Charlotte, NC 1-14-09

[DonFan]

When not singing new tunes, Eagles soar in Charlotte

By Scott Fowler sfowler@charlotteobserver.com
Posted: Thursday, Jan. 15, 2009


The Eagles walked onto the stage at Time Warner Cable Arena in Charlotte Wednesday night wearing black suits, white shirts and black ties. They looked like they had either gotten dressed in the Blues Brothers' closet – minus only the hats and sunglasses – or else had borrowed four suits from a local undertaker.
“This is the Eagles' assisted-living tour,” said Glenn Frey, who like each of his three primary bandmates is now at least 60 years old. “And we're those darn Eagles, the band that wouldn't die.”
What followed was nearly three hours of music that made all Eagles fans remember why they don't want this band to die. In front of a near-capacity crowd packed with baby boomers but sprinkled with a surprising number of folks in the 18-29 age group, the Eagles harmonized their way through a hit-filled show of classic rock.
Fans who wanted that peaceful, easy feeling came to the right place. Don Henley still sounded soulful and looked intense – his lead vocals on “Hotel California,” “The Boys of Summer” and “The Long Run” were among the evening's highlights. Joe Walsh still mugged for the camera and played the guitar like nobody's business. Timothy B. Schmit still hit the high notes on “I Can't Tell You Why.”
And Frey sang, played guitar and served as the show's emcee and comic relief. Before the song “Lyin' Eyes,” he said: “I'm going to dedicate this song to my first wife: Plaintiff.”
The first album I ever bought was “Eagles: Their Greatest Hits 1971-1975.” I was 12. I paid $7.50 for the record at a Kmart in Spartanburg. Don't ask me why I remember the price. But the music was unforgettable, then and now.
Since then the Eagles have broken up, pursued solo careers, reunited and now play wherever and whatever they please.
And they played too much of “Long Road out of Eden” Wednesday. That was the studio album the Eagles released in 2007. I'm sure they are very proud of it, but it is not on par with the band's glory decade of the 1970s.
The show started tepidly with four songs from that 2007 album. Then, in the second set following a 20-minute intermission, here came a total of five more “Eden” offerings (including the CD's best song, Henley's haunting “Waiting in the Weeds.”)
In other words, there were plenty of opportunities for fans to partake of one of the arena's large draft beers, if they wanted to shell out the $8.50 – yes, $8.50, isn't that ridiculous?! – that those beers cost.
There was so much of the “new” CD that the band never got to “Tequila Sunrise,” “Already Gone,” “Wasted Time” or a number of other fan favorites.
But when you've got as many hits as the Eagles do, you can't play everything. And the fans didn't seem to mind.
When a lone trumpet sounded out the first notes of the iconic rock anthem “Hotel California” early in the first set, the crowd was fully engaged and stayed that way. Frey kept the patter going between numbers, referring to “Take it to the Limit” as “the credit-card song.”
While the Eagles' staging was stark and relatively funereal – all the backup band members wore black and white, too – the 28-song show was enhanced by a number of multi-media clips and photos. Dreamlike sequences projected during “The Boys of Summer” were particularly effective.
Walsh donned a “helmet cam” for “Life's Been Good,” which allowed fans to watch themselves watching Walsh. It was the night's one real bit of gimmickry, but Walsh pulled it off – his goofiness a fine counterbalance to Henley's intensity.
Eventually, the Eagles took off their jackets, loosened their black ties and rocked out to “Life in the Fast Lane.” Their two-song encore – Frey's “Take It Easy” and Henley's “Desperado” – sent fans out into the night on a wave of nostalgia.
“That felt just like high school,” one baby-boomer fan said to another as the crowd headed for the exits.
And if you're of a certain age and the Eagles served as the soundtrack for a significant part of your life, you knew exactly what he meant.

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[TimothyBFan]

Nice review except for "And they played too much of “Long Road out of Eden” Wednesday. That was the studio album the Eagles released in 2007." But then again, I guess my dreamlist didn't include much either. But since this is the LROOE tour, they are suppose to play a lot of it.

From the looks of the 2 reviews for the 2 concerts so far, they are right back on track, sounding great and the fans are enjoying them!

[cmooreNC]

We didn't get "encore #1" last night, which I missed. But I doubt too many other folks did, as I left the building at 11:30 (during Desperado) to beat the traffic. I know, I know..... pure sacrilege. What can I say? It was a weeknight and my bed was calling me home.

11th row floor last night (scored a pair on Ebay the day before the show at half of face) and as usual it was a great show.

I loved Glenn's comment after "Love Will Keep Us Alive". He thanked Timothy and then said something along the lines of "Love will keep us awake....". Too funny!

[TimothyBFan]

Good job on the price of those tickets! Wow! And congratulations for being able to hold out till the day before to get them! Some of us here aren't that patient

[Freypower]

That was a good review, although the reference to Glenn as 'comic relief' is extremely unfair. Oh, he also 'sang and played guitar' as opposed to Don who looked 'intense' and sounded 'soulful'. I don't necessarily expect all reviewers to share my opinions of Glenn. However, they hardly ever try to analyse him in any way beyond superficiality. What he does is not something that anyone off the street can do. He can sing as well as Don and he co-wrote those songs. As with his solo career, he is still not taken seriously. I sometimes wish he would drop the jokes.

[Peekaboo]

Good job on the price of those tickets! Wow! And congratulations for being able to hold out till the day before to get them! Some of us here aren't that patient

(Hand raised) Yeah, i'm one of those impatient ones. But i'm trying to wait it out this time for the Tampa concert. Let's see if I can do this. Only 2 weeks to go.

[eaglesvet]

We didn't get "encore #1" last night, which I missed. But I doubt too many other folks did, as I left the building at 11:30 (during Desperado) to beat the traffic. I know, I know..... pure sacrilege. What can I say? It was a weeknight and my bed was calling me home.

11th row floor last night (scored a pair on Ebay the day before the show at half of face) and as usual it was a great show.

I loved Glenn's comment after "Love Will Keep Us Alive". He thanked Timothy and then said something along the lines of "Love will keep us awake....". Too funny!

Glenn, is that a promise ?

[Stars]

FP, I have to agree with you about the reference to Glenn as "comic relief". That certainly rubbed me the wrong way too. With Glenn's awesome voice and his songwriting ability, he certainly deserves better than that in a concert review. Maybe it would be best if he dropped the jokes, and perhaps just shared some stories about the songs. I remember at one of the concerts I attended, he told quite a long story about the writing of "Lyin' Eyes". It may have been the Washington concert. Dreamer, weren't you at the DC show? Does this ring a bell? Anyway, I would love to see a review that really gives Glenn his due.

[Glennsallnighter]

Glenn, is that a promise ?

Yeoow!! I wish it was!!

[DonFan]

A fan named Eric's blog about the Charlotte show:

To answer those who asked, yes, The Eagles gave a phenomenal show.

My Mom decided to take me to the show, and while I wish she hadn't spent so much on the tickets, I'll give the band credit for giving the audience their money's worth. The show was scheduled for 8:00 PM, which usually means 8:30 for most bands (or sometime after ten if the band is Guns'N'Roses), and The Eagles went onstage at about 8:07 PM or thereabouts and played until around 11:30 PM, with a fifteen or twenty minute break between sets. When one is talking about a band that's been around for thirty-something years, it's almost an un-statement to talk about musicianship--one takes it for granted that The Eagles are going to play well and deliver the harmonies they've been singing for three decades, especially on songs like "Witchy Woman" and "Lyin' Eyes" that they can probably play in their sleep; but, yes, the musicianship was superb and the harmonies beautiful.

More significantly, the band seemed to be having a good time on stage and the energy level was high. And while I'm sure a good chunk of the crowd was there to hear the classics, the band had a new album to promote, Long Road Out of Eden. I don't own a copy, and (frankly) I'm not sure the new songs really measure up to the band's best work of the 1970s, but the thing about a band promoting a new album is that they have more at stake than just flogging the old standards Yet Again; watching a band lifelessly going through a twenty-year-old tune to the cheers of an oblivious Greatest Hits crowd can be not only a little dull but extremely depressing. Not that every reunion tour is like that, mind you--I've seen Springsteen out on tour just for the sake of being out on tour, and he set fire to the stage--but it's an easy trap for a band, and if I wasn't completely blown away by The Eagles' new songs, I'm still glad they had them and were playing them and using them to bookend and breathe life into their back catalogue.

Although the presence of the back catalogue was also pretty interesting: the biggest surprise for me, personally, was that the band dipped into Don Henley's and Joe Walsh's solo catalogues (if there were any cuts from Glenn Frey's or Timothy Schmit's back pages, they weren't songs I recognized and I mistook them for new tracks from Eden or unfamiliar tracks from The Eagles' catalogue). The first foray into the solo catalogue was an accelerated version of Henley's "Boys Of Summer," which I frankly assumed they sped through as some kind of ego-thing, presumably Henley being a prima donna and the rest of the band going along to shut him up; but then the band began covering old solo Walsh tracks and really laying into them and doing them justice, and the second set featured a blistering, paint-peeling rendition of Henley's "Dirty Laundry" along with a handful of additional Walsh tracks--at which point it was pretty clear the faster take on "Summer" (which worked artistically, by the way; it was just a noticeable change) was a deliberate choice and the band members were enjoying playing each others' songs. Always a good thing.

After all, The Eagles fourteen-year "hiatus" wasn't a "hiatus" at the time--it was a break-up with everybody going solo and some public bitterness (tho' it never rose to the level, say, of The Beatles' disintegration, much less the insults, recrimination and lawsuits of Pink Floyd's divorce from Roger Waters). When the band reunited in '94 for Hell Freezes Over, the in-joke of the title was that Don Henley had once been asked in an interview when the band might reunite and that was his answer. If any bad blood lingers, you wouldn't have known it Wednesday night, and the band attacked their setlist with equal zeal whether they were playing somebody's solo number or something brand new or a song released in 1972.

A confession I have to make, speaking of the solo catalogue, is that I think I've underestimated and undervalued Joe Walsh for a very long time. It might frankly be that familiarity bred some level of mild contempt, though "contempt" implies a strength of feeling that wasn't there--I haven't heard any Joe Walsh in years and hadn't had any reason to really think of him at all, but his music was in the background throughout much of my childhood and was just sort of there as something easily recognized but so ubiquitous it's just as easily forgotten. (Like air, you know? It's awesome stuff, but you don't tend to notice it most of the time.) Walsh's material really was a high point of the show for me, personally, not because I expected it or wanted it but because when it came I quickly wanted more. The best way to put it might be to say that the man really kicked ass.

It was a damn good show, anyway, and I had a good time. The band didn't just play well, they had a good time and were engaged and on, and I hope they really were having fun the other night and have a great tour for the rest of their schedule. And thanks, Mom, for taking me.

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Interesting comments. I wonder how old he is? Anyway, sounds like he liked the show a lot.

And FP, you may get tired of the "comic relief" comments about Glenn, but I also get a little tired of the "Don as a prima donna" comments.