Editor’s Note: Welcome to V3 Weekend, Vanyaland‘s guide to help you sort out your weekend entertainment with curated selections and recommendations across our three pillars of Music, Comedy, and Film/TV. It’s what you should know about, where you need to be, and where you’ll be going, with us riding shotgun along the way.
Music: Sammy Hagar at XFinity Center
When Eddie Van Halen passed away in October 2020, logic would dictate that one of the greatest soap operas in rock and roll had finally come to an end. All the high-profile feuding among bandmembers past and present; there was no need for it anymore. Van Halen was done. Perhaps unsurprisingly though, it’s continued with unmatched pettiness. A tribute tour – or even one-off concert – for Eddie never materialized, original singer David Lee Roth recently took aim at the guitarist’s son, Wolfgang, in a series of bizarre, unhinged online rants, and Alex Van Halen seemingly quit the business, unloading the entirety of his drum equipment in an auction last month.
Leave it to Sammy Hagar and Michael Anthony then to try to make the best of it. Like when they showed up at the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame induction ceremony in 2007 as the only representatives of Van Halen – almost comically as neither were in the group at the time – the pair are now properly honoring the legacy of the band onstage.
Hagar’s “Best of All Worlds” tour comes to Mansfield’s XFinity Center tonight (July 26) and ostensibly celebrates his entire career, going way back to Montrose and his various solo turns. But it’s the VH songs that everyone is coming out to see. Along with fellow Halen alum Anthony on bass, the singer is joined by guitar wizard Joe Satriani, and rock royalty Jason Bonham on drums. Expect some deep cuts from the Van Hagar era and even a Roth song or two with Anthony handling vocals. As an added bonus, whether it’s an opportunity to endure the long bathroom lines or some prime ‘80s cheese, Loverboy opens. — Michael Christopher
SAMMY HAGAR + LOVERBOY :: Friday, July 26 at Xfinity Center, 885 S. Main St, in Mansfield MA :: 7 p.m., all ages, $54.35 to $247.20 :: Event info
Comedy: Boston Comedy Blowout at Norwood Theatre
What do you get when you put four of the most powerful comedy talents in town together? You get one hell of a Friday night (July 26), that’s what. With Orlando Baxter, Dan Boulger, Christine Hurley and Andrew Della Volpe poised to rip up the spotlight at the Norwood Theatre for July’s Boston Comedy Blowout, there will be no shortage of top-shelf hilarity to help you forget your weekday woes. It’s unfair, really, just how good this show is. — Jason Greenough
BOSTON COMEDY BLOWOUT :: Friday, July 26 at Norwood Theatre, 109 Central St. in Norwood, MA :: 7:30 p.m., $30 to $43 :: Advance tickets
Film/TV: ‘They Live’ at Somerville Theatre
Since most of us will be posted up all weekend in Davis Square for this year’s NICE, a fest, we figured we’d check the movie listngs at Somerville Theatre and see what’s good. Turns out John Carpenter’s 1988 cult classic film and dystopian future predictor They Live is screening at midnight on Saturday (July 27), and it feels like the perfect bubble gum component to the music festival’s ass kicking — without anyone running out of either. Here’s the word: “Nada (Roddy Piper), a wanderer without meaning in his life, discovers a pair of sunglasses capable of showing the world the way it truly is. As he walks the streets of Los Angeles, Nada notices that both the media and the government are comprised of subliminal messages meant to keep the population subdued, and that most of the social elite are skull-faced aliens bent on world domination. With this shocking discovery, Nada fights to free humanity from the mind-controlling aliens.” — Michael O’Connor Marotta
‘THEY LIVE’ :: Saturday, July 27 at Somerville Theatre, 55 Davis Square in Somerville, MA :: 11:59 p.m., $15 :: Event info :: Advance tickets