Was Michael Anthony to be part of the failed Van Halen tribute project in 2021 or was it Jason Newsted?
Three years ago, Alex Van Halen and David Lee Roth were planning a Van Halen/Edward Van Halen tribute tour with Joe Satriani on guitar and either Newsted or Anthony on bass. This story first broke in April of 2021 when Newsted told The Palm Beach Post that he had been contacted by Alex six months prior to be part of a possible Van Halen tour. Just days later, Satriani confirmed the story to Q104.3 in New York by saying he’d been in talks with Alex and Roth about a possible tribute tour.
As for the part about Newsted being part of the project, that was news to Anthony, who later revealed that he was also approached by Alex and Roth. During a recent interview with Ultimate Guitar‘s Greg Prato, Anthony said he is still unsure of what role he was to play.
“It was really interesting because I had not even heard about that [concerning Newsted] until I heard about it in the press,” Anthony told Prato. “And it was right around that time that I actually had gotten a call from Alex and Dave about doing a reunion.”
“So I don’t know what was going on there. Because I think it was right around the same time that supposedly Jason had been asked. But I thought it was actually pretty interesting, because here I am, you know, ‘Hey!’ But I don’t know, who knows what was going on in their minds when they were trying to put something together.”
“All I know is that they had spoken to me also. But things kind of fell apart before they were even able to be put together.”
While Anthony wasn’t able to part of that tribute, he’ll be part of the upcoming Best Of All Worlds tour with Sammy Hagar, Joe Satriani and Jason Bonham to perform a Van Halen-heavy setlist. The tour gets underway on July 13th in West Palm Beach Florida at the IThink Financial Amphiteatre.