Sammy Hagar paid tribute to the retiring Aerosmith with a Beatles tune on Friday evening throughout his The Best of All Worlds Tour cease in suburban Detroit. And he had a very private purpose for that exact alternative.

Coming again for the encore on the Pine Knob Music Theatre, Hagar first informed the group that, “We had some crazy news today. We got here this afternoon sometime and we’re all sitting around backstage and a friend of ours that works for Aerosmith came and said, ‘Yeah, Aerosmith called retirement today. They quit. They stopped. God bless ’em; it’s a horrible thing. What a great fuckin’ loss.”

Hagar then defined that his band Montrose had opened for Aerosmith throughout 1974 (he mistakenly stated 1973) at Detroit’s famed Cobo Arena. “We didn’t know who they were and they sold out Cobo Hall and I’m going, ‘Who the fuck are these guys?’” Hagar recalled. “So we did our show. We did an encore and we played (the Beatles’) ‘Helter Skelter’ for our encore and Aerosmith comes on and they open with ‘Helter Skelter.’ Steven (Tyler) and I have been friends ever since.

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“Long story quick, we love these guys. We all grew up with these guys — you grew up with them, we grew up with them. Mike (Anthony) and I, y’know, they have been our rivals to Van Halen for fuckin’ 10 years, us saying ‘Fuck these guys!’ — no, no, we actually like ’em. It’s simply that we had been mad at them. What a disgrace. It’s a unhappy factor.”

Sammy Hagar Agrees With Aerosmith’s Decision to Retire

But, Hagar added, it was the right decision. “Honest to God, my hat goes off to one of many biggest rock ‘n’ roll singers of all time, Steven Tyler, for saying, ‘I can not sing anymore. I give up.’ Fuck sure! Listen, that is honorable. That’s fuckin’ honorable. The day I can not sing anymore I’ll fuckin’ do the identical factor, and that is what a lot of different motherfuckers ought to have executed a very long time in the past. So let’s do one for them. Let’s do one for Aerosmith.”

Hagar and company then performed a throat-shredding version of “Helter Skelter” in place of the usual first encore, Montrose’s “Space Station #5,” following with Chickenfoot’s “Big Foot” and the Van Halen hits “Jump” and “When It’s Love.”

Aerosmith had already postponed its Peace Out farewell tour last September, after just three shows, due to a reported vocal injury for Tyler. The trek was supposed to resume Sept. 20 in Pittsburgh, with dates announced through February. The group announced its cancelation and its retirement from touring, telling fans that, “It has been the honour of our lives to have our music turn out to be a part of yours. In each membership, on each large tour and at second’s grand and personal you could have given us a place within the soundtrack of your lives.”

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Watch Sammy Hagar Perform ‘Helter Skelter’