It feels less than coincidental that grown-older-but-not-up rocker Sammy Hagar\u2019s most recent musical venture came out on Mailboat Records, an imprint founded by Mr. Margaritaville himself Jimmy Buffett. After all, over the past 20 years Hagar has steadily transformed himself into the hard rock version of Buffett the lifestyle merchant, expanding his Cabo Wabo bar-and-restaurant empire across the nation, hawking his own custom brand of rum, and just lately publishing a \u201ccooking and partying\u201d book called, naturally, Are We Having Any Fun Yet?<\/i><\/p>\n
Because that\u2019s what Sammy is really all about\u2014fun. Craft matters, but it\u2019s not nearly as important a core value on Planet Hagar as enthusiasm. As for subtlely, well, that\u2019s a dirtier word than any of the miscellaneous swears that senior citizen Hagar drops on this live album\u2019s amiable dad-bro between-song patter.<\/p>\n
The Circle is Hagar\u2019s latest configuration in a series of nostalgia-rich late-career ventures by the Red Rocker that allow him to surf his own huge back catalog, dating back to his 1973 debut as lead singer on Montrose\u2019s landmark self-titled album. This particular configuration\u2014which includes his solo band guitarist Vic Johnson, ex-Van Halen pal-for-life bassist-vocalist Mike Anthony, and son-of-John \/ latter-day Led Zeppelin drummer Jason Bonham\u2014allows him to go even further back to the source material and inspiration for much of that initial Montrose album: early Led Zeppelin.<\/p>\n
The results captured on this two-disc live album are in some ways predictable and in others surprising. Of course they mine the Van Hagar years heavily\u2014they\u2019ve got half the band right there on stage already. And the Hagar solo tunes are pretty much the ones you\u2019d expect (because the world really needed yet another rendition of \u201cI Can\u2019t Drive 55\u201d\u2026 um, dude, speed limit went back to 70 like 30 years ago). But they also cover four Zeppelin tunes and throw a few seconds of a fifth (\u201cMoby Dick\u201d) into Bonham\u2019s solo spotlight (each player gets one, and the best thing I can say about that is they\u2019re all brief). <\/p>\n
The genuine surprises are two. Hagar solo sideman Johnson, called upon to play parts originated by Ronnie Montrose, Eddie Van Halen and Jimmy Page all in one show, pretty much nails it. He\u2019s got Van Halen\u2019s patented flash-and-trash style down, and does a respectable and respectful job of mimicking Page\u2019s tone and parts on the Zep tunes. Surprisingly, the only song that trips him up is \u201cRock Candy,\u201d where the tone isn\u2019t quite there and the changes he makes to Montrose\u2019s parts don\u2019t do the song any favors.<\/p>\n
The second surprise is the way Hagar steps up on the Zeppelin tracks. Hagar\u2019s low-key surfer dude vibe sometimes translates to lazy\/sloppy singing on his own songs, and that happens again here at times, but he clearly has too much respect for the Zeppelin tunes to pull that shit on them. He sounds focused and determined on sharp renditions of \u201cGood Times Bad Times\u201d and \u201cWhen The Levee Breaks,\u201d and while he can\u2019t compete with Plant\u2019s vocal gymnastics on \u201cWhole Lotta Love,\u201d he gives it everything he\u2019s got. <\/p>\n
Regarding the Van Halen material: tunes like \u201cWhy Can\u2019t This Be Love,\u201d \u201cBest Of Both Worlds\u201d and \u201cRight Now\u201d are among the punchiest, most entertaining pop-metal produced between 1985 and 1991, and this quartet is more than capable of delivering the goods on them. And: I used to call Chris Squire the Most Valuable Harmony Vocalist in Rock, which he absolutely was, but Michael Anthony surely makes the top ten.<\/p>\n
The weak link here is Hagar\u2019s own solo material. The tight, angry \u201cLittle White Lie\u201d is decent, but \u201cThere\u2019s Only One Way To Rock,\u201d \u201cHeavy Metal\u201d and \u201cI Can\u2019t Drive 55\u201d are 15 minutes of the goofiest, most predictable cheese ever sliced on stage by a sixty-something rocker. <\/p>\n
There\u2019s nothing revelatory here\u2014it\u2019s really just four skilled veterans of the hard rock scene playing around in their clubhouse, with 6,000 fans along for the ride\u2014but At Your Service<\/i> does offer abundant fun and a few surprises, notably how well the quartet\u2019s Zeppelin covers hold up.\u00a0 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":12,"featured_media":32655,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"artist":[9790],"rating":[5615],"class_list":["post-44424","review","type-review","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","artist-sammy-hagar-the-circle","rating-rating-b"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/44424","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/review"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/12"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=44424"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/44424\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/32655"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=44424"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"artist","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/artist?post=44424"},{"taxonomy":"rating","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/rating?post=44424"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}