Let us offer praise for this thoroughly entertaining live album from Sammy Hagar and his nifty backing band The Waboritas. 2003’s Live Hallelujah captures Hagar and friends in buoyant form after a run of enjoyable solo albums and, as the title suggests, it has a celebratory feel to it. It is also incredibly loud: ear fatigue guaranteed but it does capture that feeling of being front row in front of some massive fuck off speakers. The older tracks are bristling with the kind of wild 70s style guitar attack that would make The Nuge proud and the Van Hagar-era selections are feelgood bliss with special guest appearances from Gary Cherone and a speaker-rattling Michael Anthony. They’re no slouches on the axe, but Hagar and Vic Johnson pick less flashy Van Hagar tracks that sit comfortably alongside the non-VH tunes. Throw in some sterling newer tunes like Shaka Doobie and Deeper Kind Of Love and you’ve got a party of a set that assimilates a long career cohesively. If your ears can take the remorseless pounding this is great fun and totally evokes the excitement and vibe of a loud, entertaining rock show. Just expect a bit of tinnitus on the way home.
HEAVY METAL OVERLOAD 
I have been meaning to pick this up for years. Thanks for the review! I hear that this was truly live, no overdubs. That’s what I like in my live albums.
Date: Fri, 7 Sep 2012 18:55:24 +0000 To: mladano@sympatico.ca
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Apparently it was totally live although the tracks were taken from a number of shows. There is very little in the way of stage banter or anything like that either which is possibly a shame. There is a lot of tracks crammed onto the disc.
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You know, it COULD be a shame about the stage banter…but on the other hand, on any live album I own, I usually hate Sammy’s stage banter. I’m on record for hating Right Here Right Now Live…especially when Sammy says that tomorrow “might not never come”. Double negative, Sammy.
If it’s all for the sake of cramming more tracks onto a CD, hey, at least it was a decent reason.
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Well yeah, I really doubt we’re missing much banter-wise if that is anything to go by! I like the way it just bangs through each track in succession but it does make it feel more like a live compilation than an actual show. But it’s a great fun listen and real mash up of 70s 80s and 90s hard rock styles!
In the liner notes Sammy does explain all the editing choices and says if it’s successful he will bring out a 3CD Ltd Edition of “the whole nine yards” stage raps and all. But I don’t think that ever happened.
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I’d like to hear this after we were talking about live albums. I have an old album kicking around ‘SH Live 1980’
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I don’t know that one, I’ll need to check that out.
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Straight ahead rock n roll from Sammy and the boys. What I love about guys like Sammy is they earned their stripes playing live.
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