The Eagles perform in Denver, Colo., in 2023.Handout
It was 11 p.m. and the last of four encore songs by the Eagles was still resonating in Toronto’s Scotiabank Arena. The long-running band left the stage with goodbye waves as fans quickly headed to the exits. Some people like to stay out late, some folks can’t hold out that long and some need to make the commuter train home to the suburbs on a Wednesday night.
The song was Heartache Tonight, about risks, romance and inevitabilities: “Somebody’s gonna hurt someone before the night is through.” The country-flavoured Rock & Roll Hall of Famers who began as Linda Ronstadt’s backing group and who released their self-titled debut album in 1972 are saying their “Long Goodbye,” a tour billed as the final one. It began in 2023 and it is likely to extend into 2025.
“We don’t know how long it’s going to be,” Don Henley admitted on stage.
Henley, the sandy-voiced, stern-faced soul singer and drummer, is the last remaining original member of the band. Two others (Randy Meisner, Glenn Frey) are dead; Bernie Leadon left early on. Long-timers Joe Walsh (guitar) and Timothy B. Schmit (bass) are still Eagles. Country artist Vince Gill and Frey’s son Deacon Frey have replaced the latter’s father.
“There’s been some changes in the band,” Henley said, “but the music remains the same.”
Almost exactly same. The Eagles aim to recreate their sonically smooth FM radio fare in person. Hit after hit was paraded, with high harmonies so tight and pristine as to recall an old advertisement from an analogue era: Is it live, or is it Memorex?
The set list reflected The Long Run band’s preoccupation with the road, starting with the bluegrassed Seven Bridges Road, presented with six musicians lined across the front of the stage. A united front, then, from a notoriously fractious – five Eagles and five limousines, back in the day – flock.
The road songs included the summer-breezin’ Take it Easy (”Don’t let the sound of your own wheels drive you crazy”) the lighter-weight Take It to the Limit (”Put me on a highway, show me a sign”) and the drama of Hotel California (”On a dark desert highway”). The main-set finale, Life in the Fast Lane, is not a road song but a metaphor and cautionary tale.
Glenn Frey, who died in 2016 at age 67, once described the Eagles as rock music’s Camaro, to his mind the top automobile of the 1970s and ‘80s. “And we always tried to improve the basic design,” he said.
The Eagles strove for perfection, as did their Southern California cohorts Steely Dan, who, on their 1976 song Everything You Did, sang “Turn up the Eagles, the neighbours are listening.” In response, the Eagles included the line “They stab it with their steely knives, but they just can’t kill the beast” on 1977′s Hotel California.
If he was listening, Steely Dan’s lone remaining co-founder Donald Fagen would have heard that classic song and that line night after night on the current tour, as the group is the Eagles opening act. Hours before the Toronto show, however, the venue announced on social media that Steely Dan would not be performing “due to personal reasons within the band.”
Canadian rocker Tom Cochrane, who subbed in on short notice for Steely Dan, told the audience that his heart went out to Fagen and his family. Promoter Live Nation did not provide any further details. Fagen, 76, was hospitalized last fall because of an undisclosed illness, causing Steely Dan to miss multiple tour shows.
Some Steely Dan fans were crushed by the news that the group would not perform. One of them said on the social media platform X that they had travelled from the east coast just to see them. Another, Toronto’s Quinn Henderson, told The Globe and Mail he was “kind of bummed.”
No refunds as a result of the lineup change were offered.
“It’s really unfortunate,” David Marskell, CEO of TheMuseum in Kitchener, Ont., said before the concert. “The Eagles are great, but I was totally going to see Steely Dan. They’ve always been my favourite band.”
Eagles’ fans got their money’s worth, particularly when singer/guitarist/ loveable goofball Walsh took over. A full-blown rock concert erupted amidst the otherwise more laid-back affair when he presented his riff-heavy James Gang classic Funk #49. He encouraged audience participation during Life’s Been Good, a charismatic advertisement for an enviable lifestyle: “I live in hotels, tear out the walls; I have accountants pay for it all.”
Walsh’s Rocky Mountain Way was followed by the Eagles’ sombre Desperado, the evening’s penultimate number, sung by Henley. The ballad suggests rock ‘n’ rollers as renegades. “I feel like I’m breaking a law all the time,” co-writer Frey once explained. “What we live and what we do is kind of a fantasy.”
Their fantasy is our escapism. Henley told the crowd as much: “Our mission is to give you a two-hour vacation from all the madness and chaos in the world.” Concert tickets aren’t cheap, but neither is a rock star’s lifestyle. The bargain is fair. Thanks for the ride, Eagles.
Brad Wheeler