Longing for the day ...

No Van Halen at their own show??

Distubing news at the pinnacle of the industry: Van Halen will not be performing at their own induction into the Hall of Fame. Not with DLR, not with Sammy, not at all. That's ridiculous!!

Apparently, it's not uncommon for R& R Hall of Fame inductees to not perform at the ceremony, but instead to have others play a tribute to them. Fine; if members are dead or incapacitated I get that. But when you've got a band who made their name on their live show, and who should be available (apart from Ed) they should not be inducted if they can't, IMHO. Part of the quality of their contribution has to be that they can still do their thing, right???

There's also a few egos involved, which is no surprise to anyone. DLR reckons he won't do it if he can't perform, which I think is about right, and the HOFsters say he's not taking the opportunities he's been offered. That's no surprise.

But there are a couple of telling comments in there abut the state of the industry. One from Roth, who says "It's just not an option for me to go and watch some other band — who are only performing because they have some new record coming out — do our music" (my emphasis). He's hit on the point of the whole gig here. I hate this kind of crap - it's what prompted the farce of Pete Murray performing "Seen better days" at the NRL Grand Final some years ago. What a joke - top-ten hit or not, there has to be a better sense of occasion for the game than that! Talk about missing the point ...

My sympathies and best wishes to Ed and his family, btw.