We hit the road from Rock Springs, Wyoming at 8 am Saturday morning.
Along for the trip was my brother, his wife and two kids, my husband and
myself.  I was hoping fervently that this would be a good concert as I had talked my brother
into going with us back in June.  I really wanted him to go because he is the reason that I
am an Eagles fan today.  When I was growing up, his room was below mine and whatever
music he listened to, so did I.  I learned to like the Eagles, Fleetwood Mac, and Bob
Seger.  My love affair with Eagles music intensified when husband and I saw them in concert at
the first Las Vegas show back in 1999.  They were so fabulous that we decided to go to
this concert and since my brother was so jealous that when we went last time, I
talked him into coming.

Our first concern came when we hit the Wyoming/Colorado border and we
ran into a huge cloudburst.  We hoped it wouldn't follow us to Denver!  This
was such an intense rainstorm that it could ruin the entire concert.

We checked into our hotel in Fort Collins and headed for Denver around
3:30. We wanted to allow ourselves extra time in case we got lost or there was
a lot of traffic. After all, in Wyoming a traffic jam is 10 vehicles backed up behind a
tractor--not hundreds of cars going 20 miles over the speed limit so we wanted to give
ourselves plenty of time.

Lucky for us, we went straight to the parking lot at the Pepsi Center,
paid $10 per vehicle and parked.  (We got off lucky because we only paid $10--others paid $30
or more.) Getting to the stadium was a challenge but when we finally got pointed
in the right direction, we were OK.  The walk was pretty long and it went through
some fairly rough terrain but it didn’t bother us on the way there (but on the way back at
midnight, it seemed like it would never end!)

We bought our T-shirts and programs immediately after arriving at the
stadium, swallowing hard at the outrageous prices.  We made our way to the gate
we would enter and we got a pleasant surprise--the Eagles were practicing and the video
screen was just visible through a narrow entrance.  They sounded great which got me even
more excited for the concert.

The stadium workers started letting us in around 5:30.  Our bags were
given a cursory inspection (it sounds like it was far more intrusive at other
gates) and we went in. I’m glad that we were there early enough to be among the first to enter
because it sounded like others had to wait for a long time to get through the gates.

We found our seats pretty quickly and then went to the concession
stands to get some wildly overpriced food for dinner.  Then we waited, and waited, and
waited for it to start.  During our interminable wait, we remarked how glad we were that
the storm hadn’t made it to Denver and that the temperature was just right.

Nothing really began until around 7:30 when a former Bronco (I didn’t
catch his name and I am not a Donkey--oops, I mean Bronco--fan so I didn’t
recognize him) came out and spoke.  This should have been a good indicator that things
weren’t going to go so well.  We were sitting just down from the club level in section 118--not
the greatest seats, but not bad--and we couldn’t understand anything he said.  He brought
out some other guy and we couldn’t hear him either.  They did a small fireworks display
and we sat around and waited for the Eagles to come on.  They were supposed to
start at 8:00 but didn’t make it out until 8:20.

They began with “Seven Bridges” and if I didn’t know the song so well,
I wouldn’t have been able to guess what they were playing!  The voices were too
soft and the instruments too loud and garbled and that was how it remained throughout
the first set, which greatly disappointed me.  It seemed like they took their break
pretty early and when they came back on it became apparent that they had worked on the sound
system and fixed a few of the problems.  When they came back, they sounded much
better on the ballads and some better on the guitar heavy pieces.

They did what seemed to be close to their set list from their European
concerts, no real surprises there.  Glenn dedicated “Lying Eyes” to his first wife
and “Already Gone” to George W.  I missed a lot of the talking parts as well as the ad-libs in
the songs because of the poor sound quality.  The one ad-lib that got a cheer from the crowd
was when Don changed the lyric in “Long Run” to “debutantes in Denver.”  I think this
song was my favorite of the show.  It looked like the guys were genuinely having fun
and even the usually restrained Don got into the groove and goofed around with the
others, especially with Joe.  At one point all four jumped in unison across the stage.  Joe
was his usual goofball self and even chased Timothy B. around the stage during one of
his songs.

We were looking forward to seeing Steuart Smith perform to see how he
stacked up against Don Felder.  We were somewhat disappointed because while he
seemed to be a very competent musician, he doesn’t have the innate talent to make a
guitar sing like Don Felder does.  In fact, on Timothy B.’s “I Can’t Tell You Why”, his
guitar solo seemed to be in the wrong key and it didn’t seem to match Timothy’s sweet, high
voice.  It seemed bizarre that for the first part of the show, Steuart was given what
seemed to be almost Eagle status but that toward the end of the show he was relegated to the
background.

Maybe I was looking for implications where there were none, but it
seemed strange to me. Anyway, at this point, I don’t think that they should make him an
official Eagle.

The show ended on the ever haunting “Desperado” and then we were treated to a
light and fireworks show which culminated with the unveiling of Bucky the Bronco.  The
lights came up around 11:45 and we slowly filed out of the stadium for the long walk back
to our vehicles.

My brother made me sigh in relief when he later declared this their
“best vacation ever.”  He noted that he thought they sounded wonderful in the first set
but he didn’t have anything to which to compare it so he wasn’t as critical as my husband
and I.

Now onto the controversy...Denver is in an uproar.  The people who had
seats in the upper deck found themselves unable to hear well throughout most of
the show and much discussion has taken place about who is to blame (some people are
even talking about filing a class action lawsuit to get their money back!)  The
stadium is saying that it’s the band’s fault for insisting they use their own sound crew and
system.  People are upset because they say the Eagles should have done a sound check.  Well, they
did and I heard it and they sounded wonderful.  However, they couldn’t know how much
filling this stadium with 55,000 bodies would change things.  The stadium was built to be
noisy.  When people started stomping their feet in unison I hoped that the stadium
was structurally sound because if it wasn’t we were going to be in for a nasty surprise!

Their sound system simply couldn’t compete with the noise of the people in the seats.
Frankly, I think that this is a poor venue for a concert. People are also upset that the beer ran out too early, security was more worried about keeping people in their designated areas than in keeping order,
lines were too long for the bathrooms and at concession stands, parking was horrible, the
cup holders are inadequate, no trash cans were available in the seating areas, the
escalators were broken, and the list goes on and on.  Personally, I think that there were two
groups who came to this concert--Eagles fans and Broncos fans.  The people who were mainly
interested in the stadium were looking for reasons to be angry because they thought that
it was improper to have anyone but the Broncos open the stadium.  Eagles fans were there
for the concert and those with the upper seats were upset because they were missing out
on the music--the whole reason for being there.  Unfortunately, a lot of people walked away
unhappy and I’m afraid the Eagles are probably kicking themselves for taking this extra
gig that probably has become more trouble than it was worth.

For myself, even though there were a few problems, I walked away about
half in love with four guys old enough to be my father!  After seeing them in
concert in Vegas, I truly came to appreciate their amazing talents and I could (sort of)
understand why some women become groupies!  This concert reinforced these thoughts and I
love their music as much as ever.  I hope they can come together creatively to make a new
album and tour to support it.  I’d love to see them again (although not at Mile High/Invesco.)  But if I never
get the chance again, I will have the memories of two concerts to cherish.
 

We arrived at the new Invesco field at about 4:30 on Saturday, August 11,
2001. Traffic wasn't too bad, but the appalling price of parking made up for
that. The cheapest parking we found was $20 a car. I was in a group of 5
people and fortunately we piled into one car. So, anyway, we parked and
started walking to the stadium. It is a very cool stadium with a wavy roof
line that offered a uniqueness to it. Other than that, it was just another
new stadium. The best thing about it was that it was clean. Now I am from
Baltimore, MD where we have Camden Yards and PSI Net Stadium for the Ravens.
Denver has made Coors Field a carbon copy of Camden Yards and Invesco is very
similar to PSI Net, although I am not as familiar with PSI Net. But it
doesn't matter, I have traveled from MD for only one reason, the Eagles.
They could have played at the old Mile High, for all I care, and probably
should have.

As we are walking around the outside of the stadium, we can hear the sound
check going on. Joe Walsh is singing "Pretty Maids" and we can actually see
through one of the openings one of the large screens with Joe standing there.
We stood there for several minutes and were able to see Don Henley on the
drums. Now the excitement is really starting to build because Don has always
been my favorite Eagle. I never in a million years would have thought that
the best moment of the night was already gone. No pun intended. And, by the
way, I don't mean to jump ahead but bear with me. Glenn made his typical
remark about George W. before they sang "Already Gone" which is just really
not appropriate at this type of setting in my opinion. Forgive me as I stoop
to Glenn's level for a moment, but based on his performance tonight, it looks
like his best days are already gone. Pun very much intended this time.

So we move on from the sound check and proceed to buy some t-shirts. It
would be sacreligious not to, wouldn't it? It is now a little past 5:00 and
the doors open at 5:30. When the doors do open, which was the only thing
that happened on time the whole night, we rush to try out the brand new
bathrooms Invesco has to offer and then we made our way to our seats. Boy
did that take a while. Ticket Master did a lousy job of explaining where
seats were located because if I had known that we were sitting near heaven, I
would have upgraded to the next level. But just a minor complaint at this
point, because after all, the Eagles are here.

Around 6:00, I tried to rent binoculars. They were only $10 dollars with a
$20 returnable deposit. I stress ONLY $10 because these were the cheapest
things in whole place. If they had even had lids and straws, they probably
would have sold them. For some odd reason, credit cards were not accepted
for the binoculars, so off I went to find an ATM, which proved more difficult
than I thought. When I finally found one, it wasn't working; only to find
out later that none of them were working. Ok, so forget the binoculars. Now
it is 6:30 and I head back to my seat. Only 30 minutes to go!

An MC was supposed to come on at 7:00 and do some sort of introduction. I am
pretty sure he was either a former or current Denver Bronco. Well, he didn't
come on until 7:30 and that was the first major sign of disaster. You see,
nobody in the upperdeck could hear what he was saying. I am NOT
exaggerating. Try reading lips with a 2 or 3 second sound delay and when the
sound does reach you, it is faint and muffled. We realized that the speakers
hidden in the lights are not on. People are already chanting "We can't hear,
we can't hear." The usher in our section (530) was trying to calm people
down by telling us that they are working on it. I am a little worried at
this point, but then I am thinking to myself, obviously (or, hopefully) the
people doing the sound know there is a problem which means the Eagles know
there is a problem. Don is a perfectionist and there is no way they will go
on until everything is fixed. This is no small problem either, in my
opinion, roughly a third of the crowd could not hear. So, some time passes
and the background music continues to play, but now we know there is a reason
we can barely hear it. Sometime well after 8:00, the lights go out and the
crowd starts to roar. The moment we have all been waiting for is finally
here. Everything must be fixed.

Out comes Don, Glenn, Tim and Joe. Joe has on bright orange pants with a
purple jacket while Glenn is modeling a white jacket, and Don, who looks a
bit heavy, and Tim are, of course in funeral attire. They actually look
somewhat confused when they pick up their microphones and they don't even
stand in the center of the stage, but nothing compares with what comes next.
Thanks to L&M for knowing they open with "7 Bridges Road." They start to
sing and my heart falls to the ground because we couldn't hear them. The
sound system had not been fixed and my worst fears are realized. They were
into the 2nd verse before any kind of muted sound reached us and I don't
recall ever hearing any instruments. We don't know what to think or do now.
Will it get better? I had a gut feeling it wouldn't. Should we put up with
it? Should we change seats? Whatever option we chose was going to cost us
at least a couple of songs. Well, "The Long Run" was next and by the end of
it, we decided we had nothing to lose by leaving these seats.

The line at customer relations was already endless. It was like a mob.
Police had already been alerted. We decided to go down to the first level
where the main customer relations is located. Part of my group was adament
(and still is) about getting our money back. Meanwhile, I was trying to run
back and forth between customer relations and various places on the first
level where the sound quality was better. The ushers continued to tell us
that we could not stand around and listen and we told them (lots of people,
not just the people in my group) to fix the sound and we would gladly go
back to our seats. A few ushers called our complaints into somewhere and
others just told us to move. We simply moved to another section and stood
some more. All in all, during the first half of the show, I heard three
songs in their entirety. They were "Boys of Summer, Best of My Love, and
Take it to the Limit." And by the way Glenn, did you have to lie to the
crowd by introducing "Take it to the Limit" as a song you haven't done in a
long, long time. You mean, of course, except in Dallas two weeks ago and
every stop in Europe for the last two months. Thanks for the sincerety.
Intermission comes so now we can fight with customer relations full time.

It turns out that the stadium people are saying that the Eagles chose not to
use the stadium's sound system. Jam Productions is running sound and they
are the ones everyone needs to talk to. We get a phone number for them. I
ran down to the field to try to get a representative from Jam Productions to
come to customer relations, yeah, like any of them are going to show their
faces around here.

The second half of the show began as my group was standing in the concourse
trying to decide what to do. We missed the entire performance of "Witchy
Woman." We talked to various people coming from the upperdeck and they all
said nothing had improved. It had only worsened down in the lower levels
because Jam had apparently turned up the sound in a feeble attempt to correct
things. All this accomplished was that the sound became distorted down here.
Have these people ever run sound before?

Our pattern of running from section to section continued for a while. We
were able to stand in one spot and listen to a few songs without being asked
to leave. I think the ushers were as tired of fighting as we were. I
remember hearing a badly distorted version of "Life's Been Good." When
"Dirty Laundry" started and even Don's voice was distorted, my group, sadly
decided to leave the show for good. It just wasn't worth it anymore. I
never imagined leaving an Eagles concert early, but tonight was an exception
to the rule. What should have been three hours of heaven, was more like two
hours of hell.

We currently have a dispute on the credit card with Ticketmaster in hopes to
get our money back. It seems now that the Eagles may be cooperative with the
refund process and hopefully this will get taken care of quickly.

But for me and other diehard fans, it is about alot more than just the money.
I hope this is not the beginning of the end. This is now two consecutive
shows that have mixed reviews from fans. I feel sorry for all the true fans
that were disappointed and for the casual fans (including some in my group)
that will never become true fans because of what they saw tonight. The
Eagles have done alot of good things, put out tons of great music, and done
countless live shows to perfection, but on Saturday, August 11, 2001 at
Invesco field, their sound crew let them down and ruined what could have been
a magical evening for many people.

I sincerely hope that someone steps up and takes some responsibility for what
happened. It would make it easier for me to get over the awful memories of
this night and remember the good ones from the past.