Chickenfoot at the Queen Elizabeth Theatre

On the surface, Chickenfoot seems like the kind of project where three guys have sweet fuck-all in common with the fourth. In one corner of the tour bus, you’ve got two Van Halen survivors and a chrome-domed hard-rock guitar hero for whom there’s no such thing as too much wanking in a song. In the other, the timekeeper for one of the most enduring acts in alt-rock. How strange, then, that singer Sammy Hagar, bassist Michael Anthony, and Mr. Clean fan-club president Joe Satriani are not only in a band with Red Hot Chili Peppers timekeeper Chad Smith, but that the whole “supergroup” is getting along so famously that it couldn’t be more stoked about its latest album, the sophomore effort Chickenfoot III. That the disc technically should have been called Chickenfoot II is beside the point; what matters is that the band is obviously resonating with people, this reflected by the fact that it’s graduated from the Commodore to a bigger stage this time through town. Luckily, all four members have plenty to talk about when Chickenfoot—at the Queen Elizabeth Theatre on Tuesday (June 5)—gets together for beer pong. Why? Well, if you’ve read the Anthony Kiedis bio Scar Tissue, then you know the Peppers have never had anything in common with Smith, mostly because he’s at heart a looganlike hard-rock hesher. He probably likes Van Halen and Surfing With the Alien, too.