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The History of the Eagles, which this tour is so aptly named, wouldn’t be complete with out all the little back stories and bit players that had an effect on the 4 decade plus life of the band. Formed in 1971 in and around Los Angeles The Eagles churned out hit after hit with their combined songwriting talents. This night they would play those and tell the fans that came to see and hear them at the Tacoma Dome how the band and each song came to be.
The show started out with Don Henley and Glenn Frey playing a couple older and admittedly less popular acoustic numbers but the people in attendance didn’t just come for the songs they’ve been hearing on the radio for 40 some-odd years, so that was just fine with them. The seated graying veterans of the stage breezed through those first couple songs to the appreciative Tacoma Dome crowd.
The Eagles are clearly one of the best selling bands of all time with over 150 million albums sold world wide and over 100 million in the United States. They have won 6 Grammys and boast some of the best guitarists and singers in the music business. Of course squabbles and in fighting plagued them for years but it appears that stuff has all been left behind.
Henley joked with the audience that none of them were around in the beginning, since the Eagles got their start in 1971 and they gave a lot of credit to Linda Ronstadt, who Henley and Frey were playing with just prior to starting this band. That brought out some light natured boos and Henley said well maybe you were….I don’t remember much of those days.” Or something to that effect. And of course the crowd loved it.
For the third song, “Peaceful Easy Feeling”, from their 1972 debut album The Eagles, Henley and Frey brought out guitarist Bernie Leadon to join them.They added players to the stage for this concert much as they had in the early days of the band. They sat around on road cases and amps just like they did in the beginning, as Henley quipped, “We couldn’t afford furniture”.
The show started to heat up and the stage started to fill up as they brought out bass player Timothy B. Schmit and then fan favorite Joe Walsh. The the spot light hit Walsh the crowd came to life again and roared with it’s approval. Henley discarded the guitar and took his familiar spot behind the the drum kit that was stationed stage right for a “re-arranged” version of “Witchy Woman” that brought the crowd temporarily to their feet.
Disclaimer: I was there only to shoot the show as is sometime the case in the “glamorous” world of concert photography so this review only covers the first 6 songs, although as we were leaving and packing up camera gear we heard 2 more songs which included “Desperado”…preceded by the story about how that song and the album came to be.
From what I observed they were spot on, vocals sounded great and they played all the parts in the songs just how you’d expect these legendary musicians to play them. So for my abbreviated review I’ll give them a thumbs up and I’m sure the rest of the show went as it started and they absolutely did not disappoint.
