With Van Halen scheduled to return to town for the second time in three months a week from today, we figured we'd pass along this juicy tidbit: The two legs just before the March 3 performance at American Airlines Center (in Charlottesville, Va., and Duluth, Ga., respectively) have been mysteriously postponed. No one seems to know why, although there's plenty of Internet speculation on the matter...
Rumor No. 1: Bad weather. Well, clearly, that's just not the case...
Rumor No. 2: Inner band strife. Certainly not unlikely given the band's history. But considering that the fight supposedly happened in a bar gives us pause--Wolfgang Van Halen, Eddie's son who has replaced Michael Anthony as the band's bassist, is just 16 years old...
(More after the jump.)
Rumor No. 3: Some claim that this video, which features Eddie tossing his guitar at the end of the last non-postponed set (in Fort Lauderdale, Fla.), shows some insight: Looks like pretty standard rock star stuff to us...
Rumor No. 4: That Valerie Bertinelli's new tell-all book about her life has something to do with it. Interesting, but no other source is really mentioning this... We'll have to check in with Ms. Bertinelli herself when she's in town at the Borders on Preston Road on Monday to promote the book. (Hey! That's the same day as the Van Halen show!)
Decent fodder, sure, but where does it all lead? Is Dallas' show in jeopardy? So far, it doesn't look that way.
Emily Kopp, director of marketing for Dallas' Live Nation branch (which booked Van Halen to play the AAC), says the Dallas show is still scheduled to go on so far as she knows (granted, she didn't know the other two shows were postponed). She did, however, note that ticket sales on the West Coast had been pushed back recently. Evidence of issues? Perhaps.
So we decided to end all the controversy and go right to the source: Janie Liszewski, Eddie Van Halen's publicist. According to Liszewski, "Dallas is scheduled to still happen."
Great. But any reason for the other shows being postponed? A curt "no" from Liszewski, who doubles as Eddie's girlfriend. Oh well. We tried.
We'll let you know if anything else develops along this front. --Pete Freedman
