David Lee Roth, Inactive as a Solo Tourer for 13 Years, Joins KISS’ Farewell Tour

By Chris Willman

LOS ANGELES (Variety.com) – It’s good news and bad news for Van Halen fans. David Lee Roth has been announced as the opening act for the apparent final months of ’ farewell tour, with dates from February through October of 2020. That puts a nail in the coffin of whatever dim hopes fans might still have harbored for a group resumption, but it does mean that Roth, who hasn’t toured as a solo artist since 2006, does not intend to sit on his hands, or go back to being a paramedic.

KISS reps are declaring that these dates really are getting close to the end of the road for the long-running “End of the Road Tour,” which will “officially come to a close” on July 17, 2021 at “a New York location yet to be named.” The concerts announced Tuesday only run through Oct. 2, 2020, so it’s unclear whether there’ll be tread left on the tires for another run of shows in 2021 before the planed NYC swan song. The announcement does refer to the fall 2020 shows as “the last leg” of the farewell tour.

Roth and KISS go back quite a ways, together. In 1976, Gene Simmons produced Van Halen’s demo tape after being taken to see the group at Gazzarri’s in West Hollywood by DJ Rodney Bingenheimer, although KISS’ management at the time passed on signing the group.

After being separated since the mid-’80s, Roth reunited with Van Halen for a tour in 2007 and a new studio album in 2012. The group last toured in 2015, with rumors swelling since then about possible future gigs and why those might or might not come to be, with diminishing hopes in the last year for any future activity with Roth and the band. “I think Van Halen’s finished,” Roth told WRIF “Meltdown” in September as he promoted an upcoming Las Vegas residency.

Since his last solo tour in 2006, Roth had done only a few short one-off shows as a solo artist. He recently announced a solo residency at Mandalay Bay in Las Vegas, with shows booked for January and March of 2020. The KISS tour that begins in February takes a five-month break in mid-March before resuming in August, which will allow Roth a few days to get back to Vegas before the second part of his residency picks up.

The newly announced round of KISS/Roth dates: