Who knew a little ditty about standing on the corner in a small Arizona town would lead to this.<\/p>\n
The Eagles are California’s Beatles.\u00c2\u00a0 And maybe the whole country’s.\u00c2\u00a0 They’re not flashy like Michael Jackson or the Stones, they’re not trying to impress you, rather they’re PLAYING FOR YOU!<\/p>\n
Going to the gig today is a chore.\u00c2\u00a0 Oh, not for the millions of paying customers, but for you and me.\u00c2\u00a0 The professionals.\u00c2\u00a0 It’s a hassle.\u00c2\u00a0 The parking, the rough treatment by security guards and the music.\u00c2\u00a0 That’s what’s worst about today’s gigs, the music.<\/p>\n
Oh, don’t tell me about this band and that.\u00c2\u00a0 Who’s putting up good numbers.\u00c2\u00a0 I ask you, when was the last time you had butterflies in your stomach, found that you couldn’t speak because you were in such heavy anticipation?\u00c2\u00a0 I didn’t even feel this way for David Bowie, and I was inches away.\u00c2\u00a0 But as I arrived at the Santa Barbara County Bowl, something inside me changed.\u00c2\u00a0 I became the person I was in the seventies.\u00c2\u00a0 Who still believed.<\/p>\n
I don’t know how the band decided to tour California only.\u00c2\u00a0 This isn’t how the superstars usually do it.\u00c2\u00a0 Rather, Michael Cohl guarantees them a pile of money and they play every nook and cranny the world over for eighteen months straight, making his money back.\u00c2\u00a0 Whereas the Eagles seem to tour with no rhyme or reason.\u00c2\u00a0 Now and again.\u00c2\u00a0 You never pass because they just hit your town the year before, it’s been a while, you still want to go.\u00c2\u00a0 Just check the grosses if you doubt me.<\/p>\n
And they’re working their way down the state.\u00c2\u00a0 From Lake Tahoe to Los Angeles.\u00c2\u00a0 And last night they were in the storied monied enclave of SB.<\/p>\n
The Santa Barbara County Bowl isn’t the kind of place superstar bands normally appear.\u00c2\u00a0 It only holds 4,562 people.\u00c2\u00a0 It’s not a big payday.\u00c2\u00a0 And, it’s not prepared for gods.\u00c2\u00a0 There’s not enough infrastructure.\u00c2\u00a0 Which is why you have to see gods if they deign to play there.<\/p>\n
The evening has to start early.\u00c2\u00a0 Before the sun goes down.\u00c2\u00a0 At 7 p.m., anathema to rock and roll.\u00c2\u00a0 There’s no mystery.\u00c2\u00a0 But when the band strode onto the stage and Glenn Frey strummed that acoustic guitar and went into their first hit…I’m tingling just thinking about it.<\/p>\n
Well I’m running down the road trying to loosen my load This is what Jimmy Buffett is selling but with better material.\u00c2\u00a0 It’s our best selves.\u00c2\u00a0 It’s our optimistic selves.<\/p>\n I’d like to tell you it was nostalgia.\u00c2\u00a0 Connecting with the past.\u00c2\u00a0 But that’s not the way it was at all.\u00c2\u00a0 Sure, it was a celebration, but it was the present.\u00c2\u00a0 Maybe because it was a band.\u00c2\u00a0 No dancers, no computers, just music.\u00c2\u00a0 Like they were born to do this.\u00c2\u00a0 And were on a great adventure.\u00c2\u00a0 That we were privileged to be along for the ride with.<\/p>\n Now I’ve got to confess we were sitting in the fifth row.<\/p>\n This is the kind of shit you live for.\u00c2\u00a0 So close you don’t even bother to watch the video monitors.\u00c2\u00a0 You can see it all up close and personal.<\/p>\n And what did we see?<\/p>\n From "Take It Easy" they went into "Witchy Woman".<\/p>\n The Eagles made records when albums still counted.\u00c2\u00a0 The biggest new act plays an album track and people head for the bathrooms.\u00c2\u00a0 But to hear that electric guitar flourish, the pounding beat, it took me right back.\u00c2\u00a0 Listening to the band’s debut day after day.<\/p>\n Raven hair and ruby lips This was no Don Henley extravaganza.\u00c2\u00a0 This was no solo show.\u00c2\u00a0 This was a BAND performance.\u00c2\u00a0 Don played drums almost the whole night.\u00c2\u00a0 He was pounding away singing into the mic.\u00c2\u00a0 This was rock and roll.<\/p>\n And it wasn’t only Don.\u00c2\u00a0 Turns out Glenn can play the guitar.\u00c2\u00a0 He whipped off some leads.\u00c2\u00a0 Watching him up front and center one could understand his reputation as the coolest guy in the room, the one who got all the girls.\u00c2\u00a0 He’s not the best-looking, but somehow he was BORN WITH IT, CHARISMA!\u00c2\u00a0 Standing there I was just mesmerized.\u00c2\u00a0 This was more important than anything.\u00c2\u00a0 This made you want to be a musician more than President.<\/p>\n And the material.<\/p>\n If only I could write one song as good.\u00c2\u00a0 Just one "Take It Easy".\u00c2\u00a0 You can live the rest of your life on one "Take It Easy".\u00c2\u00a0 But that was just one of the Eagles’ hits.<\/p>\n From "Witchy Woman" they went into "Peaceful Easy Feeling".\u00c2\u00a0 Oh, Glenn acknowledged they were all from the first album.\u00c2\u00a0 THE FIRST ALBUM!\u00c2\u00a0 This was a show for fans.\u00c2\u00a0 Then again, we’re ALL fans of the Eagles.<\/p>\n The show had two halves.\u00c2\u00a0 With a break for the aged band to pee, at least that’s what Don said.<\/p>\n The second half started off with an acoustics on stools segment.\u00c2\u00a0 And then they started to rock.<\/p>\n Stunningly, there were a ton of non-Eagles tunes in the second half.\u00c2\u00a0 Joe Walsh did not only "Life’s Been Good" but "Walk Away" and "Funk #49".\u00c2\u00a0 Looking like a hired player in the first half, he was truly a member of the band as the show wore on.\u00c2\u00a0 And Don sang "Sunset Grill" and "Dirty Laundry".\u00c2\u00a0 Hell, Joe even sang ROCKY MOUNTAIN WAY!<\/p>\n Oh, they didn’t play everything you wanted to hear, but everything you NEEDED to hear.\u00c2\u00a0 Don sang "Boys Of Summer".\u00c2\u00a0 Timothy B. did his two slow songs.<\/p>\n But the unexpected highlight was "Take It To The Limit".\u00c2\u00a0 Which Glenn dedicated to his wife, in reference to her use of her MasterCard.\u00c2\u00a0 THAT’S why you go to the show.\u00c2\u00a0 To become engaged with a track you never loved.\u00c2\u00a0 Oh, they emphasized the groove.\u00c2\u00a0 We were all standing there with them, punching our fists into the air, singing TAKE IT TO THE LIMIT ONE MORE TIME!<\/p>\n Oh, you could hear everybody singing on every song.<\/p>\n And when they came back out to do "Hotel California", a sea of cell phones appeared, playing the classic Golden State anthem for loved ones at home.<\/p>\n And then, the finale.\u00c2\u00a0 "Desperado".<\/p>\n The Eagles were together less than a decade.\u00c2\u00a0 About as long as the Beatles.\u00c2\u00a0 And their music endures in the same way.<\/p>\n If you don’t believe, if you’re wearing black, if you think an acoustic guitar is the key to bland pap, if your music must be noisy and edgy, you’d STILL\u00c2\u00a0 have been touched if you were there.<\/p>\n Because, the Eagles aren’t about image, but music.\u00c2\u00a0 And they wrote, and played, great music.<\/p>\n In this overwhelming media-centric world if it’s not on every Webpage, if there’s not news on Yahoo and gossip on eonline, it’s like it never happened.<\/p>\n But it does.<\/p>\n Ultimately, life is not about what transpires on the screen, whether it be a computer monitor, television or theatre, it’s what happens in real life.\u00c2\u00a0 What’s produced by real, living human beings.\u00c2\u00a0 That’s what touches us.\u00c2\u00a0 The evanescent efforts of our fellow man.\u00c2\u00a0 And you can be touched by the smile of a child, or a lick on an ice cream cone, but when you’re confronted with genius you feel so great to be alive, that you can experience this, that you can feel like this.<\/p>\n My generation is over fifty.\u00c2\u00a0 We’ve raped and pillaged, we’ve sold out.\u00c2\u00a0 And deep inside we know it.\u00c2\u00a0 We’re ashamed of it.\u00c2\u00a0 But, at the core, our sixties and seventies values remain.\u00c2\u00a0 We know it’s not about 4,000 square foot houses and giant SUVs.\u00c2\u00a0 We know that that’s all bullshit.\u00c2\u00a0 Because when we grew up, what mattered most was music.\u00c2\u00a0 And when we hear that music it reminds us of not only who we were, but who we are.<\/p>\n Just because a song is old that doesn’t mean it’s irrelevant.\u00c2\u00a0 Rather, a great song is like a well-worn pair of slippers.\u00c2\u00a0 Something that puts a smile on your face every time you encounter it, every time you try it on.<\/p>\n I know people followed the Dead all over the country.\u00c2\u00a0 Phish too.\u00c2\u00a0 But if you saw the Eagles last night you’d want to follow them.\u00c2\u00a0 You’d want to be at every show.\u00c2\u00a0 You’d want to be the person you were when you listened to them.\u00c2\u00a0 Someone with hope.<\/p>\n The system won’t allow the Eagles to have any more hits.\u00c2\u00a0 The system probably won’t allow a song like "Hotel California" to be ubiquitous once again.\u00c2\u00a0 There will probably never ever be a track we all know.<\/p>\n But it used to be different.\u00c2\u00a0 "Hotel California" was embedded in our DNA.\u00c2\u00a0 When we hear that intro, we’re reminded of not only one moment, but our whole lives.<\/p>\n On a dark desert highway I grew up on the east coast.<\/p>\n But I never belonged there.\u00c2\u00a0 I wasn’t impressed with the change of seasons, I wasn’t enamored of the lush greenery.\u00c2\u00a0 From the moment I turned on the TV, I realized I belonged in California.<\/p>\n I don’t know if you belong in California.<\/p>\n You belong in California if you’re not married to the past, if you’re willing to chuck everything you know, everything you invested in, for a world where experience is king.<\/p>\n If you’re willing to throw off all your precepts, that education gives you a leg up, that institutions have value, then you belong in California.<\/p>\n You start over in California.\u00c2\u00a0 You create a new you, the one you always wanted to be.\u00c2\u00a0 And no one gives you shit for it.\u00c2\u00a0 That’s why they came too.\u00c2\u00a0 To explore, to develop.<\/p>\n It’s an outside culture.\u00c2\u00a0 Even the schools aren’t enclosed, you go from class to class exposed to the elements.<\/p>\n And, at some point, cruising PCH, or up in the Sierras, with the top back, or the window down, the breeze in your hair, you realize you’re happy, that you’re living a dream.<\/p>\n But no dream is complete without music.<\/p>\n The Eagles are the soundtrack of the California dream.<\/p>\n If you can’t understand it, if you don’t believe it, then that probably proves you’re not a Californian.<\/p>\n But the Eagles are us.\u00c2\u00a0 The lightness and the darkness.\u00c2\u00a0 The focus on beauty.\u00c2\u00a0 Life in the fast lane.\u00c2\u00a0 Getting close to the flame and seeing if you can survive.<\/p>\n Last night I was close to the flame.\u00c2\u00a0 I still can’t completely talk about it.\u00c2\u00a0 To talk about it would ruin the memory.\u00c2\u00a0 It was like for two and a half hours, my life worked.\u00c2\u00a0 Everything I dedicated myself to, that I believed in, had value.<\/p>\n They can sing.\u00c2\u00a0 And they can play.<\/p>\n And they can write too.<\/p>\n This is a rare combination.<\/p>\n And that’s why they and their music live on when most acts from their era have day jobs.<\/p>\n People are paying a hundred bucks not to worship, not to adore, not to tell their friends, but to bask.\u00c2\u00a0 In their lives.\u00c2\u00a0 The lives they’ve created here in the Hotel California.<\/p>\n <\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Who knew a little ditty about standing on the corner in a small Arizona town would lead to this. The Eagles are California’s Beatles.\u00c2\u00a0 And maybe the whole country’s.\u00c2\u00a0 They’re not flashy like Michael Jackson or the Stones, they’re not trying to impress you, rather they’re PLAYING FOR YOU! 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I got seven women on my mind<\/em><\/p>\n
Sparks fly from her fingertips<\/em><\/p>\n
Cool wind in my hair
Warm smell of colitas
Rising up through the air
Up ahead in the distance
I saw a shimmering light
My head grew heavy, and my sight grew dim
I had to stop for the night<\/em><\/p>\n