The Eagles will appear at the Continental Airlines Arena on March 31st.
Tickets go on sale 11/22 at 10 a.m from Ticketmaster. (there is a presale for AMEX Gold Card Holders which starts on 11/15).
If you will be attending the show please post in the comment section. Don't forget to come back after the show and post your review.
The Eagles -- the band, not the football team -- will bring one of their rare reunion tours to the Meadowlands next year.
Don Henley, Glenn Frey, Joe Walsh, Timothy B. Schmit and four backing musicians will perform March 31 at the Continental Airlines Arena. Other tour stops will include April 3 at the Nassau Coliseum in Uniondale, N.Y., and April 11 at Madison Square Garden.
For all three shows, a pre-sale for American Express cardholders only will begin at 9 a.m. on Nov. 15 and end at 9 p.m. on Nov. 21. Pre-sale tickets will be available through Tickmaster Charge-By-Phone (201-507-8900) and Ticketmaster Online (www.ticketmaster.com). The general public on-sale time is 9 a.m. on Nov. 22. Tickets also will be available at that time via Ticketmaster outlets.
Prices are $25 to $177 for the Meadowlands, $25 to $178 for Nassau Coliseum and $25 to $179.50 for the Garden. There is an eight-ticket limit per venue, per customer.
Link: Newsday.com: POP MUSIC REVIEW.
Halfway through a three-hour concert Thursday night, singer-guitarist Glenn Frey described The Eagles as grizzled country-rock vets trying to make their way through a flashy new world.
"Our belly buttons aren't pretty. We can't dance," Frey, 56, told an appreciative audience. "All we can do is sing and play these instruments. What a concept."
Whoa there, pardner - let's call a spade a spade. Despite their folksy harmonies and country affectations, The Eagles were one of the slickest products ever assembled. Heck, they weren't really a band but rather a rotating group of ringers hired by chief songwriters Frey and Don Henley. And they certainly chased their share of trends. Whether together or solo, The Eagles dabbled in Bee Gees-style ballads ("I Can't Tell You Why"), synth-pop (Henley's "All She Wants to Do Is Dance") and pure, steaming cheese (Frey's "You Belong to the City").
All of which they played Thursday as part of the Farewell I tour, an easy-money jaunt through North America to support a new box set ("Eagles Box" on WSM/Elektra). The mere title Farewell I is a clever bit of marketing: It suggests that there will be a Part II - and perhaps a III - but also that you better see the band while you can. Those Eagles - they never miss a trick.
The band's lineup is the later version: Frey, drummer-singer Henley, onetime James Gang guitarist Joe Walsh and former Poco bassist Timothy B. Schmit. Don Felder, the guitarist whose memorable solos colored so many Eagles hits, was missing (he was ousted from the band in 2001), but his parts were duplicated note for note by session player Steuart Smith.
There's no denying that The Eagles produced some of the most durable, well-crafted songs in rock history. They're so wonderfully written that they virtually play themselves, or at least it seemed so in concert. Augmented by an eight-piece band, The Eagles ran through hit after hit with supreme confidence and nonchalance, never missing a beat and mostly sticking to each song's clearly marked path.
The show's first hour covered laid-back territory: "The Long Run," "New Kid in Town," "Peaceful, Easy Feeling." Henley's appealingly rough voice - the blueprint for all those Corey Harts and Mr. Misters of the 1980s - was in fine form on "One of These Nights," and he sailed nicely through the falsetto lines near the end.
But it was the lovably cantankerous Walsh, in the show's second half, who pumped some blood into the music. His voice was strong and clear on his solo hit, "Life's Been Good," and the hard-hitting "Funk No. 49" from his James Gang days. Walsh's inventive stabs of guitar even managed to lighten up Henley's heavy-handed "Dirty Laundry."
By the time The Eagles closed with "Desperado," there was nary a hit they hadn't played. (What, no "Witchy Woman?") But if it hadn't been for Walsh, the evening would have been about as satisfying as sitting home listening to their CDs.
THE EAGLES. You just can't kill the beast. Thursday, Friday and April 8 at Continental Airlines Arena, East Rutherford, N.J. Also tomorrow Sunday at Nassau Coliseum and April 11 at Madison Square Garden. Seen Thursday.
IN MARCH, The Eagles released a boxed set, "Eagles," that included CD copies of the band's six studio albums (with the original artwork), its 1980 concert album "Eagles Live," and a 1978 Christmas single. The list price was $129.98.
The show that this iconic '70s soft-rock band presented at the Continental Airlines Arena in East Rutherford on Thursday night was in many ways the three-dimensional equivalent of the boxed set. For a high price (up to $175 per ticket), fans could hear band members run through old hits from their years together, as well as well-known songs they have recorded individually. They made absolutely no attempt to add anything to their legacy.
The band has been playing two new, unreleased songs on some shows of its current tour, which will come back to the Meadowlands Friday, and also visit Madison Square Garden, April 9, and Atlantic City's Boardwalk Hall, April 11. But it found no time for them in Thursday's show, which lasted three hours (with a 20-minute intermission).
No obscure numbers from the band's past albums made it into the show, either. There were no surprises at all, really. Everything from the four-song "unplugged" segment at the start of the second set to the show-closing "Desperado" was just what a fan would expect.
Certainly, though, it was a thrill to hear the band's rich vocal blend on numbers like "Peaceful Easy Feeling," "Take It Easy" and "New Kid In Town," and the stinging, tightly synchronized guitar riffs of "One Of These Nights." Don Henley supplied the evening's most passionate lead vocals, on songs like "Wasted Time" and "Hole In the World," though he seemed to run out of vocal steam on "Hotel California," and rarely opted for more than simple time-keeping in his drumming. The band seemed to pick up energy whenever he left the kit to come out front and sing, or traded places with percussionist Scott Crago.
Crago was one of eight versatile musicians who joined the current Eagles quartet, comprised of Henley, singer-guitarists Glenn Frey and Joe Walsh, and bassist Timothy B. Schmit. The backing musicians helped give many songs a distinctive sound: Keyboardist Michael Thompson, for instance, added accordion to "Tequila Sunrise," while Al Garth, who played saxophone for much of the night, switched to violin for "Wasted Time" and other songs.
Walsh, as usual, added some loose rock 'n' roll spirit to the mix, leading the band through jittery numbers like "Funk #49" and "Walk Away" (both originally recorded with his pre-Eagles band, The James Gang), and adding explosive guitar solos to numbers like "Life In the Fast Lane" and Frey's "You Belong to the City." He and guitarist Steuart Smith took most of the solos throughout the show, and complemented each other nicely. Smith is a tasteful virtuoso, but Walsh's more rough-hewn style made for some of the show's most memorable moments.
Walsh was also responsible for one of the show's few visual gimmicks, but it was a lame one. He wore a "Helmet Cam" during "Life's Been Good"; as he soloed, the video screens showed the audience from his point of view.
Perhaps the most puzzling thing about the show was the band's emphasis on non-Eagles material. Half of the songs in the second set, for instance, did not originate as Eagles songs, and rarely played to the band's strength: those magical harmony vocals.
The band made a few attempts to personalize the show. Walsh touched on his Montclair roots (he's a Montclair High School grad), and Frey discussed, early in the evening, the band's New Jersey history, dating back to the days when it would play at the Capitol Theatre in Passaic. "When we couldn't get arrested in Manhattan, we were selling out (Jersey City's) Roosevelt Stadium," he added.
Schmit later said he played the Capitol, too, as a member of Poco (before he was in The Eagles).
Band members made a few token attempts at social commentary. "Every time I look at the title of this song, I think of the national surplus," Frey said about "Already Gone." Henley dedicated "Dirty Laundry" to Rupert Murdoch.
Introducing the post-9/11 anthem, "Hole in the World," Henley mentioned that the band made a video for it, even though The Eagles are no longer considered likely candidates for MTV play. "Our belly buttons aren't pretty, we can't dance," he said. "All we can do is sing and play these instruments -- what a concept!"
Indeed, the band's straightforward stage set-up --Frey, Walsh, Schmit, Smith and sometimes Henley planted themselves at microphones spaced equally apart and at equal distances from the front of the stage, and rarely moved -- seemed to emphasis that "concept." When Walsh walked to the side of the stage during "All She Wants To Do Is Dance" and did a goofy little dance, it came as a shock, like a Frisbee game breaking out on the Senate floor.
AST RUTHERFORD, N.J., March 31 - Tickets to the Eagles' concert on Thursday night at Continental Airlines Arena read "Farewell 1," continuing a tour that started in 2003. On stage, Glenn Frey called the tour an "ongoing, never-ending odyssey."
But the concert itself, with a set largely unchanged over the last two years, suggested that in many ways the Eagles are already gone. Their perfectionism and craftsmanship were indisputable, but they worked more like an alliance than a band.
A farewell tour, no matter how prolonged, lets musicians sum up a career and add some final revisions to their legacy. The Eagles, who made their studio albums from 1971 to 1980 and have released a few new songs since their first reunion in 1994, aren't arguing with the pop charts.
The concert started with the implied self-congratulation of "The Long Run" and included nearly all the songs on "The Very Best of the Eagles" (Elektra), released in 2001. The Eagles have been working on a new album since at least 2001, but the newest song was "Hole in the World," from 2003.
As the band ran through its hits, down to copying the old guitar solos, it was easy to hear the fusion that made the Eagles unstoppable in the 1970's. Mr. Frey sang the easy-strumming, country-flavored songs that became cornerstones of modern Nashville country: songs like "Tequila Sunrise," "Peaceful Easy Feeling" and "Lyin' Eyes." Don Henley was rooted in rhythm-and-blues, from his unshowy, utilitarian drumming to his soul-style ballads like "Wasted Time."
Joe Walsh, who joined the band for the 1976 album "Hotel California," brought blues-rock assertiveness to songs like "Life in the Fast Lane," and Timothy Schmit, on bass, brought high harmonies and aching love songs like "I Can't Tell You Why." The band's close vocal harmonies merged the California heritage of the Beach Boys with 1970's rhythm-and-blues; "One of These Nights" from 1975, with its disco beat and falsetto harmonies, was just a step removed from the Bee Gees. In the lyrics, meanwhile, the Eagles let listeners share both troubled romance (with a series of cheating, gold-digging women) and the feeling of being a Hollywood insider.
Collaboration brought out the Eagles' best songs, like "Hotel California," with its tolling guitar arpeggios now played by Mr. Walsh and Steuart Smith (replacing one of the song's writers, Don Felder, who was dropped from the band before this tour). But fully a third of the three-hour concert was devoted to songs from members' careers before and after the Eagles disbanded in the early 1980's, as if the band had lost interest in its own lesser-known songs.
Band members put more spirit into their solo efforts, from Mr. Henley's "Boys of Summer" to Mr. Walsh's "Rocky Mountain Way." Mr. Walsh, the band's designated clown, was unleashed as a lead guitarist in the second set, and his skidding, twanging solos sometimes broke through the predictable arrangements. But for too much of the concert, the Eagles sounded like a studied tribute to the songs they once shared.
Link: New York Daily News - Entertainment - Jim Farber: Eagles can still soar.
Friday, April 1st, 2005
Reunion shows look back by definition, but not all nostalgia-tinged shows are created equal.
Some use the past as a jumping-off point. Others treat it as a fetish.
The Eagles' periodic reunion tours go for the latter strategy with a vengeance. Last night's version at the Continental Airlines Arena - part of the wittily named "The Farewell 1" tour - was no exception.
The show, which was the first of six area concerts, found the Eagles re-creating their '70s hits, and their later solo smashes, with the attention of persnickety craftsmen.
Every sound and syllable beloved by fans was dusted off and buffed up, with each melody and harmony carefully rendered. For fans eager to relay back to an earlier age, this had to be manna from heaven. But the perfection of the evening also underscored what has always tempered the Eagles' brilliance.
Since the start, there has been an almost clinical quality to the band's harmonies. There's also a lingering macho smugness to some of their lyrics.
No one, however, could miss the pop appeal of their hits. Last night, the band mined a catalogue that could work as a virtual how-to guide for expert melody making.
Kicking off with "The Long Run," they moved adeptly from country-rock ballads to R&B-lined rockers. Glenn Frey surfed through songs like the quintessentially mellow "Peaceful Easy Feeling" or the hummable "Lyin' Eyes." The gruffer Don Henley nailed the grandeur of "Wasted Time" and the ache of "Boys of Summer." In a song like "One of These Nights," the band so perfectly re-created every sound, from the questioning tug of the bass line to the lilt of the guitar solos, it could have been a jukebox playing.
Of course, that approach has its downside. For all their time-honored pleasures, the Eagles' work has a slickness that puts a caveat on its classic status. But if last night's performance wasn't exactly the most surprising affair, it gave fans who craved the musical equivalent of comfort food a feast.
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