WOLFGANG VAN HALEN Dismisses ‘Painfully Fake’ VAN HALEN 2019 Tour Shirt

Wolfgang Van Halen says that a widely circulated image on social media purporting to show a shirt for one of the concerts on VAN HALEN‘s proposed 2019 tour is “painfully fake.”

In November 2020, Wolfgang, who became VAN HALEN‘s bassist in 2006 at the age of 15, revealed that his father, legendary guitarist Eddie Van Halen, had contemplated a “kitchen-sink” VAN HALEN tour that would have included former bassist Michael Anthony, as well as vocal turns from both Sammy Hagar and David Lee Roth. There was even talk about bringing back Gary Cherone, who sang with the band on one poorly received album, 1998’s “Van Halen III”.

On Monday (December 20), Montreal radio personality Jeremy White shared a photo of a “local crew” shirt that somebody claimed was intended for “the ‘Kitchen Sink Tour’ that never was.” The tweet added “that only a few venues had approval to print some shirts & this would have been in Chicago at Wrigley Field on 07/04/2019.” Alongside supposed headliners VAN HALEN, the shirt listed several support acts, including FOO FIGHTERS, Jason Aldean, WEEZER and Wolfgang‘s own band MAMMOTH WVH, the latter of which wasn’t publicly launched until last year.

After one of Wolfgang‘s Twitter followers asked him if the shirt is authentic, the 30-year-old responded: “Painfully fake. Said this a year ago when somebody made this the day after my Howard Stern interview when the kitchen sink tour was first talked about.”

Wolfgang added in a separate tweet: “Don’t believe everything you read on the internet, because that shirt is complete horseshit. Whoever made that is a weird fucking person. Just… why. It even looks stupid. Just such a a poorly designed shirt. Also we didn’t even have a final official design for the MAMMOTH logo at that time, so yeah.

“What an incredible coincidence that this picture surfaced right after my Howard Stern interview a year ago where I talked about the kitchen sink tour for the first time.”

With Wolfgang on bass, VAN HALEN embarked on lengthy tours in 2007, 2012 and 2015. The band’s final run of shows took place in the summer and fall of 2015. The North American trek included 41 concerts beginning on July 5, 2015 and ending on October 4, 2015.

In early 2019, a rumor surfaced that the classic VAN HALEN lineup would reunite that summer for a run of stadium shows. This would have been the first time that Michael, David, Eddie Van Halen and Alex Van Halen performed together since 1984.

The rumors originally started with Roth, who hinted to Vulture that VAN HALEN would be playing stadiums with Anthony back in the lineup.

VAN HALEN and Anthony had not been on good terms for more than a decade, with Anthony not invited to join the reunion with Roth that began in 2007.

Anthony took a pay cut and signed away all of his rights to the band name and logo in order to participate in VAN HALEN‘s 2004 tour, which featured Hagar.

Eddie died in October 2020 at St. John’s Hospital in Santa Monica, California. The iconic VAN HALEN axeman died from complications due to cancer, his son confirmed.

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