The classic rock band Sammy Hagar couldn’t stand touring with: “I smashed my guitar and walked off”
Being an opening act for any band is certainly no picnic for a musician. Everyone can be psyched that they actually made their way to the touring lifestyle, but once they face the crowd that is looking to see the headliner, they are going to have to face either an uphill battle to win them over or people raising their middle fingers in the air and throwing everything they can at you while onstage.
Sammy Hagar was a soldier throughout every phase of his career, but he admitted that he was far from happy having to open up for Kiss on one of his early tours.
It’s a situation that speaks to a wider truth about live music. Being technically proficient or even having a strong catalogue doesn’t always count for much when you’re warming up a crowd that’s already decided who they’ve come to see. In those moments, it becomes less about the music itself and more about surviving the atmosphere, reading the room and somehow finding a way to cut through the indifference or outright hostility.
For Hagar, that kind of environment was always going to clash with his approach. Even in his early days, there was a sense of personality and showmanship to what he did, but it needed an audience willing to meet him halfway. Dropping him into a crowd primed for Kiss’ theatrical chaos was almost setting him up for failure, a mismatch of expectations that no amount of talent or confidence could fully overcome.
Looking at both of their styles of music, though, it’s not like Hagar didn’t make sense. He hadn’t quite adopted the persona that he would get as ‘The Red Rocker’, but after being the fresh-faced kid right out of Montrose, his brand of hard rock wasn’t that far away from what Paul Stanley and Gene Simmons were doing on some of those early Kiss records.
But there’s one big problem with Hagar’s theory: no band is really going to have fun as an opening act for Kiss. Calling their fanbase ‘The Kiss Army’ wasn’t by accident, and whenever someone else was out onstage, most fans would either be screaming for the band to come out or just trying not to nod off before the makeup-clad badasses took to the stage.
Ironically enough, though, there was one band that was able to give Kiss a run for their money live: Van Halen. Years before Hagar had even thought about joining the group, David Lee Roth’s rapport with the audience and Eddie’s incredible lead playing were among the few things that made Simmons’ ‘Demon’ persona look like nothing but silly kids’ stuff by comparison.
Granted, it’s not like Hagar’s ability to read the room was exactly perfect at this point, either. His decision to play one of his ballads three songs in would never go well with a group that wanted to hear ‘Detroit Rock City’, and by the time the acoustics came out, there was no point in him bothering to continue on.
Hagar didn’t even care to finish the song, telling Louder, “I just stopped the song and said, ‘I’m so glad they flew in a special audience from Los Angeles for me. Then I pulled my pants down, fucking shook it at them and then smashed my guitar to bits and walked off the stage saying, ‘Fuck you.’”
While Hagar should be commended for even choosing to continue playing music after a horror show like that, he did at least take a few cues from what they were doing when he joined Van Halen. Looking at the raw footage from Live Without a Net, hearing him perform ‘There’s Only One Way to Rock’ saw him putting a little more energy into the performance, especially when he dared to play lead next to Eddie and actually came out unscathed.
Hagar did eventually win over the masses with his own solo hits, but anyone trying to go up against Kiss’s live show is fighting a losing battle. No other band has personified the phrase ‘give the people what they want’ than Kiss, and if anyone is standing in between them and their fans when they get onstage, they can’t be shocked when the crowd runs right over them.
