For decades, fans have made the trip to a cantina at the tip of Mexico’s Baja peninsula to celebrate Sammy Hagar’s birthday. This year, one of the most familiar faces from those nights chose a different party, but the reason is sweet enough that the birthday boy surely didn’t mind.
Hagar opened his annual birthday celebration on Friday, Oct. 9, with the first of three shows at the Cabo Wabo Cantina in Cabo San Lucas. Missing from the stage was Michael Anthony, the former Van Halen bassist who has played the bash several times before. He was in Oregon with his wife, Sue, marking a milestone of her own.
Anthony explained the absence on social media, writing that “my wife Sue is turning 70 tomorrow.” After more than 25 years of spending her birthday in Cabo while he performed at Hagar’s party, he said, she wanted to do something different this time.
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The music went on without him. Friday’s set leaned heavily on songs from Montrose, Hagar’s first band, and included just three Van Halen numbers along with a cover of Lynyrd Skynyrd’s “Simple Man.” On Sunday, Oct. 11, the second show reached from 1973 to 2013, and Alice in Chains guitarist Jerry Cantrell joined in for the Van Halen classic “Ain’t Talkin’ ‘bout Love” and his own band’s “Man in the Box.”
The lighter dose of Van Halen is deliberate. In a Sept. 17 interview on SiriusXM’s Trunk Nation, Hagar told host Eddie Trunk he is “kinda done with being the Van Halen guy.” He also said he plans to step away from the road for a while, telling Trunk there would be “no tour next year, as of this point,” and noting that he will turn 80 in 2027.
The final night of this year’s bash falls on Tuesday, Oct. 13, his actual birthday, when he turns 79. Fans won tickets through a random drawing, and each one cost a birthday-celebrating $79. Demand for those seats remains enormous; more than 50,000 people tried for one of the 1,600 tickets to the three nights. After Cabo, only two shows remain on his 2026 calendar, an Oct. 23 benefit in Fontana, Calif., and an appearance at Aerosmith’s comeback concerts at the Hollywood Bowl.
Hagar replaced David Lee Roth as Van Halen’s frontman in 1985, and Anthony has remained one of his closest musical partners in the years since, through Chickenfoot and the Best of All Worlds tour.
For fans, the week is a reminder of what the Cabo shows have long been: a rotating gathering of old friends, with the lineup shaped as much by life away from the stage as by the music itself. And one very special birthday for a bandmember’s wife.
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