"Since you’ve been gone, it’s not the same": Listen to the song Sammy Hagar finished after being visited by Eddie Van Halen in a dream

Sammy Hagar onstage — (Image credit: Scott Dudelson/Getty Images)

As Sammy Hagar prepares for his upcoming Las Vegas residency, the Red Rocker's new single Encore, Thank You, Goodnight has been released.

A video is set to premiere on April 27, but the audio is now available on streaming platforms and finds guitarist Joe Satriani deliberately channelling the spirit of the late Eddie Van Halen with a high-speed solo introduction.

"It’s a thank-you to Eddie Van Halen," Hagar tells the Los Angeles Times. "It’s saying, 'Since you’ve been gone, it’s not the same,' because it isn’t. For the music, I thought: How can I make this a homage to Eddie? I had a dream, and I remembered some of the music from the dream. But I can’t play guitar that way.

"So I sent Joe these videos of me singing this little chorus and told him how the riff goes. And Joe, man, he just channelled Eddie. We’d just come off a big tour where he’d been playing 14 Van Halen songs every night, so he knew Eddie’s shit inside and out."

Hagar goes into more detail in a video introducing the premiere, saying, "I'm almost embarrassed to talk about this because it sounds like I'm trying to pull some shit. I ain't pulling no shit. I had a dream, and Eddie came to the dream and showed me a song.

"I start singing the song, and I woke up and said, 'fuck, I gotta remember what I was singing!' And I remembered it, and I showed Joe, and he finished it."

Hagar's Best Of All Worlds residency – in which he plays solo career highlights alongside songs by Montrose, Van Halen and Chickenfoot – will kick off on April 30 at Dolby Live at the Park MGM in Las Vegas, and continue into May. He's joined onstage by Satriani and bassist Michael Anthony from Chickenfoot, plus drummer Kenny Aronoff.

Full dates below. Tickets are on sale now

Encore, Thank You, Goodnight. - YouTube

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Apr 30: Las Vegas Dolby Live @ Park MGM, NV
May 02: Las Vegas Dolby Live @ Park MGM, NV
May 03: Las Vegas Dolby Live @ Park MGM, NV
May 07: Las Vegas Dolby Live @ Park MGM, NV
May 09: Las Vegas Dolby Live @ Park MGM, NV
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May 17: Las Vegas Dolby Live @ Park MGM, NV

Artists

Online Editor at Louder/Classic Rock magazine since 2014. 40 years in music industry, online for 27. Also bylines for: Metal Hammer, Prog Magazine, The Word Magazine, The Guardian, The New Statesman, Saga, Music365. Former Head of Music at Xfm Radio, A&R at Fiction Records, early blogger, ex-roadie, published author. Once appeared in a Cure video dressed as a cowboy, and thinks any situation can be improved by the introduction of cats. Favourite Serbian trumpeter: Dejan Petrović.