Concert review: Are the Eagles beginning to show their age — or getting better with it?
It would seem like we’re way beyond being able to ignore the age thing when it comes to the Eagles.
So let’s just put this stuff out in the open straight away: Leading man Don Henley, 74 since last July, has finally stopped coloring his hair and now every single one of them is white; wiry bassist Timothy B. Schmit turned 74 himself in October and, since he still refuses to get a haircut, probably has hair attached to his head that was on it back when he joined the band in 1977; and wacky guitarist Joe Walsh — the baby of the group’s three core members, having turned 74 in November — is seeming more stooped over (and more wacky) every time I see him.
Henley even took a couple of gentle jabs at himself and his advanced age during the legendary group’s Monday-night concert at Spectrum Center in Charlotte, its first here in almost four years.
“It’s great to be here in the Carolinas,” he said at one point, before quickly adding, “At this stage of the game it’s great to be anywhere.”
At another, the Eagles’ co-founder flashed a grin at the crowd of roughly 15,000 fans that had paid hundreds of dollars apiece to see the “‘Hotel California’ 2022 Tour” and feigned a whine. “Come on, I’m gettin’ a little hoarse. I need some help. It ain’t easy doing this at 74, I can tell you that.”
Funny thing about that is, when Henley proceeded to segue from the latter remark into the final song of the evening — “Best of My Love,” which he noted was their first No. 1 hit, back in 1974 — his voice sounded every bit as mellifluous as it had when he and his bandmates kicked off the show just shy of three hours earlier.
They hadn’t played for three hours straight. They did take a 25-minute break, after a live re-creation of their seminal 1976 album “Hotel California,” performed in sequence, in its entirety.
But all told, the Eagles spent more than 2 hours and 40 minutes on stage performing most of the best-known songs in their oeuvre, their voices sounding as robust as they did half their lifetimes ago. And the show was all the best adjectives you can think of — exhilarating, breathtaking, stunning, magical, triumphant.
It was perhaps not quite perfect, though. More on that in a moment.
As they have since the tour debuted in September 2019, things got off to a theatrical start, here with a bearded man in a black suit and cape slowly creeping across the stage from right to left to place a physical copy of the “Hotel California” LP on an antique turntable.
Then the iconic opening guitar riff of the title song wafted through the loudspeakers, and if you were late, you were certainly sorry. Because, while in virtually any other context it is reserved for the end of the night, under the prescribed format the band’s most universally beloved song comes right at the beginning. “Hotel California” is, after all, the lead-off track.
It’s easy to forget, however — unless you’re still listening to the album on a regular basis all these years later — that pretty much each of the eight songs on that record holds up as (to borrow a phrase from today’s lexicon) an absolute banger.
I’ve gone from getting used to Vince Gill’s honeyed high tenor standing in for the late Glenn Frey on “New Kid in Town” to flat-out loving it.
“Life in the Fast Lane,” which sends Henley’s voice revving and sees Walsh noodling madly on his electric, is never not going to get fans up on their feet.
And the soulful, stirring ballad “Wasted Time” has gotten the deluxe treatment for this tour; in Charlotte, that meant accompaniment by more than 40 masked-up members of the Alamance County-based North State Chamber Orchestra.
The symphony players were used sparingly but to spectacular effect, adding not just richness and expressiveness to the sound but also a grandiose look to the production. They appeared at the rear of the stage on command (i.e. via remotely controlled risers and walls) a total of five times — twice more during the “Hotel California” portion of the evening, to back Walsh on “Pretty Maids All in a Row” and Henley on “The Last Resort”; then twice in the “Greatest Hits” set, in support of Gill on “Take It to the Limit” and of Henley on “Desperado.”
A thoroughly tickled-pink-looking 22-person choir from UNC Charlotte also apparently chimed in on “The Last Resort,” although I have to be totally honest with you and admit that I never actually recall hearing them. By the time I noticed them up above and behind the orchestra, they were apparently done singing and just trying, unsuccessfully, to wipe the oh-my-God-I-can’t-believe-we’re-on-stage-in-front-of-15,000-people looks off their faces.
And I guess one reason why they might not have caught my attention right away is because Henley was smack in the middle of creating the best moment of the night.
With the aforementioned orchestra swelling, he put the microphone in a death grip in his right hand as he nailed the high notes at the end of “The Last Resort” — And you caaan see themmm there / oooOON Sunday morrrrrning / StaaaAAND up and sing abooouuut / What it’s like up there — rearing his head back as he belted, sweeping his left arm wide to his side.
Everyone in the arena seemed to leap to their feet and start applauding at once. For a split-second I actually felt my eyes start to mist up. It was just so overwhelming, the power of his voice, the beauty of the song, the majestic-ness of the symphony, the thickness of the nostalgia hanging in the air.
The band could have blown kisses, waved goodnight, and headed back for the hotel after those first 53 minutes and one might have been able to argue that they’d put on the show of the year.
But they were merely getting warmed up: “We’re gonna take a short break,” Henley said, “and then we’re gonna come back and play everything else we know. OK?”
After intermission, the hits just kept on comin’.
You can surf down to the bottom to see the full setlist, which mirrors the one they did in Savannah over the weekend, on the first stop of this leg of the tour. If you want highlights, though, it’s simple: They come in two flavors.
The first are the Gill highlights, namely “Take It Easy” and “Take It to the Limit,” memorable primarily because of that gorgeous vocal instrument of his. A friend texted me on his way out of the show Monday night to say that “The Eagles wouldn’t be able to tour today without Vince Gill” — and while that’s probably technically untrue, I sure don’t think they would be nearly as good.
Then there are the Walsh highlights, like “In the City” and “Life’s Been Good,” memorable as much for his facial expressions as for the classic wah sound that he coaxes out of his various guitars. One of the notes I took while he contorted his face during a particularly muscular solo was that “he looked like he stubbed his toe while eating a lemon.”
Not surprisingly, Walsh was also responsible for one of the show’s most incomprehensible moments.
After an impressive display of far-out talk-box work on “Those Shoes” (you know, it’s that device that makes him sound like he’s growling guitar sounds out of his mouth), Walsh put on an impressive display of far-out banter with the crowd.
“Well, how the hell are ya?” he shouted. Hearing loud cheers in response, he said, “Yeah, me too, pretty much.” Then: “I’m confused, and I’m a little bit disoriented, and a little bit angry about this 21st-century business,” he said, while sounding legitimately confused, a little bit disoriented, and a little bit angry. “I liked being 20 in the ’70s better than being 70 in 2022. Anyway —” he paused, as thousands roared in amusement “— I guess it’ll all figure itself out. Or it won’t.”
In other words, we got to see Joe being Joe.
He did, however, lucidly mention that “Hotel California” producer Bill Szymczyk was in the crowd, and wished a happy birthday to the “old goat.” (Szymczyk, who now lives in Charlotte, turned 79 on Feb. 13.) And there was another key “Hotel California” player in the building: Jim Ed Norman, who was an orchestral arranger for that song as well as “Desperado,” conducted the symphony on Wednesday night.
Conspicuously missing in action, meanwhile, was Deacon Frey, Glenn Frey’s 26-year-old son. The younger Frey, who filled his father’s shoes wonderfully here in Charlotte at the band’s 2018 show, is currently sitting out this tour due to an undisclosed illness. The band didn’t replace him, choosing to simply put eight men on stage instead of nine and just having Gill and touring guitarist Steuart Smith cover Frey’s parts.
Anyway, since the show ended at 11:20 p.m. — the latest I’ve stayed at the arena in a long, long time — I probably should wrap it up and get to bed.
I suspect that as I drift off to sleep I’ll be thinking about two things:
1) Getting back to my earlier suggestion that this was perhaps not quite a perfect concert... I’d like to join the chorus of folks who, if it were up to them, would rearrange the setlist to make it “Greatest Hits” first, then intermission, then “Hotel California.” I mean, “Best of My Love” is a very pleasant song. But capping a night that featured some truly incredible highs with a song that is “very pleasant” felt anticlimactic. Ending instead on the rendition of “The Last Resort” that’s in this show would have had fans practically breathless as they left the arena.
2) For much of the night, I’d managed to lose track of how old the Eagles were — and to lose track of how old I am. They haven’t lost an iota of sound quality, so it was easier to forget than I thought it would be. It was like being in a time machine. Then, right before the end of the show, Henley said: “This year marks the 50th anniversary of this band. And on behalf of the band and the crew, I want to thank you all for 50 wonderful years — ’cause we wouldn’t be here if it weren’t for you, and we’re acutely aware of that. So in case we don’t pass this way again, we thank you.”
At times like these, I wish we could all stay young forever.
The Eagles’ setlist
Set 1 (“Hotel California”):
Hotel California
New Kid in Town
Life in the Fast Lane
Wasted Time
Wasted Time (Reprise)
Victim of Love
Pretty Maids All in a Row
Try and Love Again
The Last Resort
Set 2 (Greatest Hits):
Seven Bridges Road
Take It Easy
One of These Nights
Take It to the Limit
Peaceful Easy Feeling
Tequila Sunrise
Witchy Woman
In the City
I Can’t Tell You Why
Lyin’ Eyes
Those Shoes
Life’s Been Good
Already Gone
Funk #49
Heartache Tonight
Encore:
Rocky Mountain Way
Desperado
The Boys of Summer
Best of My Love
This story was originally published February 22, 2022 at 5:39 AM.
