The name of Sammy Hagar’s Best of All Worlds tour comes with a lot of expectations.
This summer, he’s been delivering on that promise and even putting in a bit of extra firepower, thanks to special guest Rick Springfield, who opened the first half of the Red Rocker’s tour dates.
The result is a night that’s been loaded to the brim with big chart hits and rock radio favorites that are guaranteed to send each fan home with more than just a few songs to add to their playlists.
But then there’s been the unexpected moments too, both on the stage and away from the amps, as we learned when we got some time backstage at Blossom Music Center in the Cleveland/Akron area with the Red Rocker and his band.
The impressive collective now includes his longtime Van Halen bandmate, Michael Anthony, guitar legend Joe Satriani, drummer Kenny Aronoff and their newest recruit, keyboardist and vocalist Nathan Mercado, aka “Spider Cherry.”
Here’s a few of our favorite moments from the longer conversation that we’ll share with you soon at UCR.
How Michael Anthony Celebrated His Birthday
The legendary bassist turned 72 on June 20, the day that he, Hagar and the Best of All Worlds band performed at Blossom. His birthday came at a time when word was circulating that brown M&M’s, long a famous part of Van Halen lore, might be going away. Thankfully, we’ve now learned that’s not the case. Still, that didn’t stop the two from having some entertaining conversation about the moment.
“If they would have saved all of the ones they threw out, they could probably go for another year,” Hagar joked.
“There was some country dude — I forget who it was — for part of his rider, he requested all of the brown M&M’s leftover from ours,” Anthony countered.
“Absolutely, that’s what I did back in the day,” Hagar quipped, with a hearty laugh. “I said, ‘Leave the brown ones, I’ll take ’em when I get there.”
Yes, There Was Cake as Well
During that evening’s concert at Blossom, Springfield helped surprise Anthony with a birthday cake that arrived on stage as Satriani was wrapping up a high octane version of his own “Satch Boogie” with the band.
Created by local bakery The White Flower Cake Shoppe, the festive dessert had been decorated in fine fashion for the legendary bass player. “Happy Birthday, Mikey” was on the face of the cake, which also featured the familiar skull and chili peppers, a nod to his line of Mad Anthony’s hot sauces.
How They Went Back to the ‘Old Days’ In More Ways Than One
Hagar, Anthony and the band arrived at Blossom in a throwback fashion that went far beyond the Van Halen-heavy set list for that evening.
Normally, they travel to the gigs on Hagar’s private plane, but last weekend, they did it differently. “There was an issue with the plane, so we couldn’t take that,” Anthony shared. “We popped in a van and drove here from Michigan. It was about [a three-hour] road trip. We stopped off at the truck stop and picked up a little snack. It’s like the old days!”
Hagar and Springfield Finally Played ‘I’ve Done Everything for You’ Together
Unfortunately, it didn’t happen at the Blossom show, But it was quite the festive moment. While the two have done it together before (since Hagar wrote the song originally), fans wondered if they’d jam it on a nightly basis during the summer run — and they hadn’t.
That changed as you’ll see thanks to the below video from Smash Machine!, captured during Springfield’s set at the Xfinity Center in Mansfield, Mass. this past Wednesday (June 24).
As the ’80s heartthrob was shredding a bouquet of roses across his guitar (one of his signature moves, as longtime fans will know), Hagar came walking out and presented him with a toast, celebrating the end of their current dates together. He then grabbed a microphone and joined in on the vocals.
Springfield has fond memories of his early days getting to know Hagar, who was very pleased with the big success Rick had with his 1981 version of “I’ve Done Everything for You.”
“The first time I saw him after that, a couple of years had passed, he said, ‘Yeah, the song put my daughters through college!’ But you know, that’s his attitude,” Springfield told UCR prior to the tour’s launch. “He’s always been a really good guy and always been good for a chat. Now we have a rum company together and it’s kind of fun. He’s a good hang.”
Watch Rick Springfield and Sammy Hagar Perform ‘I’ve Done Everything for You’
The Current Tour Really is the ‘Best of All Worlds’
It’s more than just a tour name — as Hagar told UCR during Saturday afternoon’s conversation, he’s having a ball playing music with Anthony, Satriani, Aronoff and Mercado.
“It’s cool putting together a band like this after you’re grown up,” he shares. “When you’re kids starting out, you put together a band. You try to grow up together and you all grow out this way and you end up breaking up. You end up hating each other. It’s inevitable. But once you’ve already done that 10 times [Hagar chuckles] you get together as adults like this.”
“You say, here’s our purpose — we want to go out there and serve the Van Halen music as good as it can possibly be served today,” he continues. “That was Mike and I’s vision when we put this thing together. We need a Joe Satriani, we need Kenny Aronoff — we need guys that are that good. It’s so much fun, because you’re not sitting here going, Well, what’s he thinking?”
The 2026 installment of the Best of All Worlds run brought Hagar and the band back to the touring trail after a couple of rounds in Las Vegas in 2025 and earlier this year. The current U.S. dates wrap up this week
They’ll subsequently bring the show over to the U.K. for the first time for five concerts starting July 6. September will bring one more round of gigs in Vegas to wrap up what he says has been a very fun year.
“For a guy my age, it’s the dream,” he confirms. “I never dreamed it could be like this. You know, we have the same enthusiasm as Van Halen had when I joined the band. [It’s the] same enthusiasm, I swear. I don’t see anything different, except just different members. We love each other, we love what we’re doing, and we don’t do it enough to get tired of it.”
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Gallery Credit: Matthew Wilkening
