It may be “Pure Magic” now

but how long will it last this time?

Eddie Van Halen has described the rehearsals with new frontman David Lee Roth as “pure magic”.

The first tour with Diamond Dave up front for 23, yes 23 years is scheduled for this year and Eddie says…

I am very excited to get back to the core of what made Van Halen Eddie Van Halen

Well OK Michael Anthony or Sobolewski as Ed likes to call him isn’t the greatest bass player of all time, some of those solos dear god, but he was still one quarter of one of the great bands of all time. And do you want the freshness that Ed says his son, who has been playing a whole 3 months, brings to the bass or do you just want those old tracks to sound the way you remember them?

So we’ve been here before, 1996 Dave was back in the band a Greatest Hits album was going to be released, dreams of a classic VH line up on tour. Two tracks on that album were new ones from Dave then he was gone, a round of he said they said.

Then VHIII, well I’ve listened to that album, once and that’s it, all the other VH albums have been played over and over again, even F.U.C.K. which isn’t my favourite by a long way but I can’t make myself listen to the Eddie solo album fronted by Cherone again.

Then again back with Roth in 2000 and they fell out again.

So back to Sammy, now I like Sammy Hagar, got a load of his solo albums along with a bunch of Montrose stuff – took me ages to find that debut Montrose album. I also like the Van Hagar stuff, it ain’t as good as the Roth era releases, it was never going to be, but some of the stuff is still good – would say “Balance” is my fav of the Sammy days.

Another Greatest Hits album, this time with three new tracks fronted by Sam – funnily non from VHIII – and a tour. The amount of complaints I heard about that tour.

But then it was back to he said they said, the “they” in all this being Ed and his brother Alex.

So after Sammy and Dave hooked up for a tour, Michael Anthony was then off with Sammy, much to Ed’s disgust and so is replaced by Ed’s son Wolfgang…

Michael Sobolewski is out touring with ‘the little red rocker’ … I mean the little red worm. I got no problem with these guys, but they’re billing themselves as the other half of Van Halen. My brother is the other half of Van Halen. They’re out there selling hot sauce and tequila and playing all my songs. It doesn’t bother me. It just makes them a cover band. Eddie Van Halen

So after the cancer & hip replacement Ed was doing soundtracks for porn flicks – “Catherine” & “Rise”. Then there was Dave’s bizarre bluegrass album of VH tracks and his appearance on “The Tonight Show“, after his lounge act, stint as a paramedic and radio jock he’s back.

There’s going to be yet another Greatest Hits package – well I suppose the first one was called “Volume 1” so should have known, this time just from the Roth era of 78-84 and the 40 date tour is scheduled.

But how long will it last this time?

It’s “pure magic” but will it survive in time for them to stump up to their induction to the “Rock and Roll Hall of Fame” in March and who will be attending that as Anthony & Hagar are also included…?

Could of course just forget it all, yeah it would be great to see 3 quarters of one of the greats with Diamond Dave putting on a show and Ed playing a striped Charvel just like the old days but it wouldn’t really be like the old days at all so is it better to listen to those great albums and a whole load of bootlegs showing them off at the bands peak and not be disappointed?