Van Halen, the band, may have effectively ended for good when guitar legend Eddie Van Halen died from a stroke after battling cancer in October 2020, but the drama surrounding the band and its former members continues.
Van Halen’s second frontman, Sammy Hagar, is set to kick off his Best of Both Worlds Las Vegas residency on Friday, May 9 at the Dolby Live at Park MGM. The tour takes its name from the 2004 Van Halen greatest hits compilation that featured the band’s hits recorded with both Hagar and original frontman David Lee Roth.
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Hagar’s residency follows his performance at Stagecoach, the country version of Coachella, on April 27, and former Van Halen frontman David Lee Roth’s return to the concert stage on May 3, his first show in five years.
Earlier this week, Roth announced a slate of tour dates that kick off July 22 in Paso Robles, Calif. and run through Sept. 14 in Napa, Calif. In between those dates, he makes stops in Tampa, Atlantic City, St. Louis, Cincinnati and other cities.
Both singers perform Van Halen songs in their current sets, with Roth sticking to the songs he sang in the band, while Hagar generally follows the same plan, although he did perform “Panama,” a song co-written and originally sung by Roth in his set at Stagecoach. Just prior to his Stagecoach performance, Hagar announced that he’d written a new song, “Encore, Thank You, Goodnight,” with Eddie Van Halen in a dream.
Related: Red Rocker Claims He Wrote a Song in a Dream With His Ex-Bandmate and Guitar Legend
Hagar’s current band also features former Van Halen bassist Michael Anthony, who was replaced in Van Halen in 2006 by Eddie Van Halen’s teenage son Wolfgang just prior to their 2007 reunion with Roth.
Meanwhile, former Van Halen drummer Alex Van Halen, who turned 72 on May 8, isn’t playing with any of his former bandmates, and has a serious beef with Hagar, so much so that he didn’t even mention his name in his recently published memoir, Brothers.
In a recent interview with Rolling Stone, Hagar claimed that the bad blood with Alex Van Halen stems from his Cabo Wabo cantina and tequila business that the Van Halen brothers were once partners in but turned it over to Hagar when it was losing money. Hagar ended up making millions on it.
Wolfgang Van Halen is continuing his career fronting his band Mammoth VH and they recently released a new single and video “The End,” as the Van Halen drama continues.
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