Van Halen: Why Don’t They Just Grow Up?
— September 9, 2007 1 49The more I hear about this Van Halen “reunion,” the less I am interested in it. Why, you might ask? Well, it seems like there is no end to the childish squabbling with this group.
I’ve got to give some credit to former VH bass player Michael Anthony for refusing to join his former band mates down in the mud. He’s taken a pretty mature approach to the whole situation so far and that’s pretty commendable considering some of the things that have been going on.
It became pretty well known that there was an effort to remove Anthony’s picture from the band’s website recently, which appeared to be an effort on their part to erase his history from the band’s past. Talk about childish behavior. An uproar from fans resulted in the images of Anthony being quickly restored.
That incident, besides the fact that Anthony was never invited to join the planned “reunion” (which would have made it a true reunion) and learned of it on the Internet along with the rest of us, should give Anthony reason enough to be pissed off.
It remains to be seen how well things will go with Van Halen offspring Wolfgang standing in for the discarded Michael Anthony. I’ve seen only one photo of the younger Van Halen performing with the others and it just didn’t look like Van Halen to me. At least not as much like it might have if Anthony was given the chance to take part.
Granted, I was never a huge VH fan, but I think I have listened to them enough to call myself a fan, and this particular fan would have felt better about this reunion if the core members had shown enough maturity to at least extend an invite to Michael Anthony and make it a genuine Van Halen reunion. From what he has said, I think he would have readily agreed to sign up.
Wolfgang is just a kid and has his whole music career ahead of him. That along with the blood of one of rock’s greatest guitarists flowing in his veins makes it easy to avoid laying awake in bed at night worrying about his career.
Sure, as a fellow geezer, I might be a bit biased, but I think Anthony should be up there on stage with the rest of the crew when the reunion tour kicks off.
1 Comment
Why the hell can’t they get along with each other? I know why: Eddie Van Halen is a jerk, who tends to fire bass players when they go off and do tours with Sammy Hagar, because Eddie doesn’t have a creative part left in him and Michael Anthony didn’t want to sit on his ass and do nothing. With all due respect, Michael Anthony should definately be up there with the rest of them: a TRUE Van Halen reunion.