Sammy Hagar recently recounted the time he fractured his tailbone during the opening night of a Van Halen tour.
In the latest episode of his “Storytime” series on YouTube, Hagar looked back on the opening night of Van Halen’s Monsters Of Rock tour in 1988. During the opening song “Summer Nights”, Hagar took a fall backward onto a set of metal stairs and injured his tailbone.
“It actually cut through my leather pants,” said Hagar. “And I was numb; I fell down on the stairs and I got back up and I kept singing, but I felt really weird. I reached back … bloody hand. I go, ‘Oh, my God!’ I felt the bump back there as big as an orange.”
The adrenaline pushed Hagar through the show but it would be just the beginning of Hagar’s woes during that tour.
“It was horrendous until the last show,” Hagar said. “In Denver, Colorado, I couldn’t hit the high note in ‘Eagles Fly’ because I got a sinus infection [and] an ear infection from flying. I got run down; I was on antibiotics. Every day, I had to have a doctor show up in my room and give me a steroid shot in the spot so I could stand up straight.”