After weeks of teasing, The Grammys failed to deliver on their promise to have Van Halen on Wednesday’s Nominations Concert special.
The show, designed for sponsors, featured the announcements of the 2012 Grammy nominations, as expected, and included performances by Lady Gaga, Sugarland, Jason Aldean, Rihanna (on tape), and others.
Reuters.com reports The Recording Academy Pesident Neil Portnow declined to confirm speculation that Van Halen was the band in question, but told reporters on Wednesday that those concerned were not ready to go public.
“In the world of creativity, everything is fluid," he said. "In the process of discussions that we had been having with an expectation that perhaps we would be at a point tonight where the artist involved and we, moving forward, would be ready to announce [a reunion], they weren't quite at that point. So it's live television, we go on to the next act. It's rock and roll and so on. That being said, we were genuine about the intention and we are genuine about the discussion."
Whatever happened behind the scenes for this promo to fall off the rails, it’s likely a blessing that VH didn’t make the show, and you’d have to wonder why anyone would have thought that was a good idea in the first place.
VH would have stuck out like a sore thumb on the tv special, the lone dinosaurs in a world led by Lady Gaga and other pop singers.
When the Grammys released their VH tease weeks ago, I immediately had flashbacks to the original reunion fiasco caused by a similarly ill-scheduled appearance on the MTV Awards back in 1996.
After recording two new tracks for the “Best of Volume 1” album, a reunited David Lee Roth and VH stepped out on stage to a rousing, standing ovation, as the band plugged its forthcoming release.
But, it wasn’t long before old personality clashes returned to the surface, as Roth and Eddie VH ended up in an argument backstage and the full reunion of the original VH was dead in the water, with fans having to wait another dozen years to see 3/4 of it come back to the surface. It’s now been 15 years and there’s no sign that the full reunion – including bassist Michael Anthony – will be happening any time soon.
We may never know if this week’s publicity stunt was just wishful thinking on the part of The Grammys, or if the band was really in place to appear. Given the timing of the show versus VH’s rumored 2012 release schedule, it’s probably best things didn’t work out this time.
However, fans don’t like being misled and, for that, The Grammys should issue an apology for leaking news that may have not been confirmed in the first place.
See also:
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