It all started with a quote from Eddie Van Halen; “In November, we’ll hit Japan, and in the new year, we’ll possibly do something special, but I can’t talk about it.”
This quote kicked off rampant rumors that “something special” might mean that Van Halen could be the band considered to play the Super Bowl halftime show next February. Keep in mind, rumors of Van Halen playing the Super Bowl are nothing new – their name pops up annually as a potential performer.
It seems to be Van Halen’s protocol never to address rumors. We at the Van Halen News Desk have never commented on the Superbowl rumors either, as they have never been anything other than fan’s wishful thinking. This year was originally no different – we weren’t planning on addressing the rumors without first hearing something either way from our trusted inside sources. But wouldn’t you know, our sources now tell us that David Lee Roth is indeed going to publically address the Super Bowl rumors within the next few days. Now, that sounds interesting! (Dare we say it sounds “promising”?)
We’ll speculate that if (and that’s a big “if”!) Van Halen actually ends up playing the Super Bowl next year, we think they would almost certainly tour right afterwords. The Super Bowl is a humongous opportunity for publicity on the biggest television sports event in the US, so it wouldn’t make sense for the band not to tour afterwords.
In fact, 114 million people tuned to in to watch Madonna perform at the halftime show this year. The last 3 Super Bowls now sit at one, two, and three on the most viewed programs list in TV history. And as David Lee Roth has said, on any given day, you can walk into any hockey arena or football stadium throughout the country and you’ll hear Van Halen’s music blaring to get the crowd pumped up. So Van Halen and the Super Bowl would go together like peanut butter and jelly.
Could 2013 be another huge year for Van Halen? That would really be something, considering the fact that 2012 is such a stellar year in their career, with the release of their critically acclaimed masterpiece, A Different Kind Of Truth, and their hugely successful 48 city US tour which just wrapped up last week.
Stay tuned…