Sammy Hagar officially joined Van Halen on April Fool’s Day, 1985. They finally finished recording their first album, 5150 in December, and it was released March 24th of 1986. They already had their first tour planned, and that kicked off March 27th, 1986. But before that explosive tour, and Van Halen AND Sammy’s first #1 record, Sammy and Eddie played the original Farm Aid, September 22nd, 1985.
This was the first time they had played live together, and since VH was still working on writing and recording 5150, they didn’t have any new songs to jam. So after Sammy played 3 of his originals, he called out Eddie and the blew up Led Zeppelin’s Rock And Roll. This was the show where they actually revealed that Sammy had now joined Van Halen, but TNN, the network broadcasting the concert, cut away before they made the announcement to the world, and sadly most of the world missed what was probably the biggest news of the day.
