Sammy Hagar Reveals One Rarity For Las Vegas Residency

01-10-2025

Sammy Hagar marked the 30th anniversary of Van Halen's "Don't Tell Me What Love Can Do", a song inspired by the death of Nirvana frontman Kurt Cobain, by sharing that he plans to perform the song at his upcoming Las Vegas Residency.

The track appeared on Van Halen's 1995 album "Balance" and Sammy took to social media on Thursday (January 9th) to reflect on the song as it turned 30. He shared, "Singing this song was always difficult. I wrote the lyrics about Kurt Cobain's death.

I wanted the chorus to say 'I wanna tell you what love can do', but Bruce Fairbank, Ed and Al wanted to make it more dark and negative. Technically it's a brutal song to sing. I painted myself in a corner, but we will be doing it at the residency in Vegas. I'm going to add it to the show."

The Red Rocker will be launching his The Best Of All Worlds Tour Stays in Vegas residency on April 30th at the Dolby Live at Park MGM and back in November, Sammy revealed to Rolling Stone that he plans to mix things up for the shows, making it different from his tour last summer that celebrated the legacy of Van Halen.

"It's really hard, because you don't have time," he said of doing different songs on tour. "You're either traveling, then when you get to your bed, you're like, 'F*** it, I don't want to go rehearse.' With the residency, we're playing Wednesday, Friday, Saturday every week. We have Thursday off. The building's [dark], so we can go in and change songs."

Hagar says that the show will include a mixture of Van Halen songs, along with his solo material and songs from his past groups like Montrose and Chickenfoot. "The whole Van Halen catalog, mainly my catalog...I feel like I own it now, because nobody else can do it.

"It's like there's no one that can do that catalog except a cover band. Mikey and I, we feel like we own it, and we feel this obligation to the music and to the fans to carry it on."