NEW YORK TIMES: As news briefings go, it rocked. On Thursday night Van Halen took to the stage of the venerable Cafe Wha? on Macdougal Street in Greenwich Village, capacity 250. “Last time I stood on a stage this low, we had to have the car back by midnight,” said the singer David Lee Roth. The objective was to prove that Van Halen is alive and amicable for an arena tour that starts on Feb. 18 in Louisville, Ky., after the Feb. 7 release of a new album, “A Different Kind of Truth.” It’s to be Van Halen’s first full album with Mr. Roth as lead singer since the band fired him in 1985, although the group has done previous reunions with him. There was no formal announcement at Cafe Wha?, just a blast of Eddie Van Halen’s guitar, a rumble from his brother Alex Van Halen’s drums, and a motormouthed Mr. Roth declaring, “It’s like climbing into a rocket in here, and it’s a rocket that comes from way, way back in our past, all the way into what the future’s going to look like according to — Welcome to Occupy Van Halen.” MORE
