VAN HALEN DETERMINED TO HAVE THEIR OPENING ACT BOOED OFF THE STAGE

I know we’re like a week late on this, but we have got to talk about Van Halen choosing Bob Marley’s son, Ky Mani, as the opening act for their forthcoming reunion tour.

In case you’re not familiar with Ky Mani, he is, like his pops, a reggae artist. I repeat: Ky Mani in no way, shape, or form plays rock or metal of any kind.

Now, seeing as I know about as much about reggae as I do about speaking Chinese, Ky Mani might be the best reggae musician in the world right now. But, in all seriousness, tapping this dude to open a string of Van Halen shows is a huge mistake.

The opening act for this tour is gonna have all sorts of problems anyway: they’re opening for VAN FUCKIN’ HALEN, with David Lee Roth at the helm for the first time in two decades. Anyone who gets up in front of that crowd – a crowd that will surely be 98% full of people who have been drinking out in the parking lot for like three straight hours – is in serious danger of being met with loud boos and heckling. Anyone who gets up in front of that crowd and plays anything that’s not some form of hard rock is doomed. Did EVH learn nothing from the debacle that was Mixmaster Mike opening for Axl Rose back in ’02?

So what happened here? It seems like every rock band in the world, high profile or otherwise, would literally go out and murder Sammy Hagar and Michael Anthony for the chance to get this gig, and yet here we are, with some reggae dude as the opener. Obviously one could just skip the opener in favor of more of the aforementioned drinking in the parking lot, but…

Simply put: this is dumb. Dumb dumb dumb dumb dumb dumb.

-AR