Don’t try to spell it, but Hallelujah from Sammy Hagar & The Wabos has arrived! Well, at least in part anyway. Hagar, affectionately known as The Red Rocker, is one of those rare musicians and vocalists who has enjoyed success both as a solo artist and with headline bands.

His resume is rather diverse ranging from Montrose to HSAS (featuring Journey guitarist Neal Schon) blues artist Roy Rogers to Van Halen (Van Hagar as some disgusted fans have coined)  to offering songs, production, vocals and/or guitar work for Heart, Alice Cooper and even, yes it’s true: Hank Williams Jr. (Lone Wolf). Not to mention appearing on numerous movie soundtracks like: Fast Times at Ridgemont High, Over The Top (that underwhelming Stallone wrestling movie), Footloose, Up the Academy, plus the classic adult animated movie Heavy Metal.

Sammy was a prominent popular rock artist in the 80’s gliding between hard rock and pop rock with such memorable songs as There’s Only One Way To Rock and I Can’t Drive 55 (both available on Hallelujah). The story goes that one day he got a call to replace Diamond David Lee Roth in Van Halen, of which he accepted and then went on to record several platinum VH albums. He helped usher in a new and somewhat unexpected VH sans Roth era only to leave the band in somewhat torrential times in the late 90’s and return to his almost forgotten solo career some 13 years later.

In Hagar’s absence Van Halen popularity waned not helped by releasing their worst studio offering to date with singer Gary Sherone behind the mic, then firing him after the sales went south, and then they went into sort of an unofficial retirement. Unfortunately, the world hasn’t seen or heard from Van Halen – no new album or live show– in 1,758+ days and counting. Ok, I guess you can hear a quick and somewhat recent soundclip of Eddie playing Joy to the World for 40 seconds here.

The good news is that Sammy Hagar is still out there recording, touring and playing loud and proud rock and roll. This man has a lot of fun playing and you can hear it on this live CD.

So what does Sammy say about Hallelujah inside the CD insert? Trying to put a live CD together was not as easy as I thought it would be. Clearly with his large catalog of songs he should have gone for the double CD set, but fans can’t tell by his limited and vexing explanation if this was a financial decision or a personal decision. Come on, Sammy.

Somehow in the space of a single CD he still manages to squeeze in a cross selection of songs, kicking the set list off with Shaka Doobie. Not the best nor well known song to start a live Sammy Hagar CD, but he bounces back by jumping right into the second song in the setlist with the familiar: suckers walk, money talks, but it can’t touch my three lock box.

To keep the momentum going he breaks into an ok version of There’s Only One Way To Rock which I was a bit disappointed in because we’ve already heard a better live version with him and Eddie trading solos – yikes, 10 years ago – on Van Halen’s CD: Live Right Here Right Now. If you already own that CD then chances are good that you will be disappointed in Hagar with The Wabos doing the VH stuff. However, he does have Gary Sherone — yeah, the same singer VH dumped – in for a guest appearance and Michael Anthony guesting on bass (which Anthony’s appearance according to rumours has caused a bit of a rift with the Van Halen brothers). It’s not that the Van Halen material played by Sammy & The Wabos sounds bad, but it doesn’t measure up to Van Halen musically except for Sammy’s vocals. It will be interesting to see if VH ever does play together again how they will deal with Sammy’s vocals. Touche`.

The VH songs on Hallelujah are (in order of the setlist): Top of the World, Why Can’t This Be Love, When It’s Love, Right Now and Dreams. In Dreams especially, the Wabos’ Vic Johnson proves to be a skilled guitarist supporting Hagar material, but is absolutely no match for a full-on Eddie Van Halen solo. If you listen to the two live solos for Dreams side by side you’ll hear exactly what I’m talking about. Vic shouldn’t feel bad because many accomplished guitarists have withered when trying to cover Eddie’s fiery fretwork without the assistance of overdubbing.

The song Give To Live which was from Hagar’s album where Eddie played bass on is a good live rendition of the studio song but there is something about Hagar playing the version acoustically live on the aforementioned Right Here Right Now CD that was stronger. Fortunately, Hagar delivers an unplugged version of Eagles Fly that is outstanding. But then comes the somewhat forgetable song, Little White Lie. Not sure what the story with the harmonica solo is, but with all due respect that is Neil Young, not Hagar, territory. I am also mystified why the extracted setlist covered so many songs from his VH days and newer stuff when he had plenty of outstanding classic material available on Standing Hampton, Three Lock Box and VOA.

Montrose fans will enjoy a solid version of Rock Candy and football fans will like Mas Tequila which I think has been played in more football stadiums in recent years than Queen’s We Will Rock You. Also worth listening to is I can’t Drive 55 where Hagar curiously urges the crowd to get with the times “it’s 65, not 55 … 65, you got it?”. Probably one of the best videos in the 80’s was this video and every time I hear it I think of the judge banging his gavel and them taking Sammy away with guitar in hand. Hard to shake that early MTV generation.

Hallelujah ends as unceremoniously as it started with his newest studio track and while this song isn’t bad, it isn’t worth buying the CD over unless you are a diehard Hagar collector.

At the time of this writing, for those who are interested, Hagar is also touring with members of Montrose and he has a pretty good official website, despite the use of those irritating frames (why do so many band websites use frames?).

In summary,this CD comes across as sort of an appetizer instead of the main course. If you want to hear Sammy doing great live versions of Van Halen songs then buy the VH Live Right Here Right Now CD instead. Hallelujah is certainly competent in both sound and production but not anything spectacular. The overall production has more than a rushed feeling to it and the song selection leaves you wanting to hear what songs didn’t make the cut. Don’t be surprised if you ask yourself at least once why he didn’t include one of his greatest commercial hits: Your Love Is Driving Me Crazy. To be completely fair, it seems from Sammy’s CD insert comments that he knew in advance that he was putting together a jigsaw puzzle with two thirds of the pieces missing and hoping that his fans would support this fragmented effort as being better than nothing at all:

“If this CD is commercially successful enough I plan a double live CD of the whole nine yards: raps, extra songs maybe even a 3 CD set in a limited edition. Who Knows? I could dig that.”

We could dig that too, Sammy.

In the meantime we’ll just have to take, or leave, this slightly above average live CD offering, since for whatever reason the full meal deal is still stored in the Three Lock Box. Maybe if commercial success isn’t reached, then the Red Rocker will offer for download these coveted missing tracks someday? Hallelujah, that’s what dreams are made of. Grade C+

 

Also by Sammy Hagar:
Hallelujah
Three Lock Box
Standing Hampton

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