Sammy Hagar and Loverboy @ Blossom Music Center, Cuyahoga Falls, OH 7-29-24

The Best of All Worlds Tour rolled into Blossom Music Center this past Monday night. Since there hasn’t been a proper tribute to the late great Edie Van Halen, Sammy Hagar took it upon himself to put one together. This wouldn’t just feature his time in Van Halen, but a full career retrospect. That includes his time in Montrose, Chickenfoot and his solo work. The tour features Sammy Hagar, Michael Anthony, Jason Bonham, and Joe Satriani. They also have Rai Thistlewayte on keyboards and backing vocals to help fill out the sound. They brought out legendary Canadian band Loverboy to open the show for them.

Loverboy took the stage at 6:50pm and played a solid 1-hour set. The band consists of original members Mike Reno (who wore a Cleveland Browns shirt) on vocals, Paul Dean on guitars, Matt Frenette on drums and Doug Johnson on keyboards. With them is Kenneth “Spider” Sinnaeve on bass. Loverboy tours as a legacy act, as the last album they have released ‘Unfinished Business’ back in 2014. The band started off with “Notorious” and they rolled from there. Reno displayed right from the get-go that his vocals are still as strong as ever. Fun songs like “The Kid is Hot Tonight” and the closer “Working for the Weekend” got everyone warmed up and ready to go for the main act.

A couple of strums of Satriani’s guitar and that catapulted the band into “Good Enough.” Immediately, you can hear how full the background vocals were with high harmonies of both Antony and Thistlewayte. This song was never played on the original 5150 tour. Opening it up showed the people the band was ready to play and dig deep down to give them a special setlist. Satriani grabbed the electric drill and that meant Poundcake from “For Unlawful Carnal Knowledge’ was next. The video screen depicted a few power drills on it when the song was played. It was around this time that Hagar already started to make friends throughout the show by accommodating them with his signature on items like albums, t shirts and banners that were tossed up to him. Anthony handled the high parts in this song and a few other high parts throughout the show. Hagar didn’t play guitar much throughout the show itself except for “There’s Only One Way to Rock” and “I Can’t Drive 55.” The songs I was looking forward to hearing the most were played back-to-back as Hagar announced it’s 5150 time. The band then played “5150” and “Summer Nights,” as the album cover then appeared on the screen simultaneously and stayed up for both tracks. The other song I wanted to see and hear was “Seventh Seal” off ‘Balance.’ Unfortunately, the PA blew just about when Hagar was to about to sing. Unbeknownst to the band, they performed the entire length of the song. After it ended, one of the techs ran to Hagar to tell him what happened. So, for the next 13 minutes, they improvised as Hagar did a sing along with the crowd to “Cabo Wabo.” Then the rest of the guys just jammed after that. Once they got the PA back up and running, they omitted “Right Now” and “Heavy Metal.” Not sure why they omitted them as the band took to the stage at 8pm and could have surely fit the songs in (unless they had a 10pm curfew)? For Mas Tequila, Hagar brought out a bottle of his own tequila brand called Santo Tequila and poured shots to people in the front row. They touched upon his Montrose and Chickenfoot days as they did “Space Station #5 and “Bigfoot” respectively. They closed out the show with one of Hagar’s biggest hits with his time in Van Halen in “When It’s Love,” which came off the 1988 album ‘OU812.’

All the Hagar Van Halen era albums were represented. His voice is still strong and didn’t show any signs of falter at all throughout the show. After the show ended, the video monitor said “Thank You” across the screen. I think on behalf of the fans, we want to say thank you for putting this tour together. Also, for digging deep and playing songs that resonate in longtime fans like me. I couldn’t help to take myself back to the same day ten years earlier where I saw Sammy Hagar do a show at Artpark in Lewiston, NY. Fast forward and not only is Hagar still performing, but at a higher level than he did 10 years ago. Just simply amazing. Don’t miss the rock tour of the summer!

Setlist:

Good Enough (Van Halen song)

Poundcake (Van Halen song)

Runaround (Van Halen song)

There’s Only One Way to Rock

Judgment Day (Van Halen song)

Panama (Van Halen cover)

5150 (Van Halen song)

Summer Nights (Van Halen song)

Ain’t Talkin’ bout Love (Van Halen cover)

Top of the World (Van Halen song)

Best of Both Worlds (Van Halen song)/Celebration (Kool & The Gang – cover snippet)