Who here likes the old "Silver Dagger" ballad intro to TIE? Personally, I'm not a fan but I know there are probably some that are.

I was watching the Central Park live TIE video, and I got to thinking about something I read in Felder's book which is that Glenn playing "Old Black" or an electric guitar on TIE was his idea. That it would make it more rockin', which it does, and I've seen the Central Park video many times, but it never dawned on me - Glenn started doing that before Felder even joined the band! Never dawned on me. We've all seen the DKRC clip of him playing it on electric or the HOTE concert video from 76 of him playing it on his Gibson ES-330 (that later showed up in the How Long music video!). But Glenn started playing it electrically at least some of the time before Felder even joined! I also noticed that he didn't play it on 12 string back then when it was done acoustically, that came about around the time of HFO. If someone can point to him using it on TIE in the 70s, please share a link or the name of the bootleg/concert. But I think the 12-string really makes that opening strum intro really pop, especially in a live situation. Jangle city. I do it on 12-string too.

Personally - I liked it when Glenn played acoustic (gasp!) - BUT allowed Joe to form his own outro solo. Play Bernie's country solo, sure, but then really rock out with a blistering rock solo on the end but played cleaner like a country song. You could hear the start of what became the classic HFO solo Joe played on TIE starting around the time of the concert that is on the HOTE disc. It was like the draft version, lol. At some point it seems they asked Joe to "play it exact" again, and just play the classic BL solo, or maybe a real abbreviated outro piece. And now with Vince Gill doing it (ugh), it's back to just like the record - clean.

If anyone wants to mention the version/live clip of their favorite performance, go ahead. Also we could discuss the lyric changes "Or find a place to make your stand/play your hand" or the "just a little hard to find", etc. Personally I love the "shake it, make it take it easy" from the HOTE disc concert from the HC tour. I put that in the song when my band covers it or at Ausfest. Everyone laughs. The first time I did that the other lead guitarist just thought I was being funny, until I explained to him it was something Glenn did. Kinda like when I had to explain the "3rd verse" to Honky Tonk Women by the Stones the first time I sang it. There's no wonder why that verse didn't make the record. A little too taboo for that time period, even though it's still kinda that way now. I love singing it and watching the reactions. You can tell a lot, lol!

HFO is STILL my favorite version of Take It Easy. And I do prefer "Here's how it all started" over the Silver Dagger intro. lol One of the only things I like about the MTV DVD is that performance.