Jason Bonham was forced to leave Sammy Hagar‘s “The Best Of All Worlds” tour due to an unspecified family issue. The drummer was replaced at Hagar‘s concert on Tuesday night (August 27) at Riverbend Music Center in Cincinnati, Ohio by Kenny Aronoff, who had previously played with Hagar, bassist Michael Anthony and guitarist Joe Satriani in CHICKENFOOT.
“Tonight I’m going to dedicate this to the Bonham family in England,” Hagar said while introducing the song “Eagles Fly”. “Hope everything works out okay over there, and to our brother Jason.”
At the end of the show, Hagar gave a special shout-out to “the man who saved the day, Kenny fucking Aronoff.”
Aronoff replaced Chad Smith in CHICKENFOOT‘s touring lineup from 2011 to 2012. Smith was forced to step away from CHICKENFOOT‘s touring activities due to his commitments with the RED HOT CHILI PEPPERS.
CHICKENFOOT recorded two albums between 2009 and 2011 and toured across America but never performed any VAN HALEN material. More recently, Hagar and Anthony have played some of the VAN HALEN catalog with guitarist Vic Johnson and Bonham in SAMMY HAGAR AND THE CIRCLE.
Back in 2012, Aronoff told Ultimate Classic Rock about his stint with CHICKENFOOT: “The cool thing about this band is that the level of musicianship is so high. Everybody’s been in so many bands that we’re starting at such a high experienced level… There’s a lot of stuff that you don’t have to discuss. It’s like if you took a bunch of NFL players and put them together, they’re already starting with a lot of experience, so it’s just a matter of making it gel… it gels so well, personality-wise and musically. And I think maybe that’s what Chad was thinking when he picked me. He picked me personally — he kept telling them, ‘This is the guy you should get to replace me while I’m out with the CHILI PEPPERS.’ And it’s worked — he’s right. It was just the right combination of people.”
For “The Best Of All Worlds” tour, Hagar and his bandmates in THE CIRCLE — Anthony and Bonham — are being joined by Satriani and multi-instrumentalist Rai Thistlethwayte.
“The Best Of All Worlds” setlist consists largely of VAN HALEN material, including the opening track “Good Enough”, from 1986’s “5150” album, as well as two songs from 1991’s “For Unlawful Carnal Knowledge”, “Poundcake” and “Runaround”, and a pair of David Lee Roth-era VAN HALEN classics, “Panama” and “Ain’t Talkin’ ‘Bout Love”, as well as a section of “Jump”.
The rest of the set includes Satriani‘s “Satch Boogie”, the rousing rock-swing guitar instrumental that put him on the map in 1987 and helped propel his second album, “Surfing With The Alien”, to platinum status. and several of Hagar‘s solo classics, such as “There’s Only One Way To Rock”, “Eagles Fly”, “Heavy Metal” and “I Can’t Drive 55”.
Produced by Live Nation, the 28-date “The Best Of All Worlds” tour will conclude on August 31 in St. Louis, Missouri.