I was at this show as well..missed out on meeting shesh, we arrived late & never caught up..Quote:
Originally Posted by Seshmeister
the DLR band sounded way better & hagars band was lame IMO it seemed to have a night club feel with them & not a concert, we left in the middle of hagars set.
This tour never made it across the boarder.... but I would have left after Daves set...Quote:
Originally Posted by redblkwht
Hah!Quote:
Originally Posted by redblkwht
I remember you saying 'You'll know me, I'll be in the bar across the road wearing a VH shirt and a white baseball cap". I went into the place which was huge and there were approximately 1300 people that fitted that description... :)
I had tickets to see this show at the New York State Fair in Syracuse, NY. I bought 3 tickets (for me and 2 friends) and trekked to my old hometown of Syracuse (I live in Atlanta, GA nowadays) only to find out the night before that the show was canceled.
I was PISSED!!!
Apparently Sammy got sick resulting in the cancellation of the final 2 dates (Buffalo and Syracuse, respectively) of the tour. Maybe he drank too much of his own tequila?
I did manage to catch DLR a few months earlier at the Atlanta Music Midtown Festival in May 2002 and he played the same set list as this was clearly a 90 minute warm-up date for the Sam & Dave tour. That was a great show to see Dave without the lofty Hagar-inflated ticket price.
15 Years Ago: David Lee Roth and Sammy Hagar Launch Joint Tour
By Michael Christopher May 31, 2017 4:20 PM
http://ultimateclassicrock.com/files...1&s=0&a=t&q=89
Since the mid ’80s, the debate had raged between Van Halen fans: Sammy or Dave? Fans got to judge for themselves when the band’s two former singers teamed up for a co-headlining tour that turned out to be highly contentious.
Over the course of a 21-date run, audiences could decide each night who was the better frontman. Would it be David Lee Roth, the original, high-flying wordsmith who left the Southern California party band in 1985 following the tour for the mega-selling 1984? Or his replacement, former Montrose singer Sammy Hagar, who struck solo gold with “I Can’t Drive 55″ and had some of the best pipes in the business?
When the new millennia dawned, both singers had fallen out of favor with the Van Halen brothers. Hagar left in 1996, and the band brought back in David Lee Roth, ostensibly for just two songs to be added on to an upcoming greatest-hits package. The majority of fans were hoping for a full-fledged reunion of the classic lineup, but it fell apart in spectacular fashion before former Extreme singer Gary Cherone was brought in for the ill-fated III album, which came out in 1998. Vocalist No. 3 departed the following year under amicable circumstances, and Van Halen tried working with Roth again – twice according to reports – but nothing ever came of it.
With Van Halen having been out of the public eye since late 1998, Hagar and Roth pulled one of the most audacious and implausible moves in music history, giving fans a chance to see them on the same bill as they teamed up for Song for Song, the Heavyweight Champs of Rock and Roll, a co-headlining tour that kicked off May 29, 2002, at Blossom Music Center near Cleveland.
“I was open to all sorts of crazy ideas,” Hagar said in his 2011 autobiography Red: My Uncensored Life in Rock. He and new manager Irving Azoff came up with the idea for the jaunt, “just to piss off Van Halen and get the fans worked up.”
Roth was amenable to the idea, having rejected an offer from Hagar to do a joint tour in 1997 and choosing instead to release a bestselling autobiography and greatest-hits album. “The time was wrong,” Roth said at an April press conference to announce the union. “Now the time is right. It’s completely unpredictable.”
At the press conference, held at Sky Bar in Los Angeles, the contrasting personalities between the two were made immediately clear. Hagar’s more subdued demeanor was reflected in his red pants and yellow Cabo Wabo-branded T-shirt; Roth was clad in head-to-toe black and joined by Playboy Playmates the Dahm triplets, as well as a dwarf dressed as Andy Warhol.
“Sam and I are like fraternity brothers that have been through the same s—-y hazing,” Roth said. “There’s a rivalry between us, so the audience gets the absolute best out of both of us. You have to think of it as two title fights with no under card. This is a co-headlining tour here. We’ll flip a coin and the winner will headline opening night and then we’ll flip-flop.”
The coin flip took place the first week in May on Howard Stern’s show, with Roth in attendance and Hagar calling in. The former won the toss, and would close the Ohio date, Hagar the next in Clarkston, Mich., and so on.
The set lists between the two would also be much different, with Roth focused primarily on Van Halen songs and one solo hit, “Yankee Rose,” while Hagar covered all eras of his career — from his time in Van Halen to solo tracks. He was joined by then-Van Halen bassist Michael Anthony on some dates, and they even brought Cherone onstage for a few songs when the tour hit his hometown of Boston.
But the anticipated duet between Roth and Hagar never happened. “Right at the start, he rejected my suggestion that we sing a few songs together and make it a friendly thing,” Hagar said in his book. “He envisioned something more along the lines of WWF Smackdown.” In the book and in the 2003 DVD documentary Sammy Hagar & The Waboritas: The Long Road to Cabo, Hagar details how, at the stop in Michigan, Kid Rock tried to broker a deal between the two and get them onstage together.
“Kid rock is going, ‘You guys gotta do one for the fans. I came here tonight wantin’ to see you guys get onstage [and do] a duet. You’re lettin’ us down, you’re lettin’ the fans down,'” Hagar recalled in the documentary. “He brought up a wonderful point, you know? And I said, ‘You’re absolutely right. Let’s talk to Dave.’ And Dave is sitting there going, ‘Well, sure Sam, let’s do something then.’ So Dave agrees, and I’m going, ‘All right! The Kid put it together. Thanks Kid, you’re awesome.’
“The next night, Dave goes, ‘Aww, my throat’s sore and I can’t do it.’ I went over to see him to say, ‘Hey, let’s work something out, what do you wanna do — what song?’ And he backed out of it. Then the next night he backed out of it. So finally it became a running joke, I used to go beat on his dressing room and he wouldn’t even answer the door, and I’d say, ‘Yoooo Diamond! You ready tonight? You ready to go out and do it?’ You have to have a sense of humor about it.”
That sense of humor would soon fade as the tour went on and the two traded barbs in the press. It got more and more heated and ultimately Hagar and Roth went to great lengths to avoid one another. “The Sam and Dave tour was a huge financial success,” Hagar said, “but a personal disaster.” Hagar accused Roth of cancelling a scheduled Sept. 2 show in Long Island by insisting that he would only play Madison Square Garden, and only if he could headline even though it wasn’t his turn.
Ultimately, the final two dates of the tour — in Buffalo and Syracuse — were canceled, initially attributed to Hagar falling ill, but at the same time punctuating the failure of the experiment. The scrapped dates came in the wake of the pair appearing on the MTV Video Music Awards in a tense co-presentation of the award for Best Rock Video on Aug. 29. Later that evening, to make up for the cancelled NYC date, Hagar performed a free show at the much more intimate Irving Plaza, where half the tickets were distributed to the New York police and fire departments. Both Anthony and Cherone joined him onstage in what was, by all accounts, a raucous party.
Shortly after the tour, which was called “Sans Halen” by some writers, Hagar seethed to Guitar World that he would never tour with Roth again. “Boy, I hate to ever say I’m sorry I did something, so I can’t say I’m sorry I did it,” he said. “But I certainly wouldn’t do it again, let’s put it like that.”
Hagar ended up with Van Halen again in 2004, recording three songs for the two-disc greatest hits-package The Best of Both Worlds and hitting the road for an 80-date tour, which, according to the singer, couldn’t have gone any worse.
“It was the Sam and Dave tour all over again, only it was Sam and Eddie,” Hagar said in his autobiography. “[Management] kept us apart as much as they could. We flew in different jets. We stayed at different hotels. We had out own limos. They had their bodyguards. Mike and I had ours. I stayed in my own dressing room on the other side of the hall. The only time I saw that guy was when we stepped out onstage.”
Suffice to say, the reunion didn’t last, barely making it to the end of the tour. In early 2007, there were once again rumblings that Roth was back in Van Halen, which wasn’t the only surprise; Anthony was ousted in favor of Eddie Van Halen’s son Wolfgang. In April that year, the band was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in the most Van Halen way possible: Hagar and Anthony — two guys who weren’t even in the group anymore –were the only ones on hand to accept the honor.
Van Halen did end up reconvening with Roth in the fall of 2007, without Anthony, for a successful tour that stretched to summer the following year. A new studio album, A Different Kind of Truth, came out in 2012 with a supporting tour that extended to Japan and Australia. In 2015, the band returned to the road for 41 dates across North America.
Time seems to have softened the headache of the Sam & Dave tour. In early 2017, Hagar said the only way he would reunite with Van Halen would be if they toured with both singers. “I think the fans would die and go to heaven,” he said. “The competition for that would be great; he’d do ‘Panama’ and ‘Runnin’ With the Devil,’ and I’d be going, ‘Damn! I gotta step it up!’ I’m up for it.”
Read More: 15 Years Ago: David Lee Roth and Sammy Hagar Launch Tour | http://ultimateclassicrock.com/david...ckback=tsmclip
Read More: 15 Years Ago: David Lee Roth and Sammy Hagar Launch Tour | http://ultimateclassicrock.com/david...ckback=tsmclip
I dont know how you people went to this , if dave is on first all you're thinking is that twat will be on soon and not enjoy dave and if mr I cunt drive at 55 was on first all your thinking is how many beers do I have to kneck before I finally get lucky and hit him.
Well not really, a lot of us left after Dave. I stayed and watched a bit of Hagar just for material for on here - it was before the days of 30 YouTube videos per gig, in fact now I think about it actually before YouTube even existed!
If Dave was headlining then no brainer just skip the support.
The problem started halfway through the tour when instead of it being a straight flip flop each night about who headlined they seemed to start making agreements whereby Roth would do a couple then Hagar 3 then Roth 2 and so on. As I said above I would have missed most of Roth's set if someone from here hadn't paged our hotel bar and I happened to be in it. Guy hasn't posted here for a decade and didn't know my name just the hotel I was staying at as I had mentioned it and he was from Tampa. Still makes me laugh it coming across the PA 'Phone call at reception for Mr Seshmeister'. Quite a lot of usernames here where that wouldn't have worked out so well. :)
Again technology, nowadays that would all have been easily sorted via smart phones and so on.
You're saying you're a better shot with a phone :DQuote:
Originally Posted by Seshmeister
Reading back through the posts it seems Dave was on top form. I think I still have one of the audio recordings from donnie p . I think its that tour.
Yeah he was even still doing a scissor jump from the drum riser at the end of the show at 47 years old.
My only criticism was it was all very serious, Roth had this dumb policy that there should be no jokes or smiles by him or anyone in the band.
That and maybe some of his fashion choices during that whole period... :)
I remember that we were already discussing Dave struggling with his voice back then. But he was putting some serious effort in it.
Yeah, the various colored leather jumpsuits didn't do a lot for him. He ended up looking more like "Neil Diamond Dave" :biggrin:Quote:
Originally Posted by Seshmeister
I've known Von 15 years. He was old back then, too. :DQuote:
Originally Posted by twonabomber
That tour was just before the age of crazy fucking seat prices wasn't it?
I bought 2 second row tickets off a scalper agency a day before the show for less than the cost of a standard ticket at the back these days.
I seem to remember tickets being under $50. I thought I submitted a scan of the stub for the site, but I don't have time to look for the thread.
$65 at The Gorge, if I remember correctly. The lawn seats might have been cheaper but I was right down in front for this one.
You should have a DVD of the Camden NJ show too. Great show, the only downside is the video is the feed that was broadcast on the big screen behind the band so sometimes it's intercut with the BBQ video while the band is playing.Quote:
Originally Posted by vandeleur
I would love to see footage of Pojo and VA with their backs to Hagar!
That tour was probably a net positive for Roth overall.
I've seen plenty of Camden, NJ and Hartford, CT boots of the Roth set of that tour floating around...I'd imagine those shows would both probably be on youtube by now.
He was in fairly good form vocally for that tour, and he had a very capable backing band. Brian Young serviced the EVH CVH guitar work quite well, I thought.
Yeah, his stage wardrobe for that tour was a bit cringeworthy, as were his platinum blonde hair weaves, as was his "jacking off the Jack Daniels bottle" bit...all of which kinda came off like he was trying to hold onto his youthful image a bit too desperately. However, he went out and served up the CVH tunes one after the other...I think he played Yankee Rose during that tour, and that was about it far as his solo career went...because Roth knew that was what people were coming there to hear. To his credit, Roth put together a solid band and performed a well-rehearsed set of CVH material. Personal cosmetics and wardrobe to one side, Roth gave all appearances of playing up to the maximum level of his abilities at that point.
You know, I never did see/hear what Sammy did for a set with that tour. From what I've read, it was several Van Hagar tunes, some Hagar solo stuff and some cover tunes. I guess Michael Anthony came out and jammed with him on a few tunes at some dates, as well.
August 22nd 2002 Ctnow.Com Meadows Music Center, Hartford, CT, USA
Hot for Teacher
Panama
And the Cradle Will Rock...
Mean Street
Dance the Night Away
Runnin' With the Devil
I'm the One
Guitar Solo
You Really Got Me
Beautiful Girls
So This Is Love?
Atomic Punk
Little Dreamer
Oh, Pretty Woman
D.O.A.
Yankee Rose
Ice Cream Man
Everybody Wants Some!!
Ain't Talkin' 'Bout Love
Jump
https://youtu.be/yns5GjbEo9w
More "Definitive" than the last VH tour! :DQuote:
Originally Posted by Seshmeister
Man, discoursing on Dave's progress feels a lot like reflections about life and how you slowly come to stating that the more you go ahead, the less you're going to get your kicks out of it. :cool:
Not sure but I do think it's fair to say that Dave's backing band in 2002 were better than the one he had in 2007.Quote:
Originally Posted by Von Halen
Wanna hear something fucked up?Quote:
Originally Posted by Seshmeister
I got to see Dave at the Hard Rock Orlando in the summer of 2006. Brian and Toshi were sharing guitar duties. Ray wasn't playing anymore with the band at that point (I can't even remember the drummers name there that night, but he was good), and I'm told Todd Jensen was playing with Roth live for those 2006 dates (my lady asked me when the band started playing who was who in the band, and I recognized Brian and Toshi right off the bat, but had no idea who the rhythm section were).
That band I saw in 2006 KICKED ASS. The fucked up part? The 2008 VH date I saw, Ed was playing poorly to the point where I honestly thought the 2006 solo gig sounded better. My old lady agreed, and she's not nearly as invested in Van Halen in terms of being a fan than I am. After the show, she said the same things I had been thinking throughout the 2008 show while the band were playing: Alex sounded good and played well, the bass was barely audible and Wolfgang looked weird and uncomfortable onstage, Dave sounded good and performed well, and Eddie played decent for the first 4 to 5 songs then got progressively worse. During Ed's solo toward the end of the show, my old lady turned to me and asked if Eddie was drunk. I looked over at her and sadly nodded my head. I mean, the entire arena was silent, and you could literally see everybody in there thinking the same thing: this guy is shitfaced and can't play properly.
I will say Ed redeemed himself in a big way when 2012 rolled around: Ed was quite excellent at the 2012 show I saw. Did everything he needed to do to service the material properly and do it justice. When the band were tearing into Girl Gone Bad, at one point I literally closed my eyes for a few moments and slowly nodded my head...like, Ed was just THAT fucking good that night. And I'd also add Wolfgang fit into the band much better on the ADKOT tour than he did the first tour in terms of performing. Point of fact, all three Van Halens knocked it out of the park in 2012.
I saw them at the Trump Marina in Atlantic City. Sammy opened put on a good show. A little too much crowd interaction and Cabo Wabo endorsing for me. It seemed like a Sammy crowd to me I remember thinking fuck this place is gonna empty out for Dave. But it was the opposite! It was GA so me and missus were able to get to front once some Sammy people cleared out. Dave kicked ass! Place was packed and Rockin maybe a little under 90 minutes. Left most in crowd wanting a bit more. Can't believe 15 years ago. Damn!
I was at that show.Quote:
Originally Posted by Southpaw
Was Southpaw's description pretty accurate in terms of how you saw it?Quote:
Originally Posted by Von Halen
Pretty much. I saw a whole bunch of shows on that tour. The best thing about that show, was FilthyLilMouth (what ever happened to her) refused to stand for Clichegar's set, and sat right down in the middle of the floor. Like Southpaw said, it was general admission. There were no seats. Mike B and I spent the whole set trying to keep her from getting trampled! It was awesome!Quote:
Originally Posted by Terry
I never saw them in 2007, but Ed did rip in 2012-2013...Quote:
Originally Posted by Terry
From the boots I have seen, the first dozen or so dates of the first leg of the 2007 tour demonstrated Ed being in decent form. My assumption was that he would have gotten better as the tour went on: they were playing basically the same tunes every night. The longer the tour went on, the worse he got.Quote:
Originally Posted by Nickdfresh
But...yeah, Ed DID fucking rip in 2012-2013. He was so good in Tampa in 2012. I wouldn't go as far as to say he was playing on a level of excellence and intensity matching the CVH days, but he was well-rehearsed, focused and clearly enjoying himself.