Sammy Hagar
After more than five decades in the musical game, the touring life has begun to take its toll on Sammy Hagar, with the rock veteran admitting he no longer wants to take his music on the road.
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The 77-year-old Hagar made the admission while speaking to The Miami Herald ahead of a recent guest appearance at Caesars Palace in Las Vegas, where he expressed his disdain with the grueling nature of the touring cycle.
“I don’t think I want to go on tour anymore. I hate to say that, because I don’t want to piss my fans off,” Hagar explained. “I’ll go out and do a one-off show and do things like that, but the residency is going to give me a good extension of my career. That’s what I’m hoping for.”
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The Red Rocker’s comments came just months after his The Best of All Worlds Tour, which saw him perform throughout the U.S., Canada, and Japan. Even then, a series of Birthday Bash performances throughout Mexico and Las Vegas followed, with 2025 set to feature a number of performances for Hagar, namely his The Best of All Worlds Tour Residency in Las Vegas throughout April and May.
As Hagar explains, it’s residencies and similar events that work best with his desires to continue within the world of live music.
“With this, I don’t have to travel, I don’t have to unpack and pack and get on an airplane every day,” he continued. “You know, at my age, it hurts my shoulders to do all this. And I have to perform. I’m a performer, at the end of the day.
“I keep telling my manager, ‘Don’t take any tours, let me do this residency,’” Hagar added. “If I like it enough, I’ll do another one. And if that’s successful I’ll do another one, and I can squeeze a few more years out of my career.”
Hagar last released a studio album in 2022, issuing Crazy Times with his band The Circle. That album was also promoted with a series of dates throughout North America, though it remains their last large-scale tour to date.
Sammy Hagar likely won’t be listing Alex Van Halen‘s new memoir Brothers atop his favorite books of 2024.
Hagar, who fronted Van Halen from 1985 to 1996, and again from 2003 to 2005, took to social media to share his thoughts on the recent book from his former bandmate, labelling the omission of his time within the band as “blasphemy”.
Published in October, Brothers largely focuses on the veteran California outfit’s first 12 years, effectively stopping the Van Halen story after the departure of vocalist David Lee Roth, and overlooking not only Hagar’s time as vocalist, but the temporary lineup featuring Gary Cherone, and their ultimate reunion with Roth.
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“What happened after Dave left is not the same band,” Alex Van Halen told Billboard in October. “I’m not saying it was better or worse or any of that. The fact is Ed and I did our best work whenever we played. We always gave it our best shot. But the magic was in the first years, when we didn’t know what we were doing, when we were willing to try anything.”
Sharing a photo of himself and guitarist Eddie Van Halen from 1991 on Instagram earlier this week, Hagar began responding to comments on the post, including one who opined that “most purists believe VH ended with DLR”.
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“It could have [ended], my friend, but instead we went on to sell over 50 million records for [a] No. 1 album [then] sold out every building and stadium in the world for a whole decade,” Hagar responded. “That never happened again.”
IVan Halen experienced some of their biggest successes with their album 1984, which featured the Hot 100-topping single “Jump”, would peak at No. 2 on the Billboard 200 and become their highest charting release of the Roth era. Their next album, 1986’s 5150, was their first released with Hagar on vocals, and was the first of four consecutive No. 1 albums released with Hagar at the helm.
Continuing his response, Hagar contended that Alex Van Halen was doing both the band and his late brother a disservice by leaving the era out of the memoir.
“Alex is not doing his brother’s musical legacy justice by not acknowledging all the No. 1 albums and some great music Eddie and I wrote together — not Alex — but Eddie and I wrote together,” Hagar continued. “To not acknowledge [those] 10 years of music is blasphemy to his brother’s musicianship, songwriting and legacy.”
Despite his harsh words regarding Alex Van Halen’s book, Hagar recently told Rolling Stone it’s “on [his] bucket list” that he and his former bandmate are able to make peace at some point.
“I understand he probably couldn’t have done the whole era in one book. It would’ve been the Bible, the dictionary, so maybe he’s got plans for a Volume 2. Who knows?” said Hagar.
“I want to be friends, though. I don’t want to play in a band with Al. I’m not asking for that. I can see that he’s not capable of doing that. If he was, I’d be happy to play with him, but it’s not what I’m looking for. I just want to friends again.”
Metallica have wrapped up their live activity for 2024, finishing things off with their regular Helping Hands concert in California.
The musical component of the heavy metal outfit’s All Within My Hands foundation, the Helping Hands concert series is a biannual affair which has been running since 2018.
With “aims to assist and enrich the lives of members of the communities who have supported the band for years, as well as encourage participation from fans and friends”, the previous events have been wildly successful, with the 2018 and 2020 editions raising over $1.3 million, and 2022 resulting in over $3 million in donations.
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The latest Helping Hands concert took place on Friday (Dec. 13) at Inglewood, CA’s 6,000-seat YouTube Theater, with hosting duties performed by Jimmy Kimmel. The event also featured a handful of special guests, including Sammy Hagar and special guests Michael Anthony, Joe Satriani, and Kenny Aronoff, with classically-trained siblings SistaStrings also taking part.
As is tradition, the event featured a handful of deep cuts from the band’s back catalog, with this recent performance being no exception. Launching proceedings with a five-song acoustic set, both San Francisco singer, songwriter, and multi-instrumentalist Avi Vincour and pianist Henry Salvia were also on hand to aid in the performance.
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The band’s acoustic set kicked off with a performance of “Low Man’s Lyric”, which hadn’t been played live since the band’s Reload tour in September 1998, before being followed by the first play-through of Diamond Head’s “Helpless” since 2018, and their first-ever rendition of Bachman-Turner Overdrive’s “Away From Home”. Welcoming SistaStrings to the stage, the acoustic portion of the event wrapped up with versions of 2023’s “If Darkness Had a Son” and the enduring “Nothing Else Matters”.
The career-spanning electric set was slightly more traditional, featuring tracks from the band’s wider catalog. Alongside last year’s “Screaming Suicide”, Metallica leant into tracks from the likes of famed ’80s records Kill ‘Em All, Master of Puppets, and 1989’s …And Justice for All. While reintroducing “The Unforgiven II” to the live set for the first time since 2015, the band also welcomed Pearl Jam bassist Jeff Ament to the stage for a performance of “Hit the Lights”.
Metallica’s Helping Hands concert will also be uploaded to YouTube for streaming on Thursday (Dec. 19), while full details regarding how much was raised by the event is usually shared in the new year.
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