Posted on Wed, Jun. 28, 2006

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Sammy happy to be solo

By Alan Sculley Weekender Correspondent

Sammy Hagar says he’s looking forward to his tour this summer more than any tour since the Van Halen reunion tour of 2004. He’s just hoping that this summer’s trek turns out better than the one with the platinum-selling former band he fronted from 1985 to 1996.

“It wasn’t a great experience,” Hagar said of the much-hyped Van Halen reunion tour. “On stage, the fans made it a wonderful experience by being so receptive and so overwhelming. They made us all just look at each other and go ‘Oh my God, this is the greatest thing in the world.’ So it took the edge off. But the second we went and left the stage or certainly building up to going on stage, I couldn’t even go (near guitarist Eddie Van Halen).”

Hagar, though, isn’t sitting around mourning the absence of Van Halen. He’s hitting the road with his band, the Wabos, and one of the year’s most elaborate productions. His stage set, as on other recent tours, is modeled after his Cabo Wabo Cantina in Cabo San Lucas, Mexico, only it’s bigger and better than past

models. And the Hagar concert experience will go far beyond that. The man known as the “Red Rocker” is bringing an entire village to venues that will open at 3 p.m. on concert days and feature Mexican food, drinks (margaritas being a favorite beverage), volleyball and more.

“It’s really a Cabo Wabo festival,” he said. “It’s about what happens in Cabo. It’s about the lifestyle, the food, the music, the ambience of that.”

And once the music starts, fans can expect a typically extensive show from Hagar, beginning with an 80-minute opening set from Hagar and the Wabos. Then Van Halen bassist Michael Anthony will join the festivities, and under the band name the Other Half, launch into a set of Van Halen songs.

“We’re playing some obscure songs,” Hagar said. “We’re really trying to make it for the hardcores.”

After a short break, Hagar and the Wabos will return to wrap up the show on full throttle.

As part of the show, audiences will get a sampling of new music. A new solo CD, “Livin’ It Up,” the 15th album of Hagar’s career, will be released July 25 on Rhino Records.

The new CD, even more than past albums, he said, centers on the fun-in-the-sun Cabo lifestyle set to Hagar’s patented good-time hard rock sound.

“It’s purely a lifestyle record,” Hagar said. “It’s still a Sammy Hagar record, it’s just totally aimed at my fans. There’s no anger on it because I’m in a whole different space in my head and in my life today. The best way to describe this record for my fans is it’s the manual for the way we live.”

Clearly, Hagar wasn’t in such a cheerful mood two years ago as Van Halen worked its way through its 80-date reunion tour. Hagar has not closed the door on reuniting with Anthony and the Van Halen brothers - Eddie and drummer Alex - but he emphatically said no reunion will happen unless he sees some fundamental changes in Eddie Van Halen’s behavior and disposition.

“I couldn’t even go (near Eddie),” Hagar said. “They had to keep us so separated. We were going to fist fight. I’ve got my beliefs, and not to ego trip about how it should be done, but I believe you care about what you’re doing enough to go out there and play the damn songs right. And I mean, night after night, that never happened. There were times where Alex, his brother, would be looking at me and I’d say, ‘What song is he playing?’ I don’t know. It just wasn’t fair, number one, to he players and everyone else, to come out in the condition that he was in 99 percent of the shows.”

Hagar said substance use issues aside, Eddie Van Halen simply wasn’t a pleasant person to be around for much of the tour. No one, it seems, was more surprised about the Eddie Van Halen of the 2004 tour than Hagar.

“I’ve never seen such a personality change in any person I’ve ever known in my life,” Hagar said. “The guy used to be the sweetest, humblest guy and the most considerate musician. This guy, when he put on a guitar, even if he had been drinking in the past, he still was always in condition to really know the song and know what he was doing. He just wasn’t like that (on the last tour). I don’t know what happened.”