“I was haunted”: The worst show Sammy Hagar ever played
No artist is safe from having a few bad gigs. Regardless of what instrument you play, there will always be those shows where the equipment isn’t working, the crowd is giving you nothing to work with, or your voice decides to give out halfway through the set. Although Sammy Hagar is normally keen to soldier on throughout any show that he’s worked on, he remembered being mortified when working on this concert.
Given his pedigree as a rock and roll star, though, Hagar didn’t need to light up the stage in the same way that a band like Kiss would. Most of the time, his pent-up energy and soaring voice were more than enough to win over a crowd, but that only came from years of practice behind the microphone.
While most people knew Hagar for his solo career and his work with Van Halen, his first taste of success came when he was still in his teens with the group Montrose. Outside of being fairly heavy for their time, Hagar already sounded like a seasoned veteran on their first record, especially when pulling off the screams in ‘Rock the Nation’ or tearing through old-school rock and roll tunes like ‘Bad Motor Scooter’.
While anyone can lay it down in the studio, the ultimate test would be performing the tunes live. Although Montrose got thrown onto the same bill as a young Humble Pie, Hagar knew that he was going to need to do something a little bit different if he wanted to win over the traditional blues-rock crowd.
He was no David Bowie and certainly wasn’t trying to be David Lee Roth, but when he got up onstage, Hagar thought the best thing would be to throw his mic stand in the air to liven up the show. It’s a tried and true method, but the minute that he threw it up in the air, the business end of it hit bassist Bill Church and knocked him out cold for part of the set.
Even though a few Spinal Tap moments shouldn’t be that uncommon, Hagar was mortified about the show for years, saying, “I couldn’t even sing because my voice was quaking so badly. We kept playing, but I was a stuttering wreck. Honestly, it was one of those things where everybody was over it in no time, but not me. I was haunted. I’d be hanging out, lying in bed, walking down the street, or driving my car, and it would come back to me. I’d fucking cringe all over again.”
Luckily, Hagar seemed to have learned his lesson by the time he joined Van Halen. Whether he had a guitar strapped across his chest or strutting across the stage, most of the ‘Van Hagar’ era of the group pretty much guaranteed that no instrument was going to become aerodynamic during the climax of the show.
At the same time, you have to feel for Chuch more than anything. Bassists are meant to be one of the most nonchalant members of any group, and yet here he was getting the Mike Tyson special from a metal microphone stand because Hagar couldn’t compose himself.
