Van Halen Announcement: What Went Wrong?

Van Halens much-anticipated appearance at the Grammy Nominations Concertnever happened.

Despite all the hints and reports that the band would turn up to announce details of their new albumand tour, none of the four were present.

So what happened? This is what Neil Portnow, chairman of The Recording Academy, who run the Grammys, waffled:

In the world of creativity, everything is fluid. In the process of discussions that we had been having with an expectation that perhaps we would be at a point tonight where the artistinvolved and we, moving forward, would be ready to announce [a reunion], they werent quite at that point. So its live television, we go on to the next act. Its rock and roll and so on. That being said, we were genuine about the intention and we are genuine about the discussion.

Now it appears Van Halen will make their big announcement in January.

To their credit, theVan Halen News Desk (which is not directly associated with the band) was sceptical about the projected Grammys appearance from the start.

Below the headline Duped By The Grammys?, the website issued the following update while speculation mounted yesterday:

Rampant rumours have Van Halen making an appearance at the Grammy Nominations tonight to announce their forthcoming album and tour. It was the Grammys themselves who started the rumour. Yet some of our sources have been telling us that they cant confirm the rumoured appearance, and others have flat out told us that it was never anything but a rumour in the first place, started by the Grammys. Whatever the case, other than the original rumour, we havent heard anything that would lead us to believe that the band is involved in the show tonight. Put it this way if the band does actually make an appearance they are much better at keeping secrets than weve ever imagined!