Remember when Van Halen had to postpone their reunion tour last year because Eddie went into rehab? Here’s what he said at the time, according to E!:
“I have always and will always feel a responsibility to give you my best. At the moment I do not feel that I can give you my best,” Van Halen wrote.
“That’s why I have decided to enter a rehabilitation facility to work on myself, so that in the future I can deliver the 110 percent that I feel I owe you and want to give you…”
While Van Halen didn’t specify what he was seeking treatment for, reports of his drinking swirled around the last VH tour, with second frontman Sammy Hagar, in 2004-2005.
Which is why it’s interesting that as of May ‘08, after 3/4ths of the original Van Halen had finally gotten it together enough to go onstage again, their tour rider specified the following (courtesy of the Smoking Gun):
Gallo! Yum. Hey, if you’re going to, uh, jump off the wagon, you may as well stick to the good stuff.
Oh, and the rider also specified that all four of them needed separate dressing rooms, and David Lee Roth’s had to be as far away from the others as possible. Everybody wants some… personal space!
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There was no Van Halen with a “second frontman”.
Maybe he’s a classy alcoholic?
Right on, Pasta.
If I had a drinking problem and planned on jumping off the wagon, it sure as hell wouldn’t be with anything by Gallo. Don’t get me wrong, I am happy to drink what’s there as long as it isn’t MD2020 or NyQuil, but in Eddie’s place, I’d make sure it’s a few bottles of chilled DP followed by some expensive scotch that sent me back to rehab.
I love DLR. So much.
Well, not everyplace has Two-Buck Chuck.
It’s not Eddie’s fault. You just can’t enjoy celery sticks without the proper beverage (and water, Gatorade and Red Bull ain’t it) and what better than a Cabernet Sauvignon? Way to pound on the guy for trying to be healthy.
LOL! I had forgotten Two Buck Chuck even existed.
i LOVE two buck chuck.. im not even gonna lie lol!
Two buck chuck?
I’m sorry, but where on that list did it say the wine was for him? Don’t musicians have entourages? Roadies, groupies, managers, producers…. Perhaps it’s for the ladies he plans on bringing back to the green room. Maybe he’s a recovering alcoholic lech.
Notice that those are “mini” bottles. I suppose those are the kind that come in a four pack and are more suitably measured for cooking with wine. At least he’s not pounding down 750 ml bottles.
Pasta, 2 Buck Chuck is Charles Shaw wine available at Trader Joe’s for $1.99. There are all the main flavors available. They do well in blind taste tests and the white zin is very good chilled in the summertime.
He’s European. To him, Gallo is just grape juice for grownups. It doesn’t count
.
It’s for his personal onstage cooler.
I looked it up. I know it probably makes me a huge dork. So it’s like Night Train or Mad Dog 20/20. It’s a fancy version of what a homeless panhandler would buy if they’d let him into a Trader Joe’s.
You could pretend you’re John Lee Hooker or Howlin’ Wolf or something while you drink it. That’d actually be kinda cool.
I’m not sure what on stage entails, but I doubt he;ll be chowing celery in the middle of a song, so perhaps that “on stage cooler” is still intended to be shared, or used before/after the concert.
I’d think it would entail being on the stage. As opposed to behind it. Each guy had his own cooler onstage, and his own dressing room, with specific items demanded for each.
But I suppose it’s possible that the guy whose alcoholism threatened to derail the tour altogether never really drank the booze listed in his contract, to be provided specifically for him, specifically onstage. Maybe he was being sarcastic.
Pasta, 2-Buck Chuck is priced like Night Train or Mad Dog, but it’s really a staple of upper middle class households who either want to save money or brag to their friends that they got such a deal on such good-tasting wine, or both. (And it’s really not bad as wines go.)
In Massachusetts, though, it’s 3-Buck Chuck for some reason. The extra buck is probably state taxes to pay for the healthcare of all the drunks around here.
And I’m with everyone else here on the Gallo – if you’re gonna fall off the wagon, Eddie, at least do it clutching the good stuff.
Yes Simon, I do actually know what the words “on stage” mean in context together; however, why would they want food, like celery and Crunchy granola bars, on stage with them?
Now what’s really amusing is the clause that dressing room #1(DLR) be far away from #2(EVH) and #4(WVH). Or how about the request that in lieu of bus stock they want $125/day?
Why not? You’re running around onstage for hours. Maybe you’d enjoy a nice snack. Unless asking for celery means Eddie isn’t a drunk?
*sigh*
What is an Eddie Van Halen?