The Eagles
The Eagles 2002: Joe Walsh, Glenn Frey, Don Henley, Timothy B. Schmit
Band: The Eagles
Members, Instruments, and Good Points:Don Henley: Vocals, percussion, guitar, talent, hottest
Timothy B. Schmit: Bass, vocals, cool hair, very crowd friendly
Joe Walsh: Guitar, vocals, keyboards, perpetual fuck-up, goofster
Glenn Frey: Vocals, guitar, keyboards, piano, humble, knows when to stop
Date and Time: Saturday, June 22nd, 2002; 8:00pm
Location: Value City Arena/Jerome Schottenstein Center
Like I need to write a review for the frickin' Eagles! They're the Eagles! The most important bird-named band in rock 'n' roll! Byrds? Yeah, right! Uh... what other bird-named bands are out there? Whoever they are, you can bet they don't have an inch on the Eagles, man! The boys so important they don't even need an opening band! Boy, if I keep hyping them, the actual review is going to be a let-down.
Schottenstein was not easy to get to considering that I-670 is under so much construction! Damn! However, with my map skills (you would laugh if you knew how many times we were just a street over and the street we needed to get on was a one-way... the wrong way!) we were there with little troubles. Also with all that reconstruction, we had to park so much further away than usual, so it was a frickin' hike back to the car... which was murder after the concert. Anyway, Schottenstein was fabulous as usual and didn't have the beefed-up security like, say, Nationwide Arena had when I was at my last concert. It was just the usual purse scan and ticket ripping. We went around back: four tour buses and about eight personal semis! Man, oh, man... do they know how to travel or what? It didn't seem like they would need that many semis for the bare-bones stage they had. The stage had three keyboards (two on one side for the regular keyboarder and Joe occasionally, one on the other side for Glenn), a grand piano, drum set, additional percussion set, four main microphones, about thirty guitars off stage, several amps, and a mini-stage for the horn section. Enough of that... so, anyway, it was about ten after eight when the crowd started to get restless and the Eagles did not want that, my friend. They appeared soon after.
They piled onto the stage. All in all, besides the four main players, there was an additional drummer/percussionist, four dudes that did all the horns and violin (they were definitely Henley's guys... dressed in black with the hilarious hats and the Grapevining... nice to see 'em come along on tour), main guitarist, pianist, and keyboardist (also from Henley's tour... if you caught Henley on Saturday Night Live, you'd recognize him. He is so cute and nice! If you catch them live, clap extra loud for him like I do!) Phew, that is some back-up! Let me tell you, thank God for the fan sites on this one... I pulled a set list for this concert! The internet... oh, good times. So, they opened with an energetic "The Long Run." I was sitting just to the right of the stage, eye-level with the kids, by the additional guitarist and Henley's keyboardist. I won't do a song by song because some of them weren't all that much to talk about. Henley's voice was strong for the first couple songs, although I didn't get to see him as much as usual because he was hidden behind the drum set. Bummer! He did seem to be having a good time with the other percussionist. No one can say he's hard to get along with or that he has no humor. Oh, no, I won't accept that at all! Even he and the drummer were competing and mocking each other. I love watching bands interact, which was a high and low of this. The Eagles interacted with back-up, but not really with each other. The height of their interaction will be covered coming up soon! The third song, "Wasted Time," was a vocal high-point of the show. Henley and Frey blended so well that it was more beautiful live than on the CD. Joe and Timothy took up vocals on the fifth and sixth songs, which brought the crowd down. Complaint about the concert-goers: I've been to these "old people oriented" concerts lately, like Crosby Stills Nash & Young, and these people don't seem to stand for two songs straight. However, thankfully, it changed come the second set! Henley's first solo dish was "Boys of Summer" and Glenn promised us more Henley stuff. They delivered. Also done was a lot of Walsh's solo stuff, which got big applause. Just 'cause he's from Ohio, I bet! Is that a form of nepotism? The first set was overall good, but disappointing. The music was slow and the crowd was equally slow to react.
Intermission time came too quickly. People piled out for their beers. In my case, I hit the restrooms, got a water, and a cute little Eagles shirt. (It's black with "Eagles" written on it in what looks like rhinestones, but isn't.) Well, stupid me didn't stop to think about putting on the shirt in bathroom, but I wanted to put it on. I waited until the arena was put into darkness to swap shirts at my seat, which got cheering from the guys behind me. It was hilarious! I think it was the loudest they cheered during the whole frickin' show! I guess I'm more entertaining than the Eagles! Yeah, right...
Back to the show relatively fast here. They came back with "Witchy Woman," which was disappointing. Not my favorite Eagles song... but the crowd loved it. Frey introduced "Lyin' Eyes" as the song "that pretty much wrote itself; we just kept adding verses and eventually had this whole long song and story." The crowd was slowly accepting that this was a concert and starting to get into it. The songs were pretty slow until Walsh cranked up "Life's Been Good." The goofster was extremely animated, getting laughs and smiles from both the crowd and the band. The song was greatly extended, which Walsh, Frey, and Schmit used to go back and communicate with the people sitting behind the stage. (Walsh was really big on turning around from time to time just to acknowledge them, which was very cool. Overall, I'd say Schmit was the one who really wanted to let the crowd know who he was. He was always the last off stage, waving to every section, up and down.) Schmit even Grapevined with the horns, which was hilarious. Too bad only some people saw it! Walsh had us rolling when he said his Maserati, instead of doing 185, did a random collection of numbers that he just rambled off. And he even said, "Wasssupp?!," tongue and all. Not to disappoint, Henley was up with "Dirty Laundry," which really got me into the concert. Finally, the band interacted! The Eagles and the additional guitarist all crunched together and jumped up and down playing together. Henley was the high jumper and had the crowd in the palm of his hand, as most of us where jumping as well. The closers of the second act where "Heartache Tonight" and "Life in the Fast Lane," both of which were real crowd-pleasers.
The first encore was "Hotel California," which opened with a nice trumpet solo. The crowd knew the entire story and really sang along. Henley and the horns were the strongest points in the song.
The second encore consisted of two solo songs: "Rocky Mountain Way" and "All She Wants To Do is Dance." Both were awesome solo performances and great jams. Walsh and Henley both rocked on their vocals and the band was just awesome behind them.
The final encore were Eagles songs, both of which I predicted for the final encore, thank you very much! There were "Take It Easy" and "Desperado." Althought "Desperado" is a slow song, it was definitely the biggest crowd pleaser, despite the fact that Henley nearly flubbed a line. He is definitely more confident on faster-paced songs. The crowd was singing along and swaying until the bitter end. The boys joined arms and bowed, though Walsh "had to" hit himself to get his head back up. He is one wacky child. They headed off the stage when we screamed "Hey Don!" (which is a hilarious inside joke) Don turned around and waved to us! Awesome!
On the way out, we saw this huge leopard-print scarf and we were joking that someone didn't have their dress anymore... then the owner came to get it. It was a dude! That was hilarious. It was a quick out and the stadium was nice enough to play Eagles over their speakers, which had people singing all the way to their cars. After all the standing through the second act and the three encores plus the dancing, I was wiped. The drive home was prompt, as construction isn't as bad heading back to Cincinnati. Enjoyable show.
Set List
The Long Run
New Kid in Town
Wasted Time
Peaceful Easy Feeling
Pretty Maids All in a Row
Love Will Keep Us Alive
Boys of Summer
Take It To the Limit
Already Gone
In the City
One of These Nights
Witchy Woman
Lyin' Eyes
I Can't Tell You Why
Walk Away
Tequila Sunrise
Sunset Grill
You Belong to the City
Life's Been Good
Dirty Laundry
Funk 49
Heartache Tonight
Life in the Fast Lane
Hotel California
Rocky Mountain Way
All She Wants To Do is Dance
Take It Easy
Desperado
The MVP for this show was Don Henley. (Can you say you're really surprised by that?) Click on the picture below to get to his official website, which isn't updated very often, but gives a good overall of Don, I suppose.
Other Official Links