Sammy Hagar kicked off his Best of All Worlds tour Saturday night at the iTHINK Financial Amphitheatre in West Palm Beach, Florida. He was joined by bassist Michael Anthony, guitarist Joe Satriani, drummer Jason Bonham, and multi-instrumentalist Rai Thistlethwayte for an evening jammed with Van Halen classics and a smattering of solo songs and tunes by Montrose, Chickenfoot, and Satriani.
The show was heavy on songs from Hagar’s tenure in Van Halen including “Poundcake,” “Right Now,” “Runaround,” “Why Can’t This Be Love,” and “When It’s Love.” But he did dip back into the David Lee Roth era by breaking out “Jump” and “Panama” for the first time since Van Halen’s ill-fated 2004 reunion tour. And Anthony took over lead vocals for “Ain’t Talkin’ ’bout Love,” which has been a staple of Sammy Hagar and the Circle shows since 2022.
“Jump” was played near the end of the night in a medley with Montrose’s “Space Station #5” and Chickenfoot’s “Oh Yeah.” In an interview with Ultimate Classic Rock earlier this month, Hagar explained why he no longer minds playing songs from the Roth incarnation of Van Halen.
“Well, when I joined Van Halen, I was trying to make a statement,” he said. “Hey, listen, this is a new band, we wrote new material — and to get rid of that comparison thing, I didn’t want to… look, it wasn’t just me. This was Ed, Al, Mike, this was a unanimous vote. Nobody wanted to continue on with the old stuff. It was like, ‘Shit, we’re tired of playing that, man. Let’s play the new songs.’ But now, it’s such a whole different thing. I’m not trying to make any kind of a statement, I’m just trying to play for the fans. This is for the people. This is the ‘thank you’ tour, for all of the fans who followed us for all of those years and have been waiting 20 years for some other kind of a reunion — my era, anyway, for sure.”
Satriani spent months preparing for the difficult task of replicating Eddie Van Halen’s guitar parts. “He just had a beautiful touch on the guitar,” Satriani told Rolling Stone in December 2023. “He played with such intensity. I don’t want to generalize and say that he made everything sound good, but he did. You notice that when you have one of his guitars and his setup or his model, he just can’t be replaced.”
Prior to signing onto this tour, Satriani was briefly in talks with Alex Van Halen and Roth about playing with him in some sort of Van Halen tribute show. The tour never got past the conversation stage, and Alex Van Halen sold all off of his personal gear earlier this year. And with Roth essentially retiring from music and Wolfgang Van Halen putting all of his energy into his solo career, the Best of All Worlds tour is the closest thing to a Van Halen reunion possible at this point.
The North American leg of the tour wraps up Aug. 31 in St. Louis, Missouri. It then heads over to Japan for three shows in September. There’s no word about additional dates, but Satriani told Rolling Stone he hopes to take it all across the globe. “[This music] has been the soundtrack of people’s lives,” he said. “So it’s something I think that should go around the world.”
Sammy Hagar’s Best of All Worlds tour setlist:
- “Good Enough”
- “Poundcake”
- “Runaround”
- “There’s Only One Way to Rock”
- “Judgement Day”
- “Panama”
- “5150”
- “Summer Nights”
- “Ain’t Talkin’ ’bout Love” (Michael Anthony on lead vocals)
- “Top of the World”
- “Best of Both Worlds”
- “Satch Boogie”
- “The Seventh Seal”
- “Right Now”
- “Why Can’t This Be Love”
- “Eagles Fly”
- “Mas Tequila”
- “Heavy Metal”
- “I Can’t Drive 55”
- “Space Station #5” / “Oh Yeah” / “Jump”
- “When It’s Love”
