How have your Eagles opinions changed?

[chaim]

I'm really surprised that other fans aren't frustrated. Glenn and Tim made two great solo albums after Long Road Out Of Eden. Don's solo album still hasn't got a release date.

However, If the Eagles manage to get Randy involved in the next USA leg of the HOTE tour, all the frustrations will disappear and my respect for the band will be restored to pinnacle levels.

I've never followed their solo careers, although I love almost all of Don's stuff that I've heard. Must buy his albums at some point. I only have Glenn's albums, except the cover album. So I'm not waiting for solo albums from them.

But I felt really frustrated when Joe wasn't really playing on LROOE. The most spine-tingling guitar moment on the album came from him (the solo on the title track), and the most fun moment (LGTIT). But it wasn't enough.

[VAisForEagleLovers]

I also think the live show needs a shakeup.

Like how?

[Freypower]

Like how?

I have thought for years the second half is too dependent on the Walsh songs. I thought at the HOTE shows the order in which the songs were played was questionable. If it's supposed to be a history show then everything has to be in chronological order, not just the first half. Following LBG which is such a crowd pleaser (despite my reservations about it) with TLR was for me a huge mistake which even Don realised ('I have to follow that every stinkin' night') and HT, the only song in which the crowd was prepared to dance in Australia, was thrown away. I have already said that Desperado needed to be moved to the segment for that album. It has been the last song for far too long.

I don't expect anyone to agree with this. I don't know why I was so dissatisifed with this. The shows were great but the song order didn't work for me. I am well aware that most people seem perfectly happy with it.

13.) Wasted Time Reprise
14.) Pretty Maids All In a Row
15.) I Can't Tell You Why
16.) New Kid In Town
17.) Love Will Keep Us Alive
18.) Heartache Tonight
19.) Those Shoes
20.) In the City

[Band Intros]

21.) Life's Been Good
22.)The Long Run
23.) Funk #49
24.) Life In the Fast Lane

And then the encores, which are stuck in stone & have been since Felder was fired.

With the exception of three Long Run songs played consecutively it's all over the place. As for Funk #49 now being apparently so important as to precede LITFL I thought that was ridiculous. And then there is the complete exclusion of LROOE.

[thelastresort]

One change I would make is put LBG as Joe's encore song and put RMW elsewhere (I'd be happy to see it dropped in all honesty), and shuffle them around so Desperado isn't last. I appreciate it's quite a poignant song to end on, but it's also exceptionally depressing. Quite odd how practically everything else has been changed in the setlist over the years (reordered or dropped etc) yet that final three remains the same. Thinking about it, I'd take Get Over It as Don's final vocal, sending Desperado earlier in the show and removing the bang average LWKUA from the set. This maintains some kind of chronology and means the entire encore is an upbeat matter with all members being showcased roughly equally across the three songs, but the downside is TBS loses a lead (unless you keep it and maintain the current inconsistency). Something like:

Life in the Fast Lane
-----
Hotel California
-----
Life's Been Good
Get Over It
Take It Easy

[chaim]

And interesting thing, set lists. I haven't been following their tours, (I don't follow anyone's tours!) so I don't know about their set lists.
I'm a big Moody Blues fan, but they aren't exactly known for changing set lists every night either. KISS has two "new guys" who try to push Gene and Paul to play some obscure stuff as well, and when they do, G & P look like they can't wait for the next KISS standrard. It's interesting how different old bands can be in this respect. Procol Harum seems to change the setlist every night. I read that Gary announces the next song to the guitarist and he tells it to the others. Of course this wouldn't work with Eagles, but maybe they shouldn't be too predictable either. Even the Moody Blues has thrown in some surprises, like "One more time to live", "The day we meet again", "Higher & Higher", "Peak hour". Although it's probably more a case of replacing individual songs than changing the structure of the set. Tuesday Afternoon will probably always be the second song and Ride My See-Saw the last etc.
Seems that the more people you draw, the less you can take risks. The are exceptions, of course, like Neil Young who doesn't give a....

[WalshFan88]

I have this feeling that guitarists sometimes deliberately play things differently so that it supposedly has "their" voice. If the original has a bend, play a hammer-on. If the original has a hammer-on, bend it. If the original slides into a note, do a hammer-on. If the original has a hammer-on, do a slide.

That's just how I feel and it irritates me. If guitarists play stuff differently naturally, I don't mind, but often it sounds like being different for the sake of being different.

Yep!

One thing Stu does on HC that really grinds my gears is the "pinch harmonics". Now he is a master at that, and with fingerpicks - but I don't think it goes with the solo that well.

[NightMistBlue]

But what has changed is that I know which member is which. The inner gatefold of Hotel California vinyl/back cover of the CD...When I was very green, I though that Randy was Glenn and Glenn was Joe. At some point I think I thought that Joe was Glenn...
One Of These Nights...I remember thinking that Felder was Glenn.

Me too. When I was a kid, it threw me that there were two guys in the band named Don. I guess I was easily confused.

Even as an adult, my opinion of the Eagles was shamefully shallow, even after seeing them in concert a few times. I LOVED their hits and better-known album cuts, but thought they had a lot of filler on their albums.

Needless to say, I've seen the error of my ways. I stand corrected and the Eagles are one of my top 5 of all time bands.

[Funk 50]

I've never followed their solo careers....

I can understand that, chaim. I became an Eagles fan just as they split at the start of the 1980s, so the solo stuff, and there was loads of it, was what I grew up with.

It was the Eagles classics, that the Eagles concentrate on now, that were out of date and inconsequential. It's the complete opposite now, so new fans wont be exposed to their solo material.

One thing Stu does on HC that really grinds my gears is the "pinch harmonics". Now he is a master at that, and with fingerpicks - but I don't think it goes with the solo that well.

I agree WalshFan88. It's so subtle, it's hardly worth mentioning but it doesn't add anything to the solo. Genius Joe has made a few slight alterations to the album version of the solo, all of them get my nod of approval.


Regarding the set list, did anybody buy tickets for the show because of the history lesson concept? or was it the chance to see the Eagles with Bernie again or some other reason?

To quote Elvin Bishop "This is not a rock concert, it's a cultural event! "

I take it, the acoustic opening to the show is a success (despite starting with a song from their second album). I think Rocky Mountain Way is too instrumental to be an Eagles encore.

The Eagles used to play, All Night Long as an encore.

[VAisForEagleLovers]

Regarding the set list, did anybody buy tickets for the show because of the history lesson concept? or was it the chance to see the Eagles with Bernie again or some other reason?

Not me, I bought the tickets because they're the freakin' Eagles. When they announced ahead of time that the setlist would be somewhat of a chronology, I wondered how that would work and what it would be. I found it very interesting, mostly because it was bits and pieces and not a lot of talking at all. I'm not into 'talking'. It's the biggest reason I got SiriusXM as soon as it was available to put into vehicles, because I hate talking DJ's. I only want music!

[Jonny Come Lately]

I have to say I agree a fair bit with thelastresort's original post. When I first heard The Long Run I instantly loved The Sad Café, and also really liked the title track and In The City, but that was it. I found King Of Hollywood and ICTYW okay but nothing more and didn't really like any of the other songs, although those two and Heartache Tonight did grow on me after a few months. Nowadays I really like everything except Greeks and The Disco Strangler - and I enjoy the former a fair bit and don't dislike the latter anywhere near as much as some other people do. Those Shoes is the single Eagles song I've had the most significant reassessment of - it's gone from being a song I didn't like and didn't listen to, to being a personal favourite. It would make my top three songs from the album now I think.

Overall my current opinion of The Long Run is that I think it's a strong album with just a couple of weaker moments which are short enough to not greatly weaken the whole. Interestingly when I heard the album I initially thought that it was weaker than Fleetwood Mac's Tusk from the same year, whereas given the choice now between the two albums I'd go for The Long Run - I'd far rather listen to a strong album with a bit of filler than a double album consisting IMO of a single album's worth of good to great songs, with the rest of the songs ranging from a bit flat to barely listenable.

I do think that the debut album is underrated although unlike The Long Run I found that I liked most of the album once I started to listen to it beyond simply listening to the big three hits (TIE, WW, PEF). The only track that is a bit 'meh' for me is Nightingale - it's not a bad song by any means, it just doesn't quite stand out enough for me. I think the alternate Bill Halverson version does sound better than the album version though.

The title track from On The Border is another one that has grown on me quite a lot, I thought it was quite an odd song when I first heard it but I love it now.

I agree with the suggestion of changing the encores so that Take It Easy is at the end, not only is it more uplifting than Desperado but - especially with the Doolin-Dalton/Desperado (Reprise) also in the setlist - it works better as a standalone song. I agree also with the idea of swapping Life's Been Good for Rocky Mountain Way. I love RMW myself but I think it's definitely one mainly for the Joe fans, whereas LBG has more room for the rest of the band and is a bigger crowd pleaser so I think it would be a superior choice for a Joe song as part of an encore.