Odds & Ends: Sammy Hagar, Bruce Springsteen, Billy Joel

Sammy Hagar’s fans will finally get to party with the Red Rocker at his Mexico nightclub when the former Van Halen singer serves up a free New Year’s Eve show at the Cabo Wabo Cantina in Los Cabos, Mexico. Hagar had to move his annual birthday bash scheduled for the club in September to the Downtown Las Vegas Events Center after Hurricane Odile tore through Baja California.

“Cabo’s battling back, baby,” Hagar said.  “And that’s the best reason in the world to celebrate and support the community.”

Hagar will be performing with the club’s house band, Cabo Uno.  While admission for the freebie will be handled on a first-come, first-served basis, fans can make dinner reservations and then stay for the show.

Although the show is free, be sure to bring along a few extra pesos.  Hagar is encouraging fans to pay it forward by dropping some cash into the donation boxes placed throughout the venue with the proceeds helping out the Los Cabos Children’s Foundation. 

Hagar and the Cabo Wabo Cantina are also working with the Secretary of Tourism for Baja California and the Cabo Bureau of Tourism, Ruben Reachi, to hold a music festival in early 2015.  Stay tuned.

Those concert downloads sold earlier this year via BruceSpringsteen.net  are back.  What’s more, there is talk that The Boss might offer up older recordings from past decades.

Downloads of individual shows were first put up for sale during BruceSpringsteen & The E Street Band’s “High Hopes” tour but were removed shortly after the run concluded.  Now the concert recordings are back on Springsteen’s website, along with an audio record of Springsteen kicking off the 2012 “Wrecking Ball” tour at New York’s Apollo Theater. 

The shows are available as MP3s, lossless CD-quality and HD-Audio downloads.  For those of you yearning to hold something physical in your hands, $23 will get you one show on a CD.  Nugs.net is the company handling the downloads.

How far back will the archive go?  Nugs.net CEO Brad Sterling told Backstreets.com that he first approached the Springsteen camp in 2009 but was rebuffed.  Fast forward five years and it’s a different story, mainly because Springsteen saw how many of his shows are available on YouTube.

“He was like, ‘We can do better than this.  We own the masters,’” Sterling told Backstreets.

Billy Joel has added his 64th Madison Square Garden gig.  The June 20 performance will mark his 18^th consecutive show at the venue and will tie Elton John’s record for the most number of performances at MSG by any artist.  The concert is part of Joel’s residency at The Garden.

Tickets for the June 20 show go on sale Nov. 22 at 10 a.m. EST.  Check out BillyJoel.com for more information.

Update!!! Soon after posting this item we received an announcement that Joel will break the MSG lifetime record for most performances by any artist when he plays The Garden July 1.  Tickets go on sale the same day and time the June 20 concert goes up – Nov. 22 at 10 a.m. EST.