Silver Stallion Videos has uploaded video of Sammy Hagar‘s entire August 2 show of his summer 2024 tour at Pine Knob Music Theater in Clarkston, Michigan.
For “The Best Of All Worlds” tour, Hagar and his bandmates in THE CIRCLE – ex-VAN HALEN bassist Michael Anthony and drummer Jason Bonham — are being joined by guitarist virtuoso Joe Satrianiwho has recorded and performed with Hagar and Anthony in the band CHICKENFOOTand multi-instrumentalist Rai Thistlethwayte.
As has been the case with the all “The Best Of All Worlds” concerts so far, the set in Clarkston consisted largely of VAN HALEN material, including the opening track “Good Enough”since 1986’s “5150” album, as well as two songs from 1991’s “For Unlawful Carnal Knowledge”, “Poundcake” and “Runaround”and a pair of David Lee Roth-was VAN HALEN classics, “Panama” and “Ain’t Talkin’ ‘Bout Love”as well as a section of “Jump”.
The rest of the set included Satriani‘s “Satch Boogie”the rousing rock-swing guitar instrumental that put him on the map in 1987 and helped propel his second album, “Surfing With The Alien”, to platinum status. and several of Hagar‘s only classics, such as “There’s Only One Way To Rock”, “Eagles Fly”, “Heavy Metal” and “I Can’t Drive 55”.
Featured songs:
* Good Enough 0:00
* Poundcake 5:01
* Runaround 11:21
* There’s Only One Way To Rock 17:36
* Judgement Day 24:15
* Panama 28:30
* 5150 32:54
* Summer Nights 40:29
* Ain’t Talkin’ ‘Bout Love 47:31
* Top Of The World 51:42
* Best Of Both Worlds 56:23
* Satch Boogie 1:01:54
* The Seventh Seal 1:06:41
* Right Now 1:13:36
* Why Can’t This Be Love 1:20:04
* Eagles Fly 1:28:12
* More Tequila 1:34:31
* Heavy Metal 1:41:08
* I Can’t Drive 55 1:45:45
* Helter Skelter 1:53:55
* Big Foot 1:56:24
* Jump 1:58:43
* When It’s Love 2:02:07
Produced by Live Nationthe 28th date “The Best Of All Worlds” tour will conclude on August 31 in St. Louis, Missouri.
During an appearance on the July 18 episode of SiriusXM‘s “Trunk Nation With Eddie Trunk”, Hagar spoke about the summer 2024 tour, which kicked off on July 13 at the 20,000-capacity iTHINK Financial Amphitheater in West Palm Beach, Florida. Asked about Satriani‘s approach to performing the material originally written and recorded by Eddie Van Halen, Sammy said: “Oh, I gotta tell you, Joe is a scholar. I can’t tell you how good of a musician Joe Satriani es. He’s as good as any musician on the planet. He’s got his own style from him. It’s a little different than Eddie‘s. Eddie He was a genius musician too, but he had a different style and he did his thing. Joe‘s got his thing. Joe went in the closet. Well, not in the closet — he went into the woodshed, and since the announcement [of the tour on ‘The Howard Stern Show’ last November]…I threw a couple songs at him and said, ‘Hey, why don’t you just learn this song or that song?’ And then Stern laid songs on us, that we’re going, ‘Well, shoot, we didn’t think about those. Joe‘Do you know that one?’ He goes, ‘Oh, I’ll try it.’ He’s that good. So now he’s dialed them in.”
Hagar continued: “What [Joe has] done, for any of you guitar players out there that wanna come and see what Joe‘s doing, or wanna criticize Joe or wanna praise Joewhatever you want to do, he has taken the essence of Eddie‘s guitar solos and parts and he plays the necessary parts to make sure it sounds just like the record, the way it’s supposed to. The solo on a song like ‘Jump’ — I hate to use that one ’cause it’s not my song, but we do ‘Jump’; we do a piece of ‘Jump’ on the encore. We do a five-song encore that’s got a little bit of ‘Jump’ in it. And when he plays that solo, he plays it like the record. And then he’ll go off in the middle somewhere. He’ll do a little tiny thing. He’ll do little things that say, ‘No, this is Joe Satriani playing Eddie,’ but he’s doing Eddie right. No one could complain. He’s hitting all the right notes that make the essence of what Eddie invented And he puts his own heart and soul into it, which makes it so much different and so much better, in my opinion, than a guy just mimicking him exactly. And his tone is different. It’s kind of like Eddie‘s, but I don’t know — Joe‘s just so good. I don’t know how he’s doing this. I really don’t know how he’s doing this.”
Regarding the setlist for the tour, Sammy said: “This setlist is deep, brother. We’re playing two hours and 20 minutes. We’re only playing like five of my songs, one CHICKENFOOT and one MONTROSE. The rest is VAN HALEN. Get out of here, man. That’s an hour and a half, about a buck 40 of VAN HALEN. In VAN HALENwe didn’t play as many songs as we’re playing, ’cause Eddie did a big 20-minute solo, To the [Alex Van Halen] did a 20-minute solo, Mike did a 15-, 20-minute solo, and I did ‘Eagles Fly’ by myself. So, you add that together, we did about 12 songs.”
As for how the tour has been going so far, Hagar said: “Honest to God, I haven’t felt like this about a show since walking off the stage at some of the greatest VAN HALEN shows in my life. And I’m telling you — I’m not just saying that, I’m not trying to hype anyone, and 90 percent of these shows are sold out, so it’s not like that. It’s from the bottom of my heart. Mike and I walk off stage so exhausted — 2:20 in Atlanta the other night; we played two hours and 20 minutes — and I just haven’t done that. I just haven’t had this deep of a setlist. I haven’t had this big of a production. I don’t know. I’ve been having fun, but now I’ve stepped it up and Mike and I, like I said, we look at each other every night walking off stage, and we hug backstage for about 20 minutes. It’s just fantastic. The whole band is — they came to the party. Joe came to the party. Jason came to the party. Rai came to the party. The people are happy, we’re happy, and I just never felt like this walking off stage since VAN HALEN. I can say that. I can honestly say that.”
Hagar and Anthony previously worked with Satriani in the supergroup CHICKENFOOT. They recorded two albums between 2009 and 2011 and toured across America but never performed any VAN HALEN material. More recently, Hagar and Anthony have played some of the VAN HALEN catalog with guitarist Vic Johnson and Bonham in SAMMY HAGAR AND THE CIRCLE.
Hagar mended his relationship with Eddie Van Halen months prior to the legendary VAN HALEN guitarist’s October 2020 passing.
Sammy, Eddie, Alex Van Halen and Michael last teamed up in 2004 for a US summer tour. In exchange for taking part in the tour, Anthony He reportedly had to agree to take a pay cut and sign away his rights to the band name and logo.
Eddie Van Halen died in October 2020 at St. John’s Hospital in Santa Monica, California. The iconic VAN HALEN axeman passed away from complications due to cancer, his son confirmed.
