Sammy Hagar & the Waboritas - The Long Road to Cabo Review

Sammy Hagar and the Waboritas - The Long Road to Cabo
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What's Good About It?

Long Road to Cabo:
There is so much material here; I don't know where to begin. Unlike Sammy's last DVD, this is not a live concert, per se. It's a documentary of the group's last outing on the Sam and Dave Tour. It follows the group's live performances on the road, hitting different towns, and throws in most of the behind the scenes action that went along with it. You do get 15+ live performances of Sammy's greatest hits from his time in Montrose, Van Halen, and his solo career. However, the performances are taken from various shows, and the music is dubbed from just one of the performances. Sometimes they break away from the song for interviews. This is a documentary, so it's not really about each song.

You'll learn that Sammy still loves to perform. The band is very close to one another. Most of the soundchecks are them goofing off. When it's time for the show, the stage is set to look like a party bar, much like Sammy's Club Cabo Wabo. Hagar even has a bleacher section on stage for his fans. Throughout the tour Sammy and company welcome special guests to the stage. In Detroit, The Nuge jams with `em, in New England Gary Charone (you read that right) sings the finale with Sam, and during most of the tour, Michael Anthony plays base on the Van Halen tracks. How cool is that? Some of the interview footage gives insight into Hagar's home life, childhood, and hobbies. I love the sports car collection.

The Extras:
Disc 2 is the holy grail of Sammy Hagar material, that grail being filled with Cabo Wabo Tequila of course. If Hagar put it on tape, it's here. The video section has 11 classic and current Sammy Hagar videos. Ten of them have an addition commentary track. Too see Sammy in that old yellow and red jumpsuit is really something. I'm sure he regrets it. Six of the music videos show up in a karaoke section. The words are displayed and highlighted at the bottom of the screen while the video plays. Some of the audio is cut out so it's just you singing along.

The best part of this disc hands down is the discography section. It covers Hagar's entire career (Montrose, solo, Van Halen, and side projects). You can view each era separately or start at the beginning and let it run through today. What's unique about it is that on the screen it shows the album cover and any and all artwork associated with it, and at the same time, a 20 second clip of each song on the album is played. Once the last track on the album is played, it's on to the next.

There's a trivia section that asks you various questions about the documentary on Disc 1. When you answer right, you continue on, when you answer wrong you get a reaction from the band or crew. Usually I skip stuff like this. DON'T SKIP IT! Answer every question right and you will be rewarded.

Sammy's Kitchen is kind of lame. It's a cooking segment where Hagar shows you his recipe for spaghetti surprise. It does look delicious though.

The Vault is loaded with everything else they couldn't categorize. There's a bootleg live performance of "My Baby's on Fire", complete with a red Trans-Am on stage. A Montrose video of "Bad Motor Scooter" is also included. If you flip through the rare photos section, you'll be treated to a rare B-side released in Europe only entitled "Don't Get Hooked". To round out the disc, you can view hand written lyrics for some of Hagar's hits.

Anything Bad?
We get it Sammy. You hate David Lee Roth.

Bottom Line
The Long Road to Cabo is a Sammy Hagar fans wildest dream. Hagar certainly had his loyal followers in mind when he put this collection together (act fast, the pressing is limited). Judging by the groups energetic and interactive stage performance (and actually being at one of them); Sammy Hagar is setting his sights on being the hard rock version of Jimmy Buffett.

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The Long Road to Cabo is a delightful documentary about rock & roll fellowship, featuring Sammy Hagar as the founder of a summer-long feast of heavy metal, Van Halen memories, and many bared female bosoms (in Hagar's audiences, that is). Looking more like a mellow, mid-life surfer than hairy rock icon from the 1980s, the ever-expansive Hagar leads the Waboritas through a long, hot 2002 tour, sharing a bill with David Lee Roth, Hagar's co-outcast from Van Halen. Despite their shared ignominy, Roth rebuffs Hagar's efforts at collaboration, or at least camaraderie, resulting in a competitive and entertainingly catty atmosphere. \nOne can't help but enjoy a vicarious high watching the demographically diverse Waboritas rumble and squawk through Hagar's classic repertoire, mixing it up onstage with old pals Ted Nugent and Michael Anthony, and even welcoming Gary Cherone, Hagar's replacement in Van Halen, into the fold. The feature-length "Long Road" offers plenty of strong, occasionally hypnotic performances, especially "Heavy Metal," "When It's Love," and a rehearsal fling with Dylan's "Rainy Day Women #12 & 35." \nA second disc conveniently packs four hours of essential Hagar history and miscellany onto one disc, including batches of music videos (from the vintage "Little White Lies" to the recent, and quite agreeable, "Things've Changed") with and without Hagar's commentary and sing-along lyrics. Those versions featuring the loquacious Hagar's recollections are pretty entertaining and sometimes surprising. It turns out, for example, that his and Eddie Van Halen's neighboring houses in "Hands and Knees" (in which Hagar's shouts awake the sleeping guitarist) were not a fantasy backdrop but the real deal.Also on disc 2 is ancient performance footage, handwritten lyric sheets, a documentary about Hagar's career, a photo album, and, most importantly, a session in Sammy's kitchen making spaghetti sauce the way Granddad taught him. "--Tom Keogh"

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