There have been conflicting reports, both positive and negative, posted on the Internet in the days following the event. From where I sit, admittedly thousands of miles away, I can see how both angles could easily be reported.

On the positive side, some said Eddie was really cool - jamming away for an hour on his guitar and treating fans to newly written riffs. In between playing he revealed that he's been working on some scores for film and a television sitcom. Maybe that explains the photo with Adam Sandler?

Of course not everybody can be satisfied at an event like this. Many queued up for hours because they'd heard that Eddie would be signing autographs after his performance. When that didn't eventuate, some vented their frustration at vhforums.com [read post].

All I can say is that it's great to see Eddie out and about again. Hopefully someone had a tape recorder running. Us fans have been so starved of new Van Halen music that we'll take anything!

Now for the rumours. Before you read on, the standard disclaimer applies. If you're after 100% verifiable news about Van Halen, go to van-halen.com.

All of the following are 100% unconfirmed rumours. They may be confirmed or denied in the future, but we're talking about Van Halen here so don't hold your breath. I offer them to you as information that has been shared with me by a person that I trust and that has never given me bogus information in the past.

Here goes, in no particular order...

• Sammy Hagar has begun secretly working again with Van Halen in the past few weeks, although not on a regular basis. He is not back in the band officially and no agreements have been extended or made.
• Eddie is said to have enough material written for five albums.
• He didn't regularly play the guitar for about a year (until the past month or so), and has been practicing the piano and the cello.
• He has spent the past 18 months or so composing and recording music for soundtracks and sitcoms

There you have it. Personally I don't believe the "Sammy is back" rumour, but who knows. How many of you ever thought Sammy would tour with David Lee Roth? When you think about it, that could never have happened, until it did.

Maybe Mike brought Sammy over to 5150 to jam with Eddie and Alex one day?

Right now the only definite possibility we have of any type of reunion is if the band are inducted into the Rock N Roll Hall of Fame in March 2004. That's not inevitable either. Van Halen aren't guaranteed to be inducted in their first year of eligibility, and even if they are there's nothing stopping Eddie or Dave from "doing a John Fogerty" and refusing to reunite for the one-off performance.

Love them or hate them, Van Halen's US Festival co-headliners, The Clash (the only people who put iced tea in Jack Daniel's bottles - David Lee Roth), unfortunately won't get that opportunity.

July 2, 2002 - Notice
This space has intentionally been left blank. If you have highlighted this text you will see that it really says nothing. The purpose of it being here is to pad out this table cell, so that the cell on the right goes hard against the right side of the page. Without this text, the table could end up anywhere!