Learning to like The Eagles

When I was in high school during the ‘70s, I couldn't stand the Eagles, as they did not meet my hard-rock standard.

I was into bands like Aerosmith, Zeppelin, The Stones, The Who, Lynyrd Skynyrd ...okay, Kansas. The Eagles were far too middle of the road and radio was far too in love with cringe-worthy songs like "New Kid in Town" and even "Life in the Fast Lane."

Somewhere along the line, though, maybe after my heavy punk phase, I embraced the take-it-easy country-rock style of the Eagles, just as I did with the jazzy Steely Dan.

But passions still seem to go both ways with the Eagles. Reading what younger people write about them on message boards, they seem to be held up as the standard-bearer of boomer corporate rock bands.

That's partly why I cracked up Friday night when Joe Walsh introduced "Life's Been Good," saying, "I want to apologize to all the young people for this next song, 'cause your parents played it all while you were growing up."

It was a slight acknowledgement of how the Eagles are perceived by younger generations: "That's your parents' music."

Still, for anyone in the audience Friday night, it would be hard to deny the beauty of the harmonies, the outstanding musicianship, the depth of hits and the wackiness factor that Walsh brings to the proceedings.

They even displayed a pretty good sense of humor about themselves, between Glenn Frey calling it the "assisted living tour" and the video during "Dirty Laundry" where they showed mock headlines like "Monkey sues Joe Walsh" and Time magazine cover that said "Don Henley solves global warming."

They're not the most exciting of the old bands, but I'm still glad the Eagles haven't checked out.

Here's what they played:

 1. How Long

2. Busy Being Fabulous

3. I Don't Want to Hear Anymore

4. Guilty of the Crime

5. Hotel California

6. Peaceful Easy feeling

7. One of These Nights

8. Lyin' Eyes

9. Boys of Summer

10. In the City

11. The Long Run

12. Life's Been Good

13. Dirty Laundry

14. Funk 49

15. Heartache Tonight

16. Life in the Fast Lane

1st encore

17. Rocky Mountain Way

18. All She ants To Do Is Dance

2nd encore

19. Take It Easy

20. Desperado

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