Eagles New Stuff Doesn't Soar Like the Hits

New Era
Published
ByJOHN DUFFY, Correspondent

It's a joke that's been around at least as long as classic rock groups from the '60s and '70s have been reuniting. When the singer says "here's a song from our new album," he or she might as well say "everybody go and get a beer now…."

So for a band like the Eagles to start each of their two sets with no less than four new songs from last year's "Long Road Out of Eden" would seem like a colossally bad move. Knowing everything we do about Glenn Frey and Don Henley, it also might seem a brilliant tactical maneuver.

Interspersed between better-loved hits, the new tunes would surely suffer by comparison. And an audience not itching for the next old classic might be more likely to listen more intently to the new stuff that plays along with it.

About that new stuff: It's not nearly as good as "The Long Run," the group's last studio album from 1979, but that's so long ago it's like comparing Ataris to iPods.

When the band took the stage just before 8:30 Sunday night at the Giant Center, all of them wearing nicely cut black suits like a corporate board, it seemed the audience was unprepared for a rock and roll show. Nobody stood up for the first 20 minutes.

Workmanlike songs such as "How Long," and "Busy Being Fabulous" sound more like Rascal Flatts than the Eagles, but are certainly better than the stuff tacked onto "Hell Freezes Over," their 1994 reunion disc.

But it was, oddly enough, the classic material that sounded weak at first. "Hotel California," which used to open the group's shows on a dramatic note, sounded thin and forced.

Though a flamenco trumpet intro from one of the group's four back-up horn players established a sense of drama, it was robbed of its tension by the group's decision to lower the song's key over the years for singer Don Henley.

Glenn Frey's "Peaceful Easy Feeling" perhaps should have been lowered. As with almost all the songs Sunday night, the harmony vocals from everyone soared, but Frey seemed to struggle with what is a fairly relaxed melody.

Bassist Timothy B. Schmit, still the best singer in the group, turned in a seductive "I Can't Tell You Why," with extra sexiness layered on by support guitarist Stuart Smith's buttery R&B stylings.

But it was not until the spooky middle-eight of Henley's solo hit "Boys of Summer" that the band found its groove and was able to keep it, playing in front of black and white dreamlike images similar to the original groundbreaking music video.

Following quickly on its heels was Joe Walsh's "In The City," which let the singer/guitarist come alive for essentially the first time of the night. With added horns, searing slide and an extended ending, the song pushed the set to new heights.

Consequently, "The Long Run" was raised as well. Following a brief intermission, the group took to the stools for an acoustic set of new (and newer) songs: "No More Walks in the Woods," a predictably heavy-handed environmental statement from the pen of Henley that proved the four men could still harmonize flawlessly together; "Waiting in the Weeds," a notably better tune from Henley, comparing a dying romance to a dying town; Frey's forgettable "No More Cloudy Days," and Schmit's schmaltzy "Love Will Keep us Alive."

Then Frey nearly destroyed "Take it to the Limit." Originally sung by the soulful Randy Meisner, who exited the group in 1976, it was the only song of the night not originally sung by one of the four men on stage.

Henley's overwrought "Long Road Out of Eden," taking on the war in Iraq, economic uncertainty at home, and corporate greed — remember this is the band that made a deal to sell its disc exclusively at Wal-Mart to secure a better royalty deal — nearly stopped the show dead in its tracks.

Not satisfied, Frey's "Somebody" tried to do the same, but was rescued by some tasteful slide, again from Walsh, who brought things back down to earth with James Gang oldies "Walk Away" and "Funk No. 49," as well as his ode to the rock and roll lifestyle, "Life's Been Good."

As things began to work toward a close, the band pulled out all the stops for Henley's funky "Dirty Laundry," "Life in the Fast Lane," and "Heartache Tonight," all enhanced by horns and the dueling lead guitars of Walsh and Stuart.

Nine new songs, despite the fact that they were all spot-on vocally, is still a heavyweight. Coupled with Walsh's three solo selections and the same from Henley meant there was no room for non-hit fan favorites like "Ol '55," "Victim of Love," "Pretty Maids all in a Row," "Wasted Time," or even "Best of My Love."Encores "Take it Easy" and "Desperado" reached back to the group's country-rock beginnings.

Couldn't have made room for Schmit to do one of his old Poco tunes? Then of course we might have had to sit through "The Heat is On" from Frey.

If this is to be the last Eagles tour, as Frey has sometimes intimated from stage in between his disc jockey-like banter, the effort to prove their current music can stand next to their classic hits is a bold move. It didn't quite work Sunday night.