Watch Sammy Hagar Pay Tribute to Aerosmith With a Beatles Cover

Sammy Hagar paid tribute to the retiring Aerosmith with a Beatles song on Friday night during his The Best of All Worlds Tour stop in suburban Detroit. And he had a very personal reason for that particular choice.

Coming back for the encore at the Pine Knob Music Theatre, Hagar first told the crowd that, “We had some crazy news today. We got here this afternoon sometime and we’re all sitting around backstage and a friend of ours that works for Aerosmith came and said, ‘Yeah, Aerosmith called retirement today. They quit. They stopped. God bless ’em; it’s a horrible thing. What a great fuckin’ loss.”

Hagar then explained that his band Montrose had opened for Aerosmith during 1974 (he mistakenly said 1973) at Detroit’s famed Cobo Arena. “We didn’t know who they were and they sold out Cobo Hall and I’m going, ‘Who the fuck are these guys?'” Hagar recalled. “So we did our show. We did an encore and we played (the Beatles’) ‘Helter Skelter’ for our encore and Aerosmith comes on and they open with ‘Helter Skelter.’ Steven (Tyler) and I have been friends ever since.

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“Long story short, we love those guys. We all grew up with those guys — you grew up with them, we grew up with them. Mike (Anthony) and I, y’know, they’ve been our competitors to Van Halen for fuckin’ 10 years, us saying ‘Fuck those guys!’ — no, no, we really like ’em. It’s just that we were mad at them. What a shame. It’s a sad thing.”

Sammy Hagar Agrees With Aerosmith’s Decision to Retire

But, Hagar added, it was the right decision. “Honest to God, my hat goes off to one of the greatest rock ‘n’ roll singers of all time, Steven Tyler, for saying, ‘I can’t sing anymore. I quit.’ Fuck yes! Listen, that’s honorable. That’s fuckin’ honorable. The day I can’t sing anymore I will fuckin’ do the same thing, and that’s what a lot of other motherfuckers should have done a long time ago. So let’s do one for them. Let’s do one for Aerosmith.”

Hagar and company then performed a throat-shredding version of “Helter Skelter” in place of the usual first encore, Montrose’s “Space Station #5,” following with Chickenfoot‘s “Big Foot” and the Van Halen hits “Jump” and “When It’s Love.”

Aerosmith had already postponed its Peace Out farewell tour last September, after just three shows, due to a reported vocal injury for Tyler. The trek was supposed to resume Sept. 20 in Pittsburgh, with dates announced through February. The group announced its cancelation and its retirement from touring, telling fans that, “It has been the honor of our lives to have our music become part of yours. In every club, on every massive tour and at moment’s grand and private you have given us a place in the soundtrack of your lives.”

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Watch Sammy Hagar Perform ‘Helter Skelter’