Sammy Hagar Recalls ‘Brutal’ Van Halen Tour With Broken Tailbone

Sammy Hagar states he sustained a “brutal” harm on the opening evening of a Van Halen tour, important to months of agony since the reveals skilled to go on.

It was the extremely initial of 28 performances beneath the Monsters of Rock banner in 1988, with Metallica, Scorpions, Dokken and Kingdom Happen with each other for the expertise. Hagar admitted that he wasn’t even so familiar with the brand name-new phase arrangement.

“We skilled to have 3 sets to established up in diverse cities, merely since it took three days to set up,” Hagar clarifies in the video clip beneath. “It skilled these metallic stairs … and I hadn’t executed on them.”

The incident took spot throughout “the initial music, ‘Summer Nights’” – even though that was basically the 2nd music on the setlist, with “There’s Only A individual Way to Rock” prior it.

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“I’m singing the initial refrain, I’m stepping backwards I stumble onto the stairs, and hit my tailbone best on the corner of one particular unique of the metal [edges],” he explained.

“And it definitely reduce by way of my leather-primarily based pants. And I was numb I fell down on the stairs and I obtained once more up and I held singing, but I felt definitely bizarre. I accomplished back … bloody hand. I go, ‘Oh, my God!’ I felt the bump once more there as substantial as an orange.

“Eddie [Van Halen] was playing a comprehensive intro, and I ran in excess of to my side of the phase, and I explained to my individual, ‘What’s going on?’ He’s like, ‘Dude, you by no means wanna know!’ … I can not see it [but] I’m gonna faint.

“I make it by the show, get to the clinic – I had a fractured tailbone, vertebrae wholly knocked out of whack. I had to have stitches across it, generally. It was brutal.”

Sammy Hagar’s Private injury Intended He Obtained to Fulfill Sting

The torment was significantly from about. Describing it as “the worst harm I have at any time skilled,” Hagar felt the strain of the tour dates nonetheless to come. That was constructed worse by his will will need to fly household to go to his health-related medical professional routinely – whilst it did give 1 vibrant moment: “That’s how I met Sting – he was at my doctor’s business enterprise workplace also!”

Hagar claims “it was horrendous till the final exhibit. … In Denver, Colorado, I couldn’t strike the superior note in ‘Eagles Fly’ for the explanation that I purchased a sinus infection [and] an ear infection from traveling. I received operate down I was on antibiotics. Every single day, I skilled to have a medical professional clearly show up in my region and give me a steroid shot in the spot so I could stand up straight.”

In the conclusion, he has a basic details about this “brutal,” “horrible” mishap: “You definitely do not want that to at any time materialize to you!”

View Sammy Hagar Convey to His Tailbone Tale