Van Halen Cancel 2012 European Tour & Download Festival Appearance Before It Is Announced?
Wednesday, 12 October 2011
Written by Elliott Batte
Legendary rockers Van Halen are a notoriously dysfunctional and hard to work with band. They’re also a band that’s been speculated to headline Download Festival on many occasions – especially in 2012. Festival forums have been rife with posts rumouring Van Halen to headline next year – one thread has 31 pages and over 600 posts. But today, a whole range of 2012 European Van Halen dates surfaced – with the message that they’d be CANCELLED before they’d even been announced.
Music website Melodicrock posted 13 dates going from May 28th to June 23rd next summer, which suggest that Van Halen would be rocking out the European festival circuit next year – and sure enough, there is a June 10th date at Donnington’s Download Festival. But, since the announcement, Twitter has been going crazy with posts from Melodicrock,Andy Copping (the organiser of Download Festival) and Van Halen fans. While Melodicrock claims that all the dates are real, Andy Copping has responded by saying that the Download date was fake – and that he never scheduled/booked the band to play at his festival next year.
Melodicrock wrote: “I feel as if I owe the fans to report what I hear and this info was 100% solid. As was past reports of select dates planned for this year. See...this kind of stuff happens from time to time but goes unreported. But with dysfunctional VH and their complete lack of communication...”
The reporter also got into a bit of a tiff with Copping – he wrote to the festival chief: “@Maverick_AC You're new to dealing with Van Halen right?” to which Copping replied: “@MelodicRock No, everyone else is.”
Copping had earlier tweeted a message claiming that the dates were “bollocks”: “@VanHalenUK @MelodicRock That's brilliant, a tour that wasn't even booked, gets cancelled...ha ha ha! What a load of old bollocks!”. While he was in a humorous mood when the news first broke out, he couldn’t contain his anger later when a fan asked whether he had actually booked them or not – he fumed “@peterou812 NO! THEY WERE NOT BOOKED!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!”
It is a very clouded and convoluted situation right now – and one that probably won’t be cleared up for at least a few months. But what’s interesting is a French music website reported yesterday that Van Halen had cancelled their European tour – APART from their mystery Download Festival slot. They didn’t include any dates.
So, what do you think of the whole affair? Are Van Halen being Van Halen as usual? Is Andy Copping saving face by saying he didn’t book them? Tell us what you think in the comments section below.
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