Andreas' Review

After three and a half hours on the highway from Austria to Munich, I can tell you that it was worth it. The huge area of the Olympic Parc  in Munich was the best location for an event like this. And as time went closer  to the main event of the evening, everyone who arrived felt that excitement. I saw  young people with 12 years as well as grandmas with 70 years and that is the best proof  of Eagles' music, isn't it? But now to the show itself: As the start of the concert came closer and closer I felt that I'm a part of something special now, I'm in the same hall  with four living legends. They came on to the stage without any light or sound. The  light began to shine right when they started tuning in "Seven Bridges Road", it was a moment of  quiet listening.

But then there was no time to lose and after the first beats of "The  Long Run" the crowd was in mood for a splendid evening.  I was a little worried when Don had some problems with his voice  during "The Long Run",
because there came some other difficult songs for him. But the other  songs that followed were performed perfectly well, his voice was brilliant as ever then. This should be no place for critique but nevertheless, I personally think that that brass section is a good  idea, but the biggest applause always came for the original Eagles songs without any  variations in performing them. Another little shock was that break after only one hour of the  show, that was planned but the mood and atmosphere haven't had any highlights up to  that date since the big hits of the Eagles should come later on...and how they should  come! After that break the four seemed to be warmed up now and I have to say that if I  wouldn't know that Mr. Walsh is a member of the Eagles I would think that he's just  escaped from some asylum. His funny grimaces and movements made the crowd go absolutely mad - but he's cool!

Besides that I personally want to know which tailor Joe has, he wore a  pair of trousers that looked like the skin of a chameleon. Brightest yellow, red, orange  where arranged like camouflage paint - very amusing. As the show went on, Glenn made  some jokes like that: "The Eagles have a lot to do with Germany, just look at the names:  Meisner, Frey, Schmit..." and another one was something like this: "The next song is dedicated to
the President of the United States. We look forward to three years from now and sing the  next song: He's already gone." And after some big hits (Heartache tonight) and  Joes entertaining detuning of his guitar, people stood up and kept standing, clapping,  singing.

The last part was the best one, there were one smash hit after the  other and every song was performed brilliantly (Hotel California!). And after Don let the crowd sing the last words of Desperado ("...let somebody love you...") we all knew, that it was a special evening, it was one of these nights.

Karl's Review

I just arrived from the actually Eagles-concert in Munich. The Hall was sold out as all the other German halls and the concert was as expected great.

The sound was excellent in the 16th row where me and my wife Gabi were sitting and also the lightshow was very comfortable. The different colours dived the band in very warm pictures.

The first part of the show they played all the early material and they really produced a HiFi-Sound. It was very pleasant to here the old stuff and the voices are still the best a band could reproduce live on stage.
Especially Joe turned the brave show into a exciting at the second half. He also was an optical contrast to the other band members with his yellow-red-coloured outfit. But he set the turning point of the show once again.
 
His songs from his solo-works like "Life`s been good" were performed very groovy and the audience appreciated it with loud applause. Joe looked very lifesigned by the way but his also a great performer and The Eagles surely know, what they have with him.

He was able to turn the very professional but very laidback show to a upraising session - and all the other smiled too:-) They played 3 hours again like in Frankfurt and I hope they will feel themselves hungry and able to create new of that lovely Eagles-stuff.

Andreas H's Review

The show started at 9.05 pm without any big delay and ended after 3 encores at.0.10.a.m.

 Show:
There were 2 screens, on which live-scenes of the musicians were showed, some light spots.
All the musicians were dressed in black, except J. W. He wore awful trousers in army-look in the German colors, black, red,
gold.   The other musicians were 2 keyboarders, a four men horn section, one of them played also the violin. The violin took over most of the early banjo parts. The best violin part was in “Best of My Love” 

Atmosphere:
The “Olympiahal” was totally sold out. Even the seats behind the stage, where people could see the show only on screens, were  full packed. The musicians and the fans were in good mood. The 4 eagles looked relaxed, talked to each other. There were no signs,  that this could have been  their last tour. Glenn Frey even said,” we are not through” . In the second set the mood raised more and more and before “ DirtyLlaundry” started,  T.S.  invited the fans to come in front of the stage. Seeing The Eagles and their joy to play from so near was rally great. At the end T.S. threw  three of his guitar-piks to the fans.

Music

The sound was excellent. The bass of T.S. was very well to hear and the harmonies of “witchy women” came certainly not from a a tape. S.S. is more than a substitute for D.F. He is sings a lot of the harmony-parts and plays the guitar in a way of his own. His play is a bit harder and not so smooth like D.F.’s. There were only two songs with some technical problems. “The long run “ had too much echo and the bass was too loud. The sound by “In the city “ was like a mash. The synthesizers were very loud,  so that you couldn’t hear the horn section right  till the end of the song, when the synth was a bit tuned down.

On the first part of the show J.W. played most of the time acoustic guitar and S.S. the country guitar. On the second part J.W. played nearly all the time the E-guitar.

Specials, particularities of the arrangements of the songs:
Seven bridges roads sounded like a real country song because of the new violin part. The harmonies were superb.
The long Run: 4 horns, S. Schmitt background vocals, strong bass
Wasted Time: D.H. in front, add. violin, S.S. played the only guitar, the best version I ever heard.
Boys of summer J.W. played  a guitar that sound like the guitars of the “California surf sound”
Best of my love Really the best song of the evening. G.F. on keyboards, D.H. and J.W. on acoustic guitars and excellent
                            new   violin part, that was more than a substitute for the banjo part version, that you all know.
                            The harmonies  were  absolutely wonderful. There was real” Eagles-Magic” in the air.
Withy woman  G.F. plays the solo on E-guitar!!
 Lying eyes G.F. dedicated that song to a “Guido” who worked in an restaurant called “opus 1” in 1974.
I can’t tell you why Fantastic new solo of S.S., that was enthusiastic accepted by the fans.
Tequila sunrise D.H. and G.F. t side by side behind one microphone, sung wonderful harmonies, looked at each other
                           and  smiled. Great !!!
Sunset grill     The horn section played a new jazzy end of the song
You belong… The voice of G.F. sounded a bit weak and fragile (technical problem?), the falsetto is really unusual, Al Garth
                        a wonderful  sax-solo and J.W. a superb guitar-solo.

Ossie and Carita's Review

This was our third time to see Eagles live. After seeing Eagles for the first time in a very impressive summer night out-door performance in Stockholm 1996 it was very interesting to see how the band has changed during the five years. Also the venue in Stockholm was very special because there were no seats, only a field, river and sunset - very intimate atmosphere and everybody had the freedom to stay anywhere within the area. After this concert we really waited the next chance to see band live somewhere.

This summer provided excellent opportunity to attend two concerts. Actually even more, but the ticket pricing “took us to the limit”. However, we attended the second Helsinki show and now Munich 16.7. To compare these two performances and totally different audiences was very interesting. The second time gave us more time to really check out the details in music too like the horns and percussions for example. Every single tone had its own dedicated place, which was so well considered.

We arrived to the Olympic Hall good on time just to find how many truckloads of equipment and crew band was having. We saw few S-class Mercedes parked outside and made a conclusion that band had arrived also good on time, hour before the show. Surprisingly, a silver S-class Mercedes passed us about half an hour before the show and man sitting on backseat was definitely Mr. Henley. No time for stopping - into the hall as fast as possible. Not too bad beginning for the night though.

Fortunately our seats were located quite close to the stage and the view was free. We did not have to wait too long the band to show up quite exactly 21.00 and from the beginning it was noticeable that the crowd was much more into the band than ever in Helsinki. The arrival on stage was very simple and it was nice to notice that the band had changed their setlist completely compared to Helsinki. Instead of Hotel California the Seven Bridges Road demonstrated first the excellent singing and later on the good overall sound of the band. And again, the crowd really showed that the band is something special for them and because this happened this early it also raised band mood to give a good performance. At this point in Helsinki the atmosphere was professional and sterile but in Munich very warm and there was a connection between the band and crowd. This describes very well the different cultures - the Finns are warming up very slowly and this definitely is a challenge to the band. As being Finns ourselves it was impressive to feel the magic right from the beginning.

The classic songs worked very well and were of course best known and also got he biggest applauses. Remarkable was Timothy’s performance. He clearly enjoyed performing and entertaining public. During the beginning of “Love Will keep Us Alive” he got huge applauses which faded his singing for a while. But his face after the song was telling that he knew he had dropped others a challenge to reach the same level as he did. The first half of the concert was very good planned in terms of songs, because the atmosphere never went down which happened in Helsinki. And again, people went dancing already now which happened in Helsinki during the last minutes of the show. The jokes about the German family names approved that the band liked performing in Munich. Also the joke about US. President is something to remember.

Despite Felder was missing, already Helsinki showed that Steuart can do the job. And latest this show approved that Steuart is making a good job replacing him. He is not even trying to play on same way but what he is doing he is doing it with style. “I Can’t Tell You Why” had good sample of his solo work. Even Henley was satisfied Steuart Smith’s playing, when they played together side by side you could see it on his face.

After the break the second half introduced new wild Eagles. Very relaxed playing, jumping and running around the stage. Especially Timothy thanks to wireless technology had his chance to play with audience in different corners of the stage and having a jamming session with the brass-section (choreography included) - all during one song. And seeing the original members lining up and jamming synchronized with their guitars was alone worth the tickets. Even how the band was dressed in black (excluding Joe Walsh) approved them still have the style. And to keep the style, Henley was definitely wearing his favorite shoes, at least they looked like that they also were celebrating their 30.anniversary.

The second half was also pretty much dedicated to Joe Walsh and he really showed his talent. His voice was better than ever and the energy on his playing was amazing. The band finished the second set about 23.40. Incredible applauses returned the band very soon and Timothy was measuring his success by jumping to the stage from the dark which made the public applause even more and whistle extreme loud. Encore “Hotel California” was performed as in Helsinki but its position here was much better than as opening song. Amazingly, we saw four encores and as expected the last song was “Desperado” and during this song Henley really let audience to sing the last “let somebody love you” before finishing the song with long artistic pause before the word “late”.

And as soon as the last member Timothy left the stage throwing the picks just after the midnight, we tried to get outside to catch the band leaving. Unfortunately we were fast enough only to see through the big window five S-Mercedes and a van leaving the building faster than anyone of the audience could do. What we saw was somebody changing his shirt in one car and the rear lights. For us that was a pretty good result especially because we did not want to miss anything from the concert.

Overall the concert was a lifetime experience and left a magical, unreal feeling. All the pieces which belong to a perfect experience fitted together so good this time. After Helsinki the mood was not bad either, but after Munich we felt that we really got something to remember for a long time like in Stockholm -96. We deeply hope to have a chance to see them live once more in future.

Alison's Review

Having been to the Eagles concert in Earls Court on 10/6/01 (thoroughly enjoyable) and Birmingham on 29/6/01 (band good, sound not so good and crowd lousy!)  my expectations for Munich were mixed.
 
However, we turned up at a fantastic venue, where you could feel the anticipation of the crowd building as 9pm approached.  The Olympiahalle was completely full, including the area at the back of the stage (completely oval arena) where the band could only be viewed by the backs of their heads, or via the two giant tv screens suspended from the arena ceiling.  
 
When the band came on stage, the atmosphere  became electric.
 
The first half set (as per Andreas' set list), received a fantastic ovation, the crowd joining in for all numbers in the first half, and the appreciation of the band growing by each number.  They too seemed to appreciate the reaction of the crowd and appeared to be enjoying the atmosphere.
 
The break brought not only a change of clothes, but a change of tempo, with the more Eagles rock as opposed to Eagles country rock as the agenda for the second half. 
 
As soon as the second half got underway, TBS urged the crowd to stand up - no second urging was necessary.  The arena floor and the normal arena seating areas stayed on their feet until the lights came up at 10 past midnight. 
 
Joe Walsh dazzled the crowd with his guitar performances and his vocal acrobatics, and his flamboyant persona came through on more than one occasion as the crowd roared their appreciation of his specific numbers (Life's been good/Funk 49). 
 
Timothy B Schmidt got the best response yet from a crowd in appreciation of his two solo spots, which he thanked the crowd warmly in German several times.
 
As others have mentioned, Glenn was on good vocal form - cracking jokes about German surnames of the band, and again, on the hopefully imminent departure of George Bush in 3 years (Already Gone dedicated especially to him!).  I must say, his performance of Take it to the Limit - a definite Randy Meisner classic - was performed beautifully.  A difficult act to follow.
 
Don's vocals were on top form.  The Boys of Summer nearly brought the roof down - and even Sunset Grill/Dirty Laundry were appreciated, although seemed to be little known by the German audience.
 
The 3 encores were magnificent.  I have never quite seen a reaction to Hotel California like I experienced in Munich.  I'm sorry if I am running out of superlatives, but you just had to be there!
 
Joe again brought the crowd to fever pitch with Rocky Mountain Way.
 
The finale with Take it Easy and finally Desperado, where hundred of sparklers and lighters swaying and lighting up the magnificent arena, was a fitting lasting memory