Sammy Hagar on His Unlikely Friendship With Bob Weir: ‘Always the Elder, the Wise Old Soul’
The former Van Halen singer and the Dead co-founder shared the stage numerous times, including at Nashville's Ryman in 2022
tribute
The former Van Halen singer and the Dead co-founder shared the stage numerous times, including at Nashville's Ryman in 2022
Back in March 2022, during the Nashville stop of his Crazy Times tour with the Circle, Sammy Hagar assembled one of the most unlikely groups of musicians to ever appear together on the Ryman Auditorium stage: Hagar, Ronnie Dunn, and Bob Weir. That Jason Bonham was on drums and Michael Anthony on bass made it all the more surreal.
Weir, whose death at 78 was announced on Saturday, seemed to relish the ramshackle nature of it all, as the collective teetered their way through “Not Fade Away.” When the song was over, Dunn departed, but the Grateful Dead co-founder stayed behind to jam on Led Zeppelin’s “Rock & Roll” with his longtime friend Hagar.
“Bob and I were born just two days apart,” Hagar, 78, wrote on social media on Sunday in a post that both paid tribute to Weir and laid out their odd-couple bond: the flamboyant Van Halen singer and tequila entrepreneur, and the quiet “Other One” of the Dead. “A couple decades ago we made a deal we were going to live to be 100, then get together and decide if we were gonna take it any further. One of the last things I said to Bob was ‘Hey, I thought we had a deal.’ His lack of response made me realize I was on my own on this one because Bob was already way past 100. He was 100 when I met him. Always the elder, the wise old soul.”
The 2022 Nashville jam was far from the only time Hagar and Weir shared a stage. In one of the most recent collabs, Weir ambled out midway through a performance of “Bad Motor Scooter,” the rock anthem that Hagar sang on Montrose’s 1973 debut, during Hagar’s Best of Both Worlds Las Vegas residency in May 2025. Wearing capris, a blazer, and the Birkenstocks that made an indelible impression on Rolling Stone senior writer Angie Martoccio during their interview earlier that year, Weir played an inspired solo while Hagar egged him on.
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“He had a pocket full of sayings that he used to simplify a conversation,” Hagar said on Sunday.
“Am I gonna miss Bob? #YouBet
Did I love Bob like a brother? #Yup
Was bob a wonderful friend to have? #FuckinA
Did Bob and I have some good fun together? #MoreFunThanAFroginAGlassOfMilk”