Van Halen-David Lee Roth reunion leads to first tour in 22 years

Van Halen-David Lee Roth reunion leads to first tour in 22 years
The on-again, off-again Van Halen reunion tour with singer David Lee Roth is once again a go. The quartet announced a 25-date North American tour Monday, including Oct. 16 at the Allstate Arena and Oct. 18 at the United Center.

Tickets ($149.50, $79.50 and $59.50) for the Chicago shows go on sale at 10 a.m. Saturday through tixx.com

Roth, the Southern California quartet’s original vocalist, has not toured with the band in 22 years. A few attempted reunions went bust, most recently last January. An expected tour announcement was derailed when guitarist Eddie Van Halen entered a rehab clinic for undisclosed reasons in March.

Despite racking up more No. 1 hits on Billboard’s mainstream-rock chart than any band, and releasing two 10-million-selling albums (“Van Halen” in 1978 and “1984” in 1984), the quartet has had a fractious history. After Roth was fired in the mid-‘80s, he was replaced by Sammy Hagar, who parted ways with the band a decade later. Van Halen regrouped to record new music with Roth, only to have that brief reunion dissolve in acrimony. Gary Cherone took over as vocalist, and lasted for one album before being ousted in 1999. Hagar came back aboard for a reunion tour in 2004, and then split again. The lastest twist is that founding bassist Michael Anthony has been given the boot, and Van Halen’s teenage son, Wolfgang, has replaced him.

More internal politics could be read into the four-page press release announcing the tour from the tour promoter and two public-relations firms. The release mentioned neither Hagar nor Anthony, and focused exclusively on the six albums the band recorded with Roth from 1978 to 1984, even though the band subsequently scored nine Top-40 hits with Hagar.

Though the band has not recorded an