I bought the tickets on April, and I have been waiting for this day for months.

No it's not true...

Actually I have been looking forward for this concert since 1979, when I bought my first Eagles vinyl record (it was 'Their Greatest Hits"). When the day came I was in Lucca at the 4pm, the concert was planned for 9:30pm.
I got a first big surprise after I parked the car outside of the Lucca's ancient walls; walking towards the location where the concert would have occurred, I heard the sirens of police motorcycles preceding two black cars and a black van through the street....and I saw them inside the cars! I have clearly seen Glenn Frey lighting up a cigarette on a back seat (Bad habit Glenn... :) ).

Too bad I was not ready with my camera.

This was something I was not expecting, so my temperature started to raise. The concert has been held in Piazza Napoleone, which is a nice square surrounded by ancient buildings, but maybe not a great place for live exhibitions. There were not any seat, so all the 12,000 people had to be up on their foot from 7pm (when the gates were opened), to 1am(when the concert finished). The location was nice , but at the end we were so exhausted, but so happy.

The band had never came to Italy for a show until now and no one knows the exact reason (Glenn said he does not know either), but they have repaid all the Italian Fans present at the Lucca concert. The song schedule appears to be the same as the rest of the tour.

They start with Seven Bridges Road; I am so close to the stage that it almost seems that the guys are looking at me directly in my eyes !!! The crowd is so noisy that the first words of the song are hardly heard...But then the beautiful harmony comes out of their mouths and the magic starts. The start of "The Long Run" is impressive and all the people starts jumping and clapping their hands. The voice of Don Henley is stronger than ever, it years haven't passed.

Then it's the time of "New kid in Town" and here we start noticing Don Felder is not there (we knew it...). Wasted Time, though there is not the nice violins section here, is beautiful as ever . During this great start it is incredible how all the people sing every word of every song; everyone knows all the words, and this is a surprise for me. I am happy to know that there  are still so many true fans of the Eagles like me here in Italy.

Then there is a small reprise of Wasted Time, which introduces one of the best played songs of the concert "Peaceful Easy Feeling": when they sang the verse "with a billion stars all around" I couldn't do less looking up at the sky and see the billion stars by myself.  My heart started melting...

The first Joe Walsh song came then , "Pretty maids all in a row" it's one of my favourites and  continued this magic feeling.

Then "Love will keep us alive" signs the debut of the solo voice of Tim Schmit at this concert: his voice is thin as ever, as him. Both the voice and his looking hasn't changed through the years. Though Glenn and especially Don have gained some weight, eh ?

"Boys of Summer" is so close to the studio version and perfect: here I start to realize that  the guitar of Steuart Smith is not that bad. He is not Don Felder, but he is very good.

Take it to the Limit is a surprise: I have always listened to the beautiful voice of Randy Meisner singing this song, and though Glenn's voice is not as strong as Randy's voice , the song is well played and the harmony is just perfect. Nice job, Glenn. And thanks for remembering Randy introducing the song.
 

"Best of my love" is perhaps the less perfect exhibition of the night: listening at the introduction many people around did not know what song was going to be played.  That's it, it was just a normal performance, not everyone can stay at that level for three hours...

In a couple of minutes everybody is still shaking and clapping the hands as Already Gone starts. And I see myself running on a US highway while I listen to it.

"In the City", from "The long run" album still shows a Joe Walsh in shape, with beautiful harmonies of the rest of the band. The first half of the show ends with "One of these nights": this was the first time I was listening to the live version of this song and I have to say it was perfect, maybe one of the best performance of the whole show.

After the break (I think they needed it!) the band came out playing "Witchy woman" followed by "Lyin' Eyes". Then, at the first verse of "I can't tell you why" all the crowd is singing with Tim. What a nice sensation.

Then it's still rocking with Joe Walsh's "Walk away" but then another "sweet" moment with "Tequila Sunrise" .

The solo works are the center of the next part of the show: Don Henley's voice is great on  "Sunset Grill", while the sax of Al Garth is wonderful accompanying Glenn on "You belong to the city" from the MIAMI VICE soundtrack.

But a real surprise is the version of "Life's been good": I don't know why when listening to the  "Eagles Live" album I always skip this one. Listening to it live, and seeing Joe Walsh jumping and playing the guitar as better as ever is so involving for all of us that this is one of the best moments of the show.

It is followed by "Dirty Laundry" as good as the studio version, and then it's Joe again with  "Funk49" which introduces "Heartache Tonight" with a powerful horn section. The end of the show is a heart attack!

"Life in the fast lane" is pure rock'n roll and all the 12,000 people are shouting the main verse
and jumping with Joe.

The trumpet solo is the nice introduction to the Eagles' milestone "Hotel California": I almost
feel the 'warm smell of colitas' in the air...

Joe's guitar hit us on the start of "Rocky Mountain Way" , but when Glenn says ' I got seven women
of my mind' it is the moment everyone has been waiting for. "Everybody sings "Take it Easy" with
the band and everyone probably would have liked to be in that 'corner in Winslow, Arizona', for once
in their lives.

The shows could only finish with "Desperado", and already I am feeling a kind of emptiness because I realize that the show is over.

This is the first Eagles Live concert in Italy ever, and I am afraid it will remain the only one in our country, but one day I could say "I was there!".

I can die happy now.

Just a couple of last comments: my compliments to the technicians of the show, everything worked  perfectly, and the big screens were a great idea. In this way everyone was able to follow the show, even my girlfriend which is not as tall...  And my regards to the director, I hope one day someone will make a video about this tour, they are  plenty of material.

Winslowboy's Review of the Internet Broadcast

Having seen the boys in Sheffield I was curious to hear what their music really sounded like without the visual distractions and everything else that goes on a live concert. Va bene - I was not disappointed.

The ‘summer festival’ RAI Radio 2 broadcast via Rome seemed to mix between simultaneous live concerts taking place at both Padua and Lucca. After a delayed start and some improvised interviews with fans we eventually got to hear Wasted Time through to a bit of Boys of Summer from the first half but, gloriously, the whole of the second half together with Hotel California as the first encore.

Glenn and Joe were in lively form. Joe’s ‘Maserati doing 185’ was converted to a much larger number for the local audience ! There was some added improvisation such as ‘cop cars’ and sirens. Tim was in fine voice and Don gave it full grit ! The audience and the radio commentators with typical national enthusiasm loved it too!

Even without the visual distractions of being there in person the music was still awesome. The second half, in particular, really came alive and filled out when the other backing musicians added their weight. This was particularly true of Sunset Grill and You Belong to the City which, even with Glenn’s slightly cracked falsetto modulation, still sounded great to me!

I was particularly interested in the Steuart Smith parts and whether I could imagine Don Felder on stage. Technically, I think only a purist would be able to tell the differences in picking style and sound quality. He is an ace guitarist but the memory of DF and his ‘twin neck’ still lingers!

Afterwards, I just happened to watch Top of the Pops ( UK BBC TV weekly pop chart show) and I was struck by what I can only describe as the apparent ‘shallowness’ of most of the current ‘chart toppers’ compared with what I had just heard from Italy. Vive gli Aquilli (you know what I mean)

Nicola's Review

And passed a day from the 14 July 2001, a day that for some Italians will remain in the history. In fact yesterday, for the first time after 30 years of career the Eagles played in Italy, to Lucca (in the circle of a rock festival that have names like Mark Knopfler, David Crosby, Neil Young and others). Who writes is one person born in 1972; in those days the radios was airing the first hits of the Eagles (Take it Easy, Witchy Woman) I known the Eagles only many years after, when already they was broken, 1987, listening to Hotel California. From then the only fixed idea that I had in my mind it was that if were never been a concert in Italy, or near Europe, I would be endured gone to see that. The years passed and there wasn’t trace of one possible reunion, until 1994. The European tour of 1996 unfortunately did not touch Italy and the newspapers at that time gave news of the tournée when this was turning to the term (at that time Internet was a mirage for me), in any case I tried to organize a quick travel to Zurigo, but the tickets by now were sold out. Some months after I began to consult Internet and to search news about the Eagles following all the evolutions of this legend. And when I have seen Glenn Frey interviewed on a golf green saying that they were planning a European tour, I said to myself “Now is the moment you waited for from 14 years! Catch it!. Day after day the first dates began to come: Moscow, Helsinki etc, there wasn’t any Italian date, but there were some European cities (Zurigo and Monaco) enough near where I live (7 hours of train). A day, suddenly the dates communicated, from 12 were become beyond 20 and between these there was Lucca!!!

And so speak about Lucca!

Me, my girl, my brother and his wife have arrived at 2.00 pm, just the time for refresh ourselves, for the great warmth and we went in Piazza Napoleone, there we have met 2 friends of ours and we taken the tickets bought months ago with the credit card. The public square was introduced in front of we with this great still empty stage and people seated to the bars to drink at the shadows of large trees for protect themselves from the hot. Little distant a small group of boys with guitars began to sing the songs of the Eagles; in a few time a group of engaged persons creates itself to sing or to only listen to those splendid songs. To this point it succeeds the bad fact: being Piazza Napoleone a public square, the access was free at that time, and was instead necessary to close the public square, after have it emptied, in order to regularly carry out the operations of tickets control. Nobody has been perceived until the 5.30 p.m, when in two contiguous alleys to the public square already a row of clever informed and fortunate (more than we than sure!)spectators had been formed, that they had uncovered that was from there that the crowd had to be entered in order to approach the concert. And we were in the public square from the 2.30 (my friends from noon!) we have had to put in line and enter when the better places had been occupied! There wasn’t a warning that explained this procedure: we have been damaged. After 2 hours of delirious waiting, standing and under the sun (then it has been known that a cause of the delays was due to a car engorge that had blocked the trucks coming from Zurich on the highway). Cancels has been opened and after others 2 1/2 hours of waiting (always standing) the show was going to begin. One small curiosity: the delays of the trucks have prevented to the Eagles to make customary sound check forcing them to begin the concert with 35 minutes of delay, however the sound was literally perfect!!! We were to approximately 25 meters from the stage (ahh if we were informed of the entrance.) and when the fantastic four were illuminatet by the lights I realized that my dream had become truth! The sky was assuming a more and more dark color for the upcoming night, while the stars shone all in the sky, more numerous than usual, perhaps attracted by the event And here to arrive, finally Seven Bridges Road (a great beginning), with the four knights illuminated not by their armors but by the light of the flash of hundred of cameras (comprised that one of Claudia, my girlfriend), then it came The Long Run (full of energy), New Kid in Town (a classic) and Wasted Time (with Don Henley still to the research of the just tone of voice). First part was slid with other songs and real gems like Love will keep us alive(I have not understood here or they have been problems of sound or must be broken a guitar string!! Very cool Timothy after a fraction of loss continued very well), Peaceful Easy Feeling (with a growing ,qualitatively speaking, Glen Frey), Pretty maids all in a row (Joe Walsh? He’s Cool), Boys of Summer (at this point Don Henley found all his voice and maintained until the end of the concert, also S. Smith was pretty good), Already gone (magnificent! Great Steuart Smith!), I remind other songs that perhaps were in first part, but I’m not sure (ahh if I had way to use the recorder and to take note.) Take to the Limit for example has been splendid (Glen remembered that was sung originally by Randy Meisner), In the City, the beautiful The Best of My Love and One of These Nights (a stratospheric Don Henley). In the second part of the show the histrionic Joe Walsh, was the master; this one started with Witchy Woman and then songs from solo albums followed, less-known songs for the crowd but equally applauded like Sunset Grill, Dirty Laundry, You Belong to the City (the falsetto of Glen is not so bad!), Funk 49, Life.s Been Good (clamorous Joe), Walk Away (great rhythm, a truly surprise, the live version is much more involving than the studio one). Beside these then came I Can’t Tell You Why (beautiful; I wonder if in the next album a pair of songs will be performed by Timothy), Heartache Tonight (great interpretation, amazing), Lyin. Eyes perhaps (one of my preferred ones), Tequila Sunrise (the only song where I’ve felt the lack of Felder) the tough Life in the Fast Lane (with the battery of Henley that seemed to make to collapse the nearby palaces). Then the band went in the backstage, but only for a moment, because after a minute the first notes of Hotel California wrapped the tired but adoring Piazza Napoleone (0.40 a.m.), the crowd sang all word by word, and at the end of the song the ovation reminded a goal at the final of Soccer World Cup (or for you Americans to one decisive touchdown in the superbowl). Se second encore saw Joe Walsh to push himself beyond the limit with a histrionic interpretation of Rocky Mountain Way (helped from an amused Glen), while the third and last encore have seen in succession Take it Easy (simply wonderful and never outside fashion) and Desperado, sung from an inspired Don and all the public who, by now at 1.00 a.m., could return to house or in hotel with the joy to have seen an exceptional event, perhaps unrepeatable, but this is another story, we wait trusting.
It’s all from Lucca;

Nicola, Claudia, Matteo, Serena, Andrea and Roberto.