Eagles Farewell 1 Tour10:45:30 AMWhy I'm blogging this nonsense: I'm (late as usual) beginning to learn about RSS feeds, and this BlogSphere thingie seems to support RSS feeds, and there ain't no better way to learn than to do, so here we go . . .
As a preface to this post: Yes, I'm an old fart. As a teenager, two of the first 8-track (yes, 8-tracks!) tapes I bought with my precious lawn mowing money was "One of These Nights" and "Hotel California" (along with something from Gordon Lightfoot, Simon & Garfunkel and Boston's first record . . . tape . . . whatever. I rather liked the Eagles back in the day, but I don't really listen to their music anymore. However, a recent event caused me to track down an Eagles forum and rant a little bit.
originally written on 3 June 2005 here.
My girlfriend was channel surfing the other night and we came across NBC's televised version of the Farewell 1 Tour, which I watched again last night on Bravo. It took me back quite a ways.
In the mid-to-late 70's, I listened to, and liked, the Eagles quite a bit. Growing up in East Tennessee, it's not surprising my favourite guy in the band was Bernie Leadon. Although I was also a Joe Walsh fan, I was rather sad when Joe came on board with the band because it meant Bernie was leaving. When Randy Meisner left the band, I was again saddened, and no offense to Timothy B. Schmidt, but he's no Joe Walsh. While I bought "The Long Run" when it came out, I thought it was (and still do think) it's a piece of crap and didn't really follow the band any after that.
In the 80's, I worked at an alternative (i.e. punk and new wave) college radio station, but we could play anything we wanted, and some of us played a few songs from the the Eagles (I tended to play "Journey of the Sorcerer" and "The Last Resort" and maybe "Doolin' Dalton" every now and then) and the rest of the Laurel Canyon crowd.
When I replaced my LP collection with CDs, I gladly "re-bought" the first five Eagles records on CD. Even listen to them sometimes.
As I watched the Farewell 1 Tour, I was struck at how sad I was that this is the group who been considered the Eagles for over 20 years. Yes, Don Henley is fabulous, and Joe Walsh, who obviously has killed a few too many brain cells, is one of the more entertaining guitar players. But Glenn Frey is still obnoxious and Scmidt is, well, he's no Randy Meisner.
And no Don Felder, although the "other guitarist" (anybody know who that guy is?) was amazing*, playing these hot complicated licks easy as pie with some really cool harmonics magic thrown in.
I was really annoyed when both Henley and Frey repeatedly mentioned how much better things are now than when they played in the 70's. I'm sure it's true, since they said it, but I didn't need to keep hearing this mentioned, as it seemed they were dissing Leadon, Meisner and Felder.
Overall I enjoyed the show, but how great would it be if the original four, plus Felder and maybe Walsh, with that great funky Rickenbacker slide guitar, could bury the hatchet and get together for a show? I might even pay to see that.
(if anyone mentioned above has, like, died, my apologies).
* someone responded to my post on the Eagles forum to let me know that the name of this guitar player is Stuart Smith. Good on ya Stuart.
1. DawnsBrain07/09/2005 12:23:21 AM
Homepage: http://blog.dawnsbrain.com
I love the station, by the way.
- Dawn, Class of 1984
2. kah08/02/2005 05:51:14 PM
Homepage: http://www.radiohidebound.com
and good luck with that eHarmony thing.
cheers.kah (class of '85 - or I could have been if I really wanted to)
3. Rihanna06/10/2008 03:06:22 AM
http://www.ticketsinventory.com/concert/the-eagles-tickets/
- 
