Few bands typify “arena rock” more than Van Halen, but on its new tour — which begins July 5 at the White River Amphitheatre in Seattle and will continue for 40-plus dates – the group is playing amphitheaters. “Van Halen has not performed many outdoor shows, so this is new for them,” says Van Halen manager Irving Azoff. Why do it now? “Summer, summer, summer,” he says.
This, the group’s third consecutive tour with David Lee Roth on vocals and Wolfgang Van Halen playing bass, comes nearly 40 years into its career. Live, Van Halen remains a commercial force. The Different Kind of Truth Tour in 2012 sold 522,296 tickets and grossed $54.4 million, according to Billboard Boxscore – although it ended on a sour note when a scheduled final leg never happened. “The last 30 dates were not canceled; they were never officially announced,” says Azoff. “The guys were dead, beat, exhausted.” Regardless, dates have been added to the upcoming tour for Los Angeles and New York. And Bob Roux, co-president of North American concerts for promoter Live Nation, says projections call for a $30 million-plus gross. “Van Halen is perhaps one of the greatest rock’n’roll bands of all time,” says Azoff. “The boys had some time off and they wanted to get out again. And no one is getting any younger.”