Have you been eagerly anticipating a new Van Halen album? You have? You are aware it’s not 1983, right?

No matter. You’ve been waiting for a new Van Halen album, and Eddie Van Halen isn’t going to disappoint. Eddie Van Halen has promised that a new Van Halen tour and album are coming, even though everyone secretly knows that the band will have three rehearsals and then break up again.

But trust Eddie Van Halen, even though Van Halen changes so often that the new album will probably be performed by Eddie, his milkman, Fred Durst and his wife’s pet goat on banjo.

Although we’d rather force-feed ourselves drawing pins than listen to one of his albums all the way through, we have to admit to a sneaking admiration for Eddie Van Halen – specifically his never-say-die attitude to life.

When his original singer quit his band, Eddie Van Halen simply replaced him with a new singer whose name made him sound like a comedy viking. Then when he quit the band, Eddie Van Halen replaced him with another singer, and then the first singer, and then a new singer, and then the first singer again, then sacked the bassist and replaced him with a teenage boy named Wolf. All of which makes perfect sense.

But if there’s one thing – apart from mind-breaking lineup changes – that characterises Van Halen, it’s the way that everything the band ever tries to do always falls apart at the last minute because Eddie Van Halen is shitfaced on booze. Van Halen’s induction into the Rock And Roll Hall Of Fame was a car crash precisely because Eddie Van Halen checked himself into rehab about three seconds before it took place; and when they finally got it together enough to tour, the band had to pull a bunch of shows because of Eddie Van Halen’s ‘issues’.

So you’ll forgive us for not having too much faith in Eddie Van Halen when he says that he’s gathering the band together for a new album and tour. Musicradar reports:

“We had a lot of fun on the tour – Dave was a blast. And next time we go out, we’re going to have some new stuff, too. I’m looking forward to getting on it. I’ve got tons of music written, such a variety of stuff… Actually, next week or the week after, Wolfie, Alex, and I are gonna start jamming. Maybe we’ll give Dave a call and see what he’s up to.”

Oh, alright. Enough cynicism. We’re actually looking forward to the new Van Halen album and tour. Or, to be more accurate, we’re looking forward to the one rehearsal they get halfway through before Eddie Van Halen falls over drunk in the middle of a 45-minute widdly-widdly-woo guitar solo, David Lee Roth quits the band 15 times in a row and little Wolf hits puberty and becomes so scared by all the hair in his pants that he runs around terrified until he clatters into a wall and knocks himself unconscious.

Because that’s literally going to be the best one of those things ever. Van Halen! Woo!

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It's not a good time to be a fan of giant-haired widdly-woo nostalgic Spandex rock right now.

Not only do you have to live with the fact that you've wasted a great big portion of your life endorsing the very worst type of music ever invented, but now Van Halen have postponed a load more reunion dates as well.

This is the second batch of shows that Van Halen have ditched this month so far, and it's all because Eddie Van Halen is currently being tested for a mystery medical condition. Sounds serious. We just hope that whatever the condition is, it's important enough to deny thousands of fans the chance to pay an inflated amount of money to see a gang of old men play music that all sounds like the theme-tune to Biker Mice From Mars.

Van Halen has always enjoyed something of a fluid line-up but, among the 400 singers and schoolboy bassists called Wolfgang that have passed through Van Halen's ranks, Eddie Van Halen has always remained the constant of the band.

Sure, Eddie Van Halen may have taken the odd day off to record Michael Jackson's most overrated song or develop a crippling substance abuse problem or two, but he's always been the beating heart of Van Halen. So when Eddie Van Halen contracts a mystery illness and has to go and be tested, that pretty much spells curtains for Van Halen as a band.

Earlier this month Van Halen cancelled a few dates because of Eddie Van Halen's 'issues. At the time we were undecided whether this meant Eddie Van Halen had fallen out with his bandmates for the billionth time in a decade, or whether his ex-wife's autobiography had plunged him back headfirst into a blizzard or booze and drugs, or whether he just has post-traumatic stress disorder from that time his garden got a bit flooded.

But now that a total of 17 Van Halen dates have been disrupted, it's starting to look like Eddie Van Halen might actually have quite a serious medial problem, as Reuters reports:

Rock band Van Halen's reunion tour fell into disarray on Monday when it announced it would postpone all shows through April 19 while guitarist Eddie Van Halen undergoes tests for an unspecified medical condition… According to organizers, Van Halen, 53, who has battled cancer and substance abuse, "is currently under doctors' care" and will "continue medical tests to define a course of treatment." No further details were made available.

Sounds worrying and, although his music makes us want to tear lumps of flesh out of our faces, we still hope that Eddie Van Halen's condition isn't as deadly as it's starting to sound.

Because, seriously, first Patrick Swayze and now Eddie Van Halen? Our 1980s icons are being obliterated. And these things always come in threes, so if we were Steve Guttenberg or Roland Rat we'd be bloody well cacking it at the moment.

Read more:

Van Halen scraps more shows amid mystery ailment – Reuters 

Sometimes it can seem like the hardest thing in the world to get four old men to play bad-haired, leotard-wearing widdly-widdly-woo hard rock music together.

That's certainly the case with Van Halen. After more messily aborted reunions than you could ever wish for, Van Halen finally hit the road in September to play their bad-haired, leotard-wearing widdly-widdly-woo hard rock music to as many middle-aged bad-haired nostalgia freaks as the possibly could.

Except it couldn't last and, with crushing inevitability, the rest of the Van Halen reunion tour has been scrapped; either forever or until the band feels the need to demonstrate its innate lack of personal and organisation skills in public again.

You know why bands split up? It's because they hate each other. And you know why bands reform? It's because they're greedy. And if you put a bunch of greedy people who hate each other on a stage and ask them to work together, it'll inevitably end in tears. It happened with the Spice Girls reunion just a couple of weeks ago, and it's happened with Van Halen so often that we can't be bothered to count any more. 

Van Halen is a band so opposed to getting along that it's been through four singers and a couple of bassists in its time. But to its fans, the classic Van Halen line-up was Eddie Van Halen, Alex Van Halen, Michael Anthony and David Lee Roth. Two years ago a tour by that classic Van Halen was promised, but it didn't happen because they decided to replace Anthony with a boy called Wolfgang and Eddie Van Halen kept getting wankered on all the booze.

However, once he sorted himself out, Van Halen actually managed to properly reform – albeit with Wolfgang in tow – for their long-promised tour last September. And they were strong – playing their one song that everyone knows and some others night after night so well that not even an actual natural disaster could halt them.

Until now. The Van Halen reunion is off and, as UPI reports, it might be because Eddie's found the keys to the drinks cabinet again:

Although performances were lined up through April 19, TMZ.com cited unnamed sources as saying the band's hotel reservations are being canceled now that the rest of the tour has been scrapped. The band's last three shows were canceled as Eddie Van Halen is said to be having "issues," the report said. The rock icon, who spent time in rehab last year, has been in media headlines the last few weeks because his ex-wife, actress Valerie Bertinelli, is making the rounds to promote her new tell-all memoir.

Yes, there's nothing to turn a man to drink like a book by his ex-wife about how much he used to drink. But at least Eddie Van Halen's 'issues' didn't kick in for five months after the tour started, meaning that thousands of people got to hear Jump and then a bunch of other stuff that they jigged around to and pretended they knew so as not to let the band's feelings down.

And, if an alcoholic relapse did bring about this tour cancellation, then we wish Eddie Van Halen the speediest of recoveries, and hop he gets back to scheduling and then cancelling tour dates as soon as possible.

Read more:

Report: Rest of Van Halen tour scrapped - UPI