Sammy Hagar and the Circle Space Between Tour 2019 Show Reviews

[Van Squalen]

Mods, feel free to delete or move as you see fit, as always.

I was talking with an old pal of ours after his attendance to the Circle's 2019 tour opening night in Reno, Nevada. He gave an amusing and brief summary of the event and I offered to post his review. After a little arm twisting, he begrudging accepted, on the premise that it was on me if it was not condoned, and I took that risk on myself. For what it's worth, and my op means, as ever, jack diddly, I think he's truly sorry and wanted to make amends to all affected parties if given a chance, but he's also fully understanding if that can't happen. I hope he can come back someday. I know what it's like to get booted for poor behavior and regret it lol. Too well, actually. I had pals like Greenpaw and others vouch for my contriteness when I was on exile. I'm doing that now for this fellow. For whatever it's worth. The Links, well, I don't think I have to tell anyone still here for more than a couple years...there's something not just a little addictive about Burt's website, but...something else. Communal, maybe, to a point, even with adversarial types...but it's beyond that. I dunno. The Links defies description sometimes. As you all know.

Anyway...here's his take on the Circle's opening night...Grand Sierra Casino, Reno, Nevada, 4.19.2019.

********

Arrived at the hotel and immediately met with a long snake like line. Yep, I'm in the right spot. Middle-aged beauties in abundance. These were not the spandex hair sprayed soaked skanks of my concert going youth. These women were well put together Kari Hagar clones. Just change the hair color. Oh, the skin was a bit leathery but I'm not kicking any one of them outta the bed.

It's a different time for sure. It's weird seeing people that look like grandparents with white domes, at a show like this. It dawned on me, how well Sam looks for his age. Many of these people are the same age and look twice as old. It's also Reno. Different crowd than Vegas. I'm excited for my first show in 12 years.

A few CF shirts, a few Hagar. A Mad Anthony shirt and one VH. What struck me was how good the women looked and how bad their men looked. Like they literally just got off work. Men put absolutely no effort into matching their ladies when out on the town. Must be the money because these guys were way out of their league.

A little after 9pm, the house lights go down and a thunderous sound from Bonham. I just kept imagining it was Bonzo. Trust Fund Baby...good opening riff. Vanilla though. An ok song they had to open with followed by Three Lox Box. A curious selection. Not really a song to keep momentum minutes into a show imo. I was worried, then comes Poundcake. Crowd goes nuts. The ladies were definitely there for VH and classic Sam solo such as Rock Candy. Those songs got the biggest reactions. One of the biggest? FWYS. Asses were shaking and I don't mean male asses. Women LOVE Sam Halen. Right now. Ugh. Piss break material but I soldiered through it. I was impressed with how Jason played on that particular song. Idc what anybody says, he does Al justice. A heavy hitter too. Venue was awesome. I've been to a few theaters in my day and this was by far the best. State of the art. The house screens were amazing and in a theater that small, the HD was unbelievable with lots of closeups. I mean zoomed in on the band's faces. "Is that a razor bump on Jason"? I found myself mainly focused on Sam, Mike, and Jason. Sorry Vic. Your stage presence needs work dude. You can wail but you also have to interact with the crowd. You need to point at people like Sam and Mike do. You need to acknowledge and for God's sake smile. Act like you're the happiest guy on Earth. Look to your right on how it's done.

There was a dig at VH. Sam turned to Mike and said something about the "the bros would never let you do that, You'd be fired". Got a nice laugh from the audience. Mike is a fucking star! He commands. As many eyes are on Sam...equal on Mike. Their chemistry is off the charts. Those two guys genuinely love each other and it was cool to see the JD bass up close.

It's also nice to see Sam wail as well. One forgets that the guy can actually play. A funny thing happened. During Poundcake, there's the line "I've been out there tried a little bit of everything..." Sam went in and choked. What did he do? He busted up laughing. He knew he didn't nail it. Subsequently, he admitted that his voice had been a little shot since the Stern appearance but he was solid regardless. Still miles better than *cough*. Shock of the night. Seventh Seal. As soon as I heard the chants I was like "oh shit...here we go". A deep cut. At this point I MUST be honest. A lot is made of the "butcher". I'm not gonna bash the guy. He's really good but he does sounds like Jimmy Page trying to play Ed. You know the word, "sloppy". It doesn't seem fluid if you will. I would describe his covers as "tense". Not comfortable. Having said that, the crowd loves it. They're not nitpicking this shit to death like we do, so in the end, that's all that matters. His playing on Heavy Metal and Rock Candy was epic. It was like he wrote those songs. Clean sounding. Those riffs are so powerful live.

Sam solo followed by VH was the pattern with one Zep thrown in and a few new ones. One new song "The Devil Came To Philly" was pretty much a jam song with few lyrics. That one is the "Hey ..hey...hey" song we heard a snippet of last year, I believe. Eagles Fly? Time to bail...lol. I kept thinking about work and that was a buzzkill. I later learned I missed two songs. A new one and WIL. I'll never understand why they close shows with that song.

9 out of 10. My first show in over a decade...

[Number 47]

Honest.

[Nostalgia Act]

Nice!

I'm looking forward to my two shows.

Tell CC I said hello.

I'll tell him too.

What's up CC?

Miss ya brother!

[Van Squalen]

Highlights for me in this review:

7th Seal. Whoa! Yes. I hope Vic’s tone was adequate.

He’s not wrong about chicas loving Sam Halen. At the Circle gig in San Berdoo in ‘17, the middle aged divorcees outnumbered the fat balding redheads by a margin of 3:1. Easily.

Heavy Metal live is almost always the highlight of any Sammy show for me. I often lament Sam and Ed’s choice of covering TOOWTR instead of HM. An Eddie-fied live version of HM...the mind boggles. Probably my favorite Sammy track outside of VH and CF.

[edwardv]

Waz up CC.

[VH1988]

I’ve got my tix!!

https://ultimateclassicrock.com/samm...2019-set-list/

[BlindtotheWorld]

[VH1988]

I’m getting really excited for Space Between showing up on vinyl on 5/10.

Kinda bummed to see When The Levee Breaks removed from the setlist but that opens up room for 2-3 new tunes.

Seventh Seal!!!

[Van Squalen]

Vic's tone was more than adequate on Seventh Seal.

[TheresOnlyOneWay]

All ready for Saturday night!

[Nostalgia Act]

I wasn't going to watch any videos till after my shows, but I couldn't resist. Better visual then audio in that one. Still.

Seventh Seal!

[noise next door]

"Affirmation" sounds great...

[Dave's Dreidel]

1992. Ha, I love how neither Sam nor Dave have any idea when their songs were released.

Sam's struggling with Seventh Seal, but I give him an A for effort trying to sing that one live.

[VH1988]

1992. Ha, I love how neither Sam nor Dave have any idea when their songs were released.

Sam's struggling with Seventh Seal, but I give him an A for effort trying to sing that one live.

Sam has no clue when it comes to dates. It’s hilarious

[Sam Vs. Dave]

Sam has no clue when it comes to dates. It’s hilarious

That must be how he stays so young looking!