Concert Review: The Eagles in Louisville

Eagles
10/16/10 – K.F.C. Yum Center, Louisville, KY

What it was, was the Eagles. I can almost hear Andy Griffith say it, as I type it. Harkening back to “What it Was, Was Football” where with childlike innocence Griffith described what he was seeing unfold on the field in front of him. That’s kind of what it’s like describing the Eagles’ performance at the K.F.C. Yum Center last night – there’s naïve amazement in observing something so simple and yet so astonishing.

And if the Eagles know anything it’s what their audience wants from a show. They want hits. They want impeccable sound. And they want the band to be flawless. All of which they deliver – night after night after night. High energy and theatrics seem like the devices of lesser-bands to these guys. And I’m fairly certain that this band hasn’t hit a wrong note onstage since 1973 (believe me, I was there and it wasn’t pretty). When you’re that technically proficient – everything else on the stage seem extraneous.

Needless to say, their stage show at the opening of K.F.C. Yum Center was minimal. Lights and a screen was all they needed to appease the packed house from beginning to end.

They opened the 3+ hour show with the acapella intro to their classic “7 Bridges Road”. After that they dedicated the first fifteen to twenty minutes of both the nigtht’s sets to new material off their latest album “Long Road Out of Eden”. Once they got past the transitory “new material” that’s when things got real…real classic rock, that is.

There was hardly a song from the band’s two top selling Greatest Hits albums that didn’t get played. The setlist was endless and you can probably guess what it included – “Lyin’ Eyes”, “Hotel California”, “Love Will Keep Us Alive”, “Heartache Tonight”, “Take It Easy”, “Desperado”, etc., etc., etc. While you’re hardly surprised by what they play these days, it is hard believe unless you see it for yourself, exactly how perfectly the four voices of Don Henley, Glenn Frey, Timothy B. Schmit, and Joe Walsh have held up over all these years. Logic and reason would dictate that after this many decades on the road, they shouldn’t sound nearly as good as they do.

There was something beautifully poetic as the entire house, packed shoulder-to-shoulder from floor to rafters, collectively offered their voices as back-up on the refrain to “Take It to the Limit”. A breath taking moment that ceremoniously broke the proverbial champagne bottle against the hull of our new arena.

The band seemed most energized when tearing through the members’ pre-and-post Eagles catalogs. Henley meandered around solo hits like: “Boys of Summer”, “Dirty Laundry”, and “All She Wants to do is Dance”. While Walsh snuck up late in the show and stole the whole damn thing by tearing through his post-Eagles hits like “Rocky Mountain Way” and “Life’s Been Good” – as well as classics from his pre-Eagles, James Gang days like “Walk Away” and “Funk #49”.

Clearly the audience was doe-eyed and high on finally being inside the newest addition to Louisville’s skyline – which seemed to leave them a little A.D.D. much of the time. If the band wasn’t onstage (or was playing new material) many members of the crowd were milling around, gawking at the city’s new toy. Overall for the first event in the venue, it ran smoothly, staff was courteous, and they only had the most minimal of problems getting people in-and-out of the place.

Now onto the next show…as we eagerly anticipate hometown rockers My Morning Jacket coming through to rip shit up. –Brent Owen