Van Halen tour starts tonight !

Van Halen fans can't wait to "feel the love" tonight as guitarist Eddie Van Halen and drummer Alex Van Halen reunite with original lead singer David Lee Roth to launch their first tour together in 22 years at the Charlotte Bobcats arena.

After years of largely ego-driven public feuding, Eddie and Diamond Dave recently patched up their differences last month at an L.A. press conference to announce the reunion tour, which also has Canadian stops in Toronto on Oct. 7 and 12, Vancouver on Dec. 5, Edmonton on Dec. 9 and Calgary on Dec. 11.

Heck, Eddie even laid a kiss on Dave's cheek in front of reporters.

Still, the Van Halen trek isn't strictly a reformation of the L.A. hard rock band's original lineup from 1974 given bass player Michael Anthony, and his Jack Daniels' shaped instrument, isn't on the bill.

In Anthony's place, will be Eddie's 16-year-old son Wolfgang, whose presence is the biggest question mark on this trek given his youth and inexperience as he shares the stage with three seasoned fiftysomethings.

That and wild Roth, a strutting, flamboyant, outspoken and opinionated frontman who once asked yours truly if I wanted to go to Paris for the weekend during his lean solo years, drive guitar virtuoso and recent rehab resident Eddie crazy?

As you might imagine, early reports from their rehearsals at the Forum in L.A., have the newly reunited Van Halen steering clear of any post-Roth era catalogue.

In 1985, Roth was replaced by Sammy Hagar, who was then replaced by Gary Cherone in 1996.

Their tentative 26-song set list is culled from all of the Roth-fronted records, beginning with their 1978 self-titled debut and ending with 1984 and all the hits in between -- their spirited cover of the Kinks' You Really Got Me, Dance the Night Away, Beautiful Girls, And the Cradle Will Rock, Runnin' With the Devil, Jamie's Cryin', Feel Your Love Tonight, Panama, Hot For Teacher, Ain't Talkin' About Love, Jump, etc.

The stage, meanwhile, reportedly has a runway that snakes out into the audience in a giant 'S' shape, with a lighting rig above it in the same shape.

Anthony, who is touring with Hagar in October, has taken the high road with regards to the Van Halen trek saying he found out about it just like everyone else and that he wishes nothing but the best for Wolfgang.

"I can understand that (Eddie) wants his kid to play with him,' Anthony told Rolling Stone magazine.

"If I had a kid like that, I'd like to have him perform with me too. I'm not going to sit here and go, 'Hey, those (jerks), going out and doing this without me.' I even told fans, 'Don't judge his son Wolfgang too hard, because he's the innocent guy in this whole thing.' I'm sure he'll do fine."

The brothers Van Halen formed the group in Pasadena, after their parents immigrated to California from the Netherlands, and Eddie originally played drums and Alex guitar before they wisely decided to switch.

Of all people, it was KISS bassist Gene Simmons who financed their first demo recordings that eventually got them their first label deal.

The band has since sold 80 million albums worldwide and was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame earlier this year.

An earlier attempt to reunite with Roth this summer was derailed when Eddie, who battled cancer in 2001, went into rehab for an unknown problem.

Roth said at last month's press conference that the reunion trek, one of several this year that has seen the likes of the Police, Genesis and the Spice Girls all regroup, was just a precursor to a world tour and new album.

"Usually when a band like us comes back, it's rockers with walkers, and this is everything but. Meet us in the future. Not in the past."

Roth, who also briefly rejoined Van Halen in 1996 to record a few songs for a greatest hits compilation, also praised Wolfgang for "bringing a young energy and spirit to this."