Sammy Hagar & The Wabos perform Friday at the Joint inside the Hard Rock Hotel & Casino Tulsa. All photos by KEVIN PYLE / used with permission
Sammy Hagar & The Wabos perform Friday at the Joint inside the Hard Rock Hotel & Casino Tulsa. All photos by KEVIN PYLE / used with permission
Sammy Hagar & The Wabos perform Friday at the Joint inside the Hard Rock Hotel & Casino Tulsa. All photos by KEVIN PYLE / used with permission
Sammy Hagar & The Wabos perform Friday at the Joint inside the Hard Rock Hotel & Casino Tulsa. All photos by KEVIN PYLE / used with permission
Sammy Hagar & The Wabos perform Friday at the Joint inside the Hard Rock Hotel & Casino Tulsa. All photos by KEVIN PYLE / used with permission
Sammy Hagar & The Wabos perform Friday at the Joint inside the Hard Rock Hotel & Casino Tulsa. All photos by KEVIN PYLE / used with permission
Sammy Hagar & The Wabos perform Friday at the Joint inside the Hard Rock Hotel & Casino Tulsa. All photos by KEVIN PYLE / used with permission
Sammy Hagar & The Wabos perform Friday at the Joint inside the Hard Rock Hotel & Casino Tulsa. All photos by KEVIN PYLE / used with permission
The Red Rocker
Sammy Hagar brought his best Friday night party to The Joint inside the Hard Rock Hotel & Casino Tulsa.
He jumped into a medley of Montrose hits, including “Space Station Number 5,” “Rock Candy” and “Bad Motor Scooter,” dressed in red cargo shorts and matching tennis shoes, a black tee and a custom Red Rocker Les Paul. From there, he sprang into a loose set that included decades of decadent nostalgia.
As if marching through space and time, he’d yell out “1982!” as the band lock-stepped with him into “There’s Only One Way to Rock,” and “1984!” before squealing into “I Can’t Drive 55.”
The capacity crowd stood, danced and sang through most of Hagar’s nearly two-hour set. Hands raised in a rock salute, fans responded to Hagar’s lyric: "I can't drive..."
"Fif-ty fiiiiive!" as if three decades hadn’t passed since the tune’s original release. Hagar jumped around on stage, feigned splits and signed autographs while he performed. At one point, he also grabbed a Tulsa-brewed Marshall beer and drank deeply. "It'll get me where I want to go, eventually," he toasted.
He and his band were happy. "We haven't played a real show since Cabo since October. This is exciting," he said. He sauntered to the front of the stage, wailing into the audience as arms reached into his spotlight to touch him.
Nobody comes close to Eddie Van Halen when a guitar is needed for “On Top of the World.” Fans were so happy to hear it from Hagar and his band, The Wabos, that nothing stopped them from chanting every word and filling out the show with wicked air-guitar. Nostalgia effervesced into to the collective’s mind girding the weak spots with music memory. Beers were spilled. High-fives were shared.
He yelled again, “1977!” before dedicating “Red” to a local serviceman and basking the theater in a crimson light glow. Again, “Nineteen eighty …
eh!” he said into his mic as his band rumbled into “Why Can’t This be Love.”
He signed ball caps, records, napkins, posters and took a floppy straw hat from a fan. He stomped and danced through “Three Lock Box,” "Your Love is Driving Me Crazy," “Mas Tequila” "Finish What Ya Started" and iconic "Heavy Metal” and more as Hagar’s vocal wail hovered over the crowd. He also played a heavier version of a “bomb” tune he wrote – and that Rick Springfield later made famous, "I've Done Everything for You." The years fuzzed as he yelled “Nineteen-something-seventy-seven-maybe?”
"We're not on tour, we just decided to come out this weekend. ... It's really that simple with us,” he said before complimenting Oklahoma Toby Keith, whom he credited with getting him the gig at The Joint. Keith’s bar and grill is an anchor attraction at the Hard Rock Hotel & Casino Tulsa. His encore ended with a Beastie Boys cover and a tribute to Keith as he sang “I Love This Bar.”
It’s not too late to join the party, as Hagar performs again Sunday at Lucky Star Casino’s Concho venue in Clinton.
