Hagar puts Cabo on tour, shots included
By Ray Waddell Mon May 15, 8:39 PM ET

NASHVILLE (Billboard) - When Sammy Hagar is fired up, he tends to talk kind of fast.

Exhibit A: "Cabo-esque looking, a bunch of tents, with poles and all that, and we're filling all these little booths up with fun stuff, like taco stands, margarita stands, shot stands, and some outdoor grills with people grilling chickens and carne asada and making tacos out of 'em, and salsa, wandering mariachi bands, sand all over the place, we're putting up volley ball courts, it's all about bathing suits, bikinis, no shoes, no shirt, no problem, it's a whole different kind of concept."

Phew. It turns out he's describing the shed version of the Cabo Wabo Village.

Hagar is bringing Cabo north of the border this summer. The Red Rocker's summer trek even has a Cabo San Lucas-themed concourse attraction -- the Cabo Wabo Village -- on each date, beginning with a sold-out show June 3 at the Hyundai Pavilion in Glen Helen, Calif.

Hagar's shed tour comes on the heels of six sellouts at Harrah's in Lake Tahoe, Nev., where he opened his first U.S. Cabo Wabo Cantina in 2004. He launched the first Cabo Wabo Cantina in Cabo San Lucas, Mexico, in the early '90s.

Hagar is still talking breathlessly. "It starts at 3 o'clock with karaoke stages and body builders, like you're just going down to the beach in Cabo to see what's going on. So I'm just bringing that whole feel and look and sound and smell even to this village. People can start partyin' at 3, 6:30 the doors open, you go inside and continue to party inside the venue, I come on at 7:30 or 8:00, depending what the curfew is because we do a three-hour show."

Hagar's band the Waboritas will play first, then Hagar will hit the stage with his former Van Halen bandmate Michael Anthony in an outfit they call the Other Half. "Michael kicks off his classic Van Halen bass solo on steroids, then (the band and) I come out and do an hour of classic Van Halen. We're just trying to have some fun with it."

The band rips through around 10 Van Halen standards. "Eddie (Van Halen) and I wrote every one of those songs together," Hagar continues. "If those guys don't wanna come out and do it or make it difficult to do, whichever way you want to look at it, the fans deserve to hear 'em, I deserve to sing the songs I wrote, so I feel good with Mike doing it that way. Otherwise I'd never do an hour of Van Halen in my show."

"Then we do a big grand finale with anybody in town that wants to come up and jam with us. I'm going to invite a lot of different people, kinda make it an open mic kind of situation, then we bust the pinata. If people can still walk, we'll come back with an encore."

He and Anthony are joined onstage by guitarist Vic Johnson, drummer Bro Lauser and background singers.

To Hagar, this summer's run is "just a new way of doing a tour and a concert, instead of just doing the same show you did the night before, packing up and leaving. It ain't that kind of show. It's an all-day event and it's user-friendly."

"If you've never been to Cabo, this will really put the hook in you. If you've been to Cabo, you're gonna sit there drinking shots and go, 'Man, it sounds and smells like I'm in Cabo.' It's just got a vibe we're trying to re-create."

Sounds like fun. Hagar will wrap up his tour with a performance, Cabo Wabo Village and all, at the Rock'n the Rally festival August 10 in Sturgis, S.D. Hagar gave 650 tickets to the Sturgis performance to winners on his "Are We Having Fun Yet" cruise to Cabo.

Don't forget to check out the Livin' It Up 2006 tour dates...

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