We're back from the concert in Ames and all we can say is WOW what a performance!  The first song was The Long Run which is appropriate since this is the 30th Anniversary.  My brother Joe bought a t-shirt that night and right away we noticed "Colorado Springs" (CO) on it, so as luck would have it - "another" Eagles concert at the World Arena on 09/22.  Looks like we'll be on-line Saturday morning for another pair of tickets.  
 

The performance was simply a "10".  Every song, every note - perfect.  This first couple of songs, Glen was having a little trouble with his voice (based on his gesturing to Timothy and Joe), but it wasn't a problem much later.  Take It to the Limit (lead vocal by Glen) is one of my all-time favorites - who am I kidding, there all my favorites - was performed flawlessly.  During All She Wants to Do is Dance, Glen left his keyboard and danced solo in front of the horn section several times.  Don Henley was at his usual best hitting high notes on Sunset Grill, seemingly without effort that Saturday night.  Joe Walsh has become more animated than other shows we've seen - Walk Away, Rocky Mountain Way, Funk#49 are all Classic Rock!  Joe also had on his "Good&Plenty" pants (pink with the candy logo) along with his black "T" and black blazer.  Stuert Smith is an excellent guitarist, even bringing out the Gibson SG double neck (I believe that's correct) for Hotel California, but the guitar solos played by Don Felder just can't be replaced, particularly on HC and Life in the Fast Lane.  Timothy B. Schmidt is always great on I Can't Tell You Why and the harmonies.  That night the band even threw out several handfuls of guitar picks into the first several rows.  Quite a change from their reserved demeanor in 94-95 HFO.  It's good to see them having a good time - enjoying playing their music, the fans enjoying their music.  And yes, in my opinion, the Eagles are the greatest band of all time!  See you all in Colorado Springs. 

---

Des Moines Register Preview


July 11, 2002

Thirty years into its long run, his band can boast the best-selling album in the history of recorded music.

Singer-drummer Don Henley today, though, is a crusader against the very industry that his band, the Eagles, soared to the top of by selling more than 27 million copies of "Their Greatest Hits 1971-1975."

He decries what he sees as a cesspool of greed that mires musicians when they're young and innocent and bleeds them dry by the time they're older, wiser and not as rich as they should've been.

The Eagles are the fifth-best-selling act of all-time, its 83 million-total tally ranking behind only the Beatles, Led Zeppelin, Garth Brooks and Elvis Presley.

It's hard to chalk up Henley's ire to sour grapes.

On the contrary, it's the Eagles' longevity — they reunited in 1994 after a rancorous 1980 breakup — and lofty achievements that have given Henley his grizzled perspective and a sense of devil-may-care freedom.

"I've seen enough to become thoroughly disgusted," he spat. "The recording industry is long overdue for some big reforms, because artists have been getting screwed since the very beginning. I'm at a point in my career now where I'm not afraid what it might cost me in terms of my career.

"I just don't care."

For every new copy of their greatest hits CD that's sold, the Eagles collectively earn little more than $1, Henley said.

"I would've signed anything, given up anything to make a record and hear it be played on the radio," he said. "Long about the third album, artists start figuring it out, that the dice are loaded, that the game is fixed."

And it's only gotten worse since the '70s.

"The industry was never fair and honest, mind you, but at least they would smile at you while they were screwing you."

Such a deep-seated sense of outrage is why Henley has spearheaded the star-studded membership of the Recording Artists' Coalition (Madonna, Elton John, the Dixie Chicks, etc.) to essentially wrest legal ownership of sound recordings away from the record companies.

"If you last as long as we have, you make some money," Henley said. "Most artists by and large don't see any money."

Ah, yes: The Eagles' current tour is touted as a celebration of their 30th anniversary since their debut single, "Take It Easy," brushed near the top of the charts.

How is the road life now compared to the '70s?

"It's physically more difficult and mentally easier," Henley said.

"Things are much calmer now," he elaborated. "The band is getting along, there's not very much high drama. We sleep now. After the shows we generally come back to our rooms and go to bed. It's no partying to speak of. We'll go out for a meal occasionally, that's about it."

The Eagles' intra-band ill will that led to a 1980 split is the stuff of legend.

"We all had to go and do our own thing," Henley said. "We all had to explore the solo possibilities. Like all bands, we found that some of us could do the solo thing and some of us couldn't."

Henley of course has enjoyed the most successful solo career, the peak of which was his multi-platinum 1989 album, "The End of the Innocence."

New album
While the Eagles negotiate with their old record label, Warner Bros., in an effort to regain control of their back catalog, the band is about six months into writing and recording a new album.
"After so many years of not writing together we've had a long, kind of lengthy warm-up process," Henley said. "We're starting to hit our stride."

Henley subscribes to "the pancake theory" of songwriting: "The first pancakes off the griddle you have to throw away. They've got holes in them, or they're burnt on one side."

The Eagles are scheduled to enter a studio in late August.

Meanwhile, the band also is in search of the right record deal. Barring that, Henley said, independent distribution deals will be struck with major retailers such as Best Buy and Wal-Mart.


He's a country boy
On one hand, contemporary country music is what triggered the Eagles to reunite in 1994 for the "Hell Freezes Over" live album and tour.
The 1993 tribute album "Common Thread: The Songs of the Eagles," featured top cowpokes such as Alan Jackson, Trisha Yearwood and Brooks & Dunn reinterpreting the rock band's classics with a little more twang. It sold more than 3 million copies in six months and helped convince Henley and the rest of the Eagles that there was an audience waiting for them to reunite (and stomach sky-high ticket prices).

And yet Henley is uneasy with the state of affairs in Nashville.

"I'm not sure I'm happy with our influence on country music, to tell you the truth," he said. "Country music has become more like pop music was in the '60s and '70s."

A young Henley sat enraptured in front of the family radio in Linden, Texas, and listened to Kitty Wells, Ernest Tubb and Elvis Presley sing on the Shreveport, La.-based show "The Louisiana Hayride."

"Dad at home, he would play big band records: Glenn Miller, Guy Lombardo, Benny Goodman," Henley remembered. "Grandmother would sit around singing hymns in her rocking chair. She used to rock me to sleep singing hymns."

The man largely responsible for slick "California rock" grew up in what he described as a "cultural crossroads": the hometown of electric blues guitarist T-Bone Walker and within earshot of both ragtime pianist Scott Joplin and Western swing king Bob Wills.

"The older I get, the more I realize how fortunate I am to have grown up where I did," he said.

Henley was left to himself only to discover classical music. Texas took care of the rest.

"As our culture becomes more urbanized and citified, our country music is going to go the same way," he said. "There ain't much country left. You can hardly find a town with a general store and a gas station any more."


More than music
Henley's activism has spread beyond the music industry to encompass other issues, particularly environmentalism. He founded the Walden Woods Project in 1990 to preserve the land in Massachusetts that inspired writer-philosopher Henry David Thoreau, and the charity has since expanded to include an educational mandate.
Why the endless activism by Henley?

"I guess I was born with and brought up with an acute sense of responsibility," he said. "When I see something that needs doing, I tend to try to do it."

He's now imparting that sense of responsibility to his two daughters, 3 and 6, and a son, 4.

For now, though, the activist must give way to the reactivated Eagles.

"I never in my wildest dreams thought I would be doing this this far down the road," he said.

Why the lasting appeal?

"We were pretty good at documenting our times, which I think is what all good art, or good craft — whichever you want to call it — does," he said.

Whether or not the Eagles, between battling the music industry, raising families and funding charities, can muster the inspiration needed to document a whole new era remains to be seen. They've got the long run sewn up. It's the next year or so that looks dicey.

"It's going to be difficult to compete with our own legacy," Henley fretted. "Tricky to make an album that's modern and yet retains the musical essence of what this band is."

In other words: Have the Eagles taken it to the limit, or is there still life in the fast lane?

---

Rob's Review

I'll preface this by quickly saying that I was among the minority in
attendance at this concert who could not legally get one of those wrist band
things to buy a drink. I'm 19 and have been an Eagles fan for years, so my
perspective on this concert may be different from others. I hope you enjoy
it.

Not surprisingly, Saturday night's concert in Ames, Iowa was superb. But
that shouldn't come as too much of a surprise considering most of us doing
reviews are Eagles fans anyway. And, at $100 and up per ticket, mostly only
very good fans are going to these concerts anyway. Well anyway, here are my
comments from the show:

I drove in from Chicago and found the stadium (and parking) very easily
considering I got there only a half-hour before the show. It started (quite
abruptly) around 8:15. Usually when the lights go out you've still got 5
minutes or so before a band starts up, but they started up real quick. My
seats were (if you're standing on the stage looking to the crowd) on the
right hand side, 4 rows from the railing. I was on the side with the pianos
and Timothy B. Schmidt. Tim was at my end, then usually Glenn Frey and Don
Henley (when he wasn't on drums) then Joe Walsh and finally the new guy
Stuert Smith. They had 3 or 4 saxophone guys (looked like Don's guys from
his Inside Job tour) behind Smith, and next to them Don on the drums and
Scott Crago, also on drums, next to him. Oddly enough, I sat by people who
knew Crago and I guess have been touring with the band all summer.
Whoever's reading this may know exactly who I'm talking about, but they had
a signed program and I guess their little kids got to go on stage earlier
and got free drumsticks. Lucky kids, haha. Well, the cool thing was that
Crago kept glancing over at all of us on the side and the other band members
must have known too because they (Tim in particular) gave us lots of eye
contact throughout the show. Tim was giving a little bit of that "I want
you" look in my vicinity which kind of freaked me out (I AM a guy), but
hopefully he was looking at the 40+ year old women who were sitting around
me.

On to the music. They started off with The Long Run, which sounded very,
very similar to the studio recording. Don't get me wrong, it was fantastic,
but I love the horns that they usually put into that song live, and while
they were played somewhat, it wasn't as pronounced as I would have liked. I
was hoping to hear Seven Bridges Road, but I guess I'll have to just stick
"Hell Freezes Over" into my DTS sound system and blow my house away instead.
Glenn then welcomed us (mentioning how he likes the Midwest in the summer
and something about sexy nights, and all the girls (excuse me, women)
screamed) and said that they'd start off with some stuff off their Hotel
California album. Well, that's what they did.

New Kid In Town was next. A quick sidebar here. At the Henley shows back
in 2000 (I saw him in Chicago and Little Rock) I got hooked on two songs I
hadn't liked before, Wasted Time and New York Minute. Well, at this show I
got hooked on New Kid In Town. It had always seemed too country for me, but
hearing it live threw it up the chart of my Eagles hits. Plus, I realized
Peaceful Easy Feeling is about as country as it gets, so maybe I'm a closet
country fan. Maybe not. Great rendition nonetheless. Then came others
from the album, like Wasted Time (and a crappy crappy Reprise) and Pretty
Maids All In A Row. Tim did Love Will Keep Us Alive, and while he looks
somewhat like a corpse (sorry ladies) I think he'll be able to sing like
that when he's 80. The man's got one hell of a voice.

Don came up with Boys of Summer and my night hit one of its peaks. Don's my
favorite Eagle and I'd hear a whole concert of the Eagles doing Don's hits
for $1000 a ticket. Well, they did a few and this was the first. It's
really great to hear Walsh and Smith do guitar work on this song. I'd heard
a bootleg version of it from the HFO tour and knew the guitar from these
guys would be much better than Don's album or his tour. I was not
disappointed.

Back to Eagles hits - Glenn introduced Take It To The Limit with a joke
about how that's how his wife uses the credit card. Big laugh, though not
from me - I was scared they were going to do the shitty Muzak version from
the live CD off the Selected Works album, so I was saying a quick prayer
instead. Someone heard me because Glenn and the band did a great job with
the album version. My favorite Eagles song was next - Already Gone. At
this point I took note of Smith because I LOVE the guitar riff in the middle
(after the line..."it wasn't you who set me free") and he did a fantastic
job. I mean, I was stunned. He is a great addition to this band. While
Felder was great, you should remember that Walsh took over for Bernie Leadon
and that wasn't a mistake, was it? Great song - better live. After One Of
These Nights, maybe my second favorite Eagles song, it was time for
Intermission.

I knew these intermissions were in their shows and I didn't like it when I
heard about them. But I was glad for them because it sounded like their
voices needed a break (mine sure as hell did) and I wanted to walk around
and get a drink. I was mostly satisfied by the quality of their voices at
the show. At times they were fading, but it was mostly crisp and clear.
While they're not in their 20s and 30s anymore, they've aged gracefully.
The Intermission also gave me the opportunity to call all my friends and
brag, haha. It's also a good time to talk to the ushers and get good
gossip. The great thing about my seat was that I was right on the aisle and
wall where the band walked on and off the set next to me. I could also see
all the sound equipment and the 17 guitars they used. It felt nice that I
was within shouting distance of them hearing my thanks and applause.

Thirty minutes later...we came back with a dud - Witchy Woman. Always skip
that track on the Greatest Hits CD, but had no choice tonight. Had to sit
through the whole damn song. I don't think I'd ever heard it before all the
way through - I know I'll try not to again (unless I'm at another Eagles
concert). But they came back strong with Lyin' Eyes - another personal fav.
Tim again with I Can't Tell You Why (that's about it for Tim, isn't it?
They just can't do many songs with him in the lead. Seems that Love Will
Keep Us Alive is just a sequel to I Can't Tell You Why. Maybe on the new
album they can get him some more stuff), and then more solo stuff - Walsh's
Walk Away, Henley's Sunset Grill, Frey's You Belong To The City. All nicely
done. Particularly Sunset Grill (big surprise for me, right?).

The Joe Walsh Show now gets in full swing with Life's Been Good and Funk
#49. I guess Henley just gives up at this point and says, "What the hell,
let the man do what he wants." But it seems that Walsh has some respect for
Don's perfectionism, because he keeps the reigns in a bit on these songs -
more so than I've heard on some bootleg and live stuff. Life's Been Good
was extremely fun, and I liked how he teased in Funk #49. Maybe the crowd
is starting to suffer from memory loss, but I started cheering songs quite a
bit before everybody else caught on. Funk #49 rings in my mind
particularly. He started a riff and then stopped and I stood up screaming
and then everybody around me caught on and jumped up to get him to play it.
I know he's gonna play it even if we all sit there picking our noses, but
why not have some fun with this. I'll talk more about sitting down later.

More Don with Dirty Laundry (which has always seemed to me to be the most
"Eagles" song of his solo stuff. Hell, half the band plays on the studio
track of it). They closed the second set with Heartache Tonight and Life In
The Fast Lane. Both fantastic, but they seemed a bit tired at this point.
They all leave, but we know they'll be back.

Well, turns out they don't even leave. I watch them just standing there
next to the curtain off stage. Obviously they're looking to wrap this up
quick. Not surprising, considering they've got like 2 more shows over the
next 3 nights. I'd want to keep things movin' along as well if I were them.
But being the attendee, I want them to play 'til 2 in the morning. Not
gonna happen though. Oh well. They come back with the best version of
Hotel California that I've ever heard them do live (with the possible
exception of HFO, but I think it's tough to compare that to any other
version of HC). Very, very good. Because I visit L&M regularly, I know
they're gonna do 3 of these little Encore things, so I'm not surprised when
they leave again. The people around me are though.

They come back with some great fast stuff - Rocky Mountain Way and All She
Wants To Do Is Dance. I'm a little surprised they play All She Wants... at
these Eagles concerts. I would have much rather heard End of the Innocence
or Heart Of The Matter, but I'll take what I can get. Both very well done
and the crowd is finally consistently on its feet.

They're gone again quickly and I'm so sick of hearing the people behind me
griping about whether or not they'll get to hear Desperado that I inform
them that they'll finish the concert with Take It Easy and Desperado. They
look back at me like I'm God or something. It was pretty funny. Maybe you
had to be there.

Guess what? They closed with Take It Easy and Desperado. Both were done
well, but it seemed that they were rushing through it at the end. The crew
was cleaning up on the floor in front of me and the guitar solo was quite
short - I would've stretched the song out for 6 or 7 minutes. Desperado was
nice, but they should have played it earlier in the show. Don seemed a bit
winded and tired singing it and it would have been better if they would have
finished with a fast song, and maybe hid their tiring voices and sweat
pouring down there faces. But I'll give Don his props - he held the note at
the end very, very well. Glenn finished up on piano; they stood up, bowed,
and walked off stage. I got to the railing to give my thanks and watched
each of them walk behind the curtain. For all you ladies out there - Tim
took his shirt off as he was walking behind the curtain and I got a view of
his bare back, haha. Pretty nicely built for such a little guy.

OK, now for some general comments about the band and concert. Each band
member had something going style-wise. Don looks like he's gained a little
weight (and I thought he looked a little heavy at the Inside Job concerts).
It's not that he's fat or anything - maybe just bloated looking. He wore
black (big surprise) with a jacket and three button Zegna-looking sweater.
Glenn was the coolest looking guy, but wore the most hideous clothing. He
was in a red/pink/rose suit and cowboy boots. Not good, Glenn. Maybe this
is why Don's appeared on the cover of GQ and you haven't, my friend. Tim
wasn't wearing anything memorable, but that certainly wasn't the case for
Joe. Oh, Joe. When I first saw Joe, it looked like he was wearing
odd-looking pajama pants. I found this to be quite funny, but I laughed
harder when I got a closer look. He WAS in pajama pants and sneakers, but
the pants had on them the pink and purple logo for the crappy candy "Good &
Plenty." Think about that for a second, and laugh a little harder. I gotta
get me a pair of "Good & Plenty" pajamas. That was CLASSIC.

The band honestly looked like they were having a really fun time. I believe
it was during Dirty Laundry that they got together in a line and started
jumping up in down in rhythm while playing guitar. Don actually jumped up
and down. Can you believe it? During Joe's songs in particular they let
loose. Joe did some really cool jam sessions with Smith that I wish could
have been a bit longer. During All She Wants..., Tim walked behind the
stage and goofed around with the saxophone players. That was really fun to
watch. He seems like more of a goofball than I had given him credit for in
the past. Glenn made a point of saying this was a 30th anniversary tour.
He remarked to the crowd that "it was nice when they were all 30, wasn't
it?" I laughed. That was the point in the night when I was glad I was
among the 1% there who couldn't get a beer, haha. I got a couple dirty
looks from folks around me at that point. The band did a nice job of making
eye contact with more people than just the front row. They walked all
around and gave both sides of the stage good facetime. Honest to God, I got
eye contact with each of the band members at some point in the night. That
was cool.

If I could have asked for one thing it might have been more spontaneous
guitar/drums/saxophone solos during the songs. I would have preferred to
hear maybe two fewer songs if they would have been more willing to stretch
out the ones they did play. A song that plays 3:35 on CD doesn't have to
play 3:35 in concert. They did this a bit with Joe's songs, but Long Run,
Life In The Fast Lane, Take It Easy, Already Gone, Boys of Summer, and One
Of These Nights could all have been extended. I know this is part of Don's
"perfect" attitude towards the music. Other than that, the show was
virtually flawless.

The forum itself was...typical for a basketball arena. Fair acoustics. But
I was so close, I didn't care. I was actually parallel to the band. My
seats were between where they play guitar and where the drums are. So my
view was mostly to their sides and backs. It was interesting because I felt
like I was on stage - real cool. The crowd was around 9,000. I'd heard
rumors that people sat on their hands most of the time. When I went to
Don's solo concerts, they mostly sat during the show. I realize this is
partly due to the age of the attendees. It didn't bother me when people sat
during slower ballads, but people would go to the effort of starting to
stand for the fast songs and then SAT DOWN halfway into the song! I would
be standing and singing away and all of a sudden look around to see everyone
behind me had sat down. That is just terrible. What REALLY surprised me
was that the people in the front row sat down at all. I have never, ever
been to a concert where people on the front row sat for even a second but
they were sitting down half the time. We're not listening to classical
music, people. This is a ROCK BAND. I realize it's a 3+ hour concert, but
they give you a half-hour break so they AND you can relax. Point simply
being - the crowd should've gotten more into it.

I don't know how many of you have seen the merchandise, but it's pretty good
this year. The t-shirts are quite high in price - $35, but the selection
was good. While it's terrible that they cost that much, I like how it makes
it so people don't then buy t-shirts for their friends. I know if I see
someone in an Eagles Tour 2002 t-shirt that they were probably at the
concert. Very few people would buy extra t-shirts for their friends at
those prices. The program though, at $20 was WAY too high. That's just an
unbelievable rip-off.

So that was it - my first Eagles concert. Regardless of what any music
critics say about the band, this would rate right there with me seeing a
Rolling Stones or even Beatles concert. While they may not do a crazy show
like, say, Aerosmith, the music and harmonies are so good - who wouldn't
enjoy it? While the tickets are extremely expensive, they certainly do not
play a short show. However, the 3 and a half hours went by in a blink. It
definitely met and exceeded all my expectations. I hope that they do
produce a new album this winter so I can see them on tour again next summer.
While this was my first Eagles concert, it certainly will not be my last.