Fresh from ‘outing’ Red Hot Chili Peppers as the Big Day Out 2013 headliners, music journo-come-scuttlebutt Nui Te Koha has talked up rumours that rock veterans Van Halen could making their way to Australia before the end of the year.
Te Koha has been plugging Van Halen’s Australian tour since February, first noting that “David Lee Roth said this week that it’s very likely they’ll do international touring and you’d be stupid not to have Australia on the agenda.”
Now the Triple M music reporter says that the originally touted August/September touring plans have been delayed until October, at the earliest, after “talks with two promoters to down to Australia.”
“They’re going to do Japan in November and one major promoter is talking to Van Halen about October, so it looks very good,” says Te Koha. Hopefully extending their tour in support of their latest studio album, A Different Kind of Truth, the band’s twelfth in their forty-year career.
Van Halen were originally meant to be in Australia in September 2011 for the Soundwave Festival, but unfortunately it was supposedly their famous in-fighting that brought the event to a miserable end.
However, in a recent promotional video from frontman ‘Diamond’ David Lee Roth (in full fishing gear with his dog Russell), the frontman says all that’s behind them. “The band is getting along famously, better than we have in quite some time; and I think the shows reveal that,” says Roth. Adding that “through the miracle of YouTube”, fans can see their revitalised energy.
Roth also encourages fans to film their concerts, saying “we’re one of the few bands who relishes you bringing whatever camera… if you can carry it in and pull the trigger on it yourself – then please do.” There’s plenty to capture too, thanks to Roth’s recent band-vs-fan antics, including admonishing some brawlers for starting a fight in the crowd in March; and busting an audience member’s chops after he threw trash onstage during their cover of ‘(Oh) Pretty Woman’.
One fellow musician who won’t be attending their shows if they head down-under however, is The Black Keys’ drummer, Patrick Carney. The popular blues rock duo are themselves in Australia in October to headline Perth’s Rock-It Festival, and Carney recently attended a Van Halen performance calling them “motherfucking assholes” adding, “I’m not a very big Van Halen fan but it was such a fucking bummer.”
Harsh words, but you can make up your own mind while you watch Lee Roth teasing Australian tour plans in his video below:
