar publicly requested Roth to affix his upcoming Las Vegas residency, which is scheduled for late September and likewise options Van Halen bassist Michael Anthony.
Contemplating the difficult historical past between Roth, Hagar and the Van Halen camp, it is tough to think about a extra intriguing potential visitor look. Whether or not Diamond Dave really accepts the invitation stays to be seen, however the concept alone was sufficient to get Van Halen followers speaking.
After all, if Alex Van Halen has something to say about it, the connection between the band’s varied eras stays as difficult as ever. Again in 2024, Alex spoke to Billboard about Hagar and Michael Anthony’s “Greatest Of All Worlds” reveals and stated he felt they “weren’t doing the band justice.”
Now, in a newly printed interview with Roadie Crew, Alex has taken an much more direct shot at Hagar. Requested about Hagar’s 2011 memoir Crimson, Alex responded: “For my part, Sammy Hagar is a whole fool.” Not a lot to interpret there.
However the newest spherical of Van Halen information is not all about outdated rivalries. Rhino introduced that the band’s last studio album A Completely different Sort Of Reality, shall be reissued on October 23. Launched in 2012, A Completely different Sort Of Reality reunited David Lee Roth with Eddie Van Halen, Alex Van Halen and Wolfgang Van Halen. It was the primary Van Halen studio album with Roth since 1984 and, in the end, the band’s last studio document.
The upcoming reissue follows the expanded fortieth anniversary version of 5150, which was launched in Could and celebrated the primary Van Halen album to characteristic Sammy Hagar as frontman.
After which there’s Wolfgang Van Halen, who has spent the years since his father’s loss of life carving out his personal path with Mammoth. A few weeks in the past, Wolfgang revisited a remark from a hater who, precisely 5 years earlier, had predicted that “in 5 years he’ll be enjoying all VH.” Apparently unwilling to let the second move unnoticed, Wolfie had really created a calendar occasion so he would keep in mind the date. 5 years later, he was in a position to level out that he had received the wager.
And that is just about the state of Van Halen as summer time 2026 involves a detailed.
