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Randy Bachman Looks Back On Van Halen Tour Experience

12/29/2014
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(Classic Rock) Randy Bachman has recalled Bachman Turner Overdrive's US support tour with Van Halen when the headline act had just changed singers - and says Sammy Hagar made sure he stacked the odds in his favour.

Bachman says they were invited on the road in 1986 because Hagar wanted a solid opening outfit - something he felt Van Halen fans weren't used to. Bachman tells Songfacts: "I'd seen Van Halen a lot with David Lee Roth, and normally they'd have a really crappy opening act, which they'd call the 'merch act', because everyone then is buying Van Halen merchandise and popcorn and getting to their seats.

"This band would come out and play 20 or 30 minutes, then they'd have a 10 or 20-minute break where they were still selling merchandise. Then Van Halen would come out."

But he says that wasn't good enough for Hagar, who wanted to ensure the 112-date tour went as well as it could. So he called BTO, who'd regrouped three years previously.

"Sammy was a friend of mine -we'd written a bunch of songs together," Bachman remembers. "Sammy said, 'I want BTO to come and open, I want you to do 35 minutes of hit songs and do a five-minute switchover. We don't want to hear anybody yelling, 'Where's Dave?'... "So we played with them for a weekend, and they came to us later and said, 'We want you to open the 5150 tour.'" Read more here.

Classic Rock Magazine is an official news provider for antiMusic.com.
Copyright Classic Rock Magazine- Excerpted here with permission.

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