From Hell to Eden and back: Welcome to the Eagles gig in California

Out on the road the other day I saw a Deadhead sticker on a Cadillac. Or did I? Must be the hallucination of jetlag eyes. Today it’s coffee and aborted cigarettes at Johnny Rockets, a taxi ride from Santa Monica Beach to down-town Los Angeles, burger and soda in a diner a table away from L.A.P.D. cops, and a 10-minute walk toward a theater in Chick Hearn Court with its shimmering lights up ahead in the distance. Such a lovely place, such a lovely… Please bear with the filched prose, but for a Filipino writer like me this is as Americana as it gets: going on a sort of road-and-air trip from New York to LA to watch a quintessential American band, past canyons and deserts, hearing Tom Waits’ Ol’ 55 on satellite radio along the way. Stars beginning to fade, when I leave the parade.

Welcome to an Eagles gig in California: some songs to remember, some songs to never forget.

MCA Music Philippines invited The Philippine STAR to watch an Eagles concert at Nokia Theater in Los Angeles, one of six dates at the swanky new theater (the same venue where Neil Young would play several nights later). Do I want to watch the Eagles, a label representative asked me. That was like asking a guy who grew up listening to bands like Led Zeppelin, Black Sabbath, Deep Purple, Queen, Pink Floyd, Yes, CSNY, the Stones, The Who and others that lorded it over the late ’60s and the early ’70s to grow his hair long again and not feel anachronistic about it, or offering him what Freddie Mercury sings about subliminally in Another One Bites the Dust if you spin the vinyl single backwards. (For some reason, all of those bands did dreadful, unspeakable things in the ’80s; and I had to ditch them when I got into jazz and punk.)

The guys from the Eagles lived through the ’70s by immersing themselves in decadent lifestyles, deranged relationships, degenerate associations, and — at the same time — damn fine music. Not bad for a band that started out backing Linda Ronstadt in Disneyland (remember Blue Bayou?) and ended up with the best-selling album in American pop-music history — “Their Greatest Hits 1971-1975.” And what a strange trip it has been, exactly the constellation of stories that Cameron Crowe reconstructs and retells so effectively. (I read somewhere that Billy Crudup’s Russell character in Almost Famous was inspired by the Eagles’ Glenn Frey and Gregg Allman, but the “I am a golden god” bit was purely Plant.)

I remember looking at the front cover of the “Hotel California” vinyl LP as a kid and trying to spot the silhouette of Anton Szandor LaVey, the founder of the Church of Satan, who allegedly was looking out from a Beverly Hills Hotel window on the album cover. Doing what, waiting for the pizza delivery boy? Songs from that ’76 LP deal with LA’s seamy underbelly where pink champagnes have gone stale and people can’t get beasts off their backs, and with strange inescapable places. (These days I don’t get the same mystified feeling whenever I stare at a folder of music downloads; oh well, different myths for different times.)

In retrospect, I am sure it was all bollocks. But as a young rock ’n’ roll fan those rumors (along with a line such as “We haven’t had the spirit here since 1969…” which reportedly refers to the holy spirit, the release of The Satanic Bible in the Year of the Dark Lord Nineteen-Sixty-Nine, and such) mythologized the band even more in my mind. Even if the late LaVey didn’t really think rock ’n’ roll is the devil’s music as reported in an old issue of Rolling Stone. (If he were around today he’d probably think it’s the Spice Girls reunion single, which is about as diabolical as any of Aleister Crowley’s incantations.)

And even if the guys from the Eagles purveyed mellow country-rock ditties in their “Desperado” phase and unplugged classics in their “Hell Freezes Over” phase, I’ve always associated them with that hedonistic-looking bunch of rock troubadours in a shadowy lobby of “Hotel California” with its long, twisted corridors; rock outlaws eternally nursing a hangover after one of those crazy nights out on the tiles along Sunset Strip, about to play a gig in the football field of the Last Resort with Tom Waits as the opening act; the Last Band Standing.

Back In The Fast Lane

After frozen hells, fake farewells and Felder lawsuits, the guys from the Eagles (Frey, singer-drummer Don Henley, singer-bassist Timothy B. Schmit and singer-guitarist Joe Walsh) are back in business. They are slated to play six shows in LA to promote their first full studio album in 28 years titled “Long Road Out of Eden,” a double CD that boasts 20 new songs.

In the US, Canada and Mexico, “Long Road Out Of Eden” is available exclusively through Wal-Mart, Sam’s Club, walmart.com, samsclub.com, and via the band’s Web site, www.eaglesband.com. According to MCA Music Philippines president Ricky Ilacad, the album is available for the price of a single CD in all record stores back home. The new tracks, he informs, bear the Eagles trademark “beautiful melodies and lush vocal harmonies.”

Inevitably, in a matter of days, “Long Road Out of Eden” would top the Billboard charts, debuting at No. 1 in the US, UK, Australia, The Netherlands, and other countries, and selling three million copies in its first week of release. Toppling Britney, would you believe?

Thus, as we (meaning MCA Music Phil. marketing director Wilson Cruz, 105.9 Underground Radio’s Ramon Jacinto Jr., Smart’s Lawrence Ferrer, and yours unruly) make our way into our nicely-upholstered seats for the penultimate gig at Nokia Theater, we notice how excited the concertgoers are: composed of people who were already teenagers during the heyday of the Laurel Canyon songwriters (Jackson Browne, Joni Mitchell, Henley & Frey, Graham Nash, Stephen Stills) and their children who probably dig today’s alt.country or folk-rock darlings such as Ryan Adams, Wilco, Damien Rice and maybe even Arcade Fire. Around 7,100 people are in attendance, one of the ushers tells me.

A dude with graying hair announces, “Does anybody have a spliff?”

Ah, I thought to myself, somebody wants to party like it’s 1979.

Heartache And Vine

“Good evening. We’re the Eagles, the band that time forgot,” jokes Glenn Frey by way of introducing a band that needs no further introductions. This gang is almost as universally known as the Rolling Stones. I recall what the always-quotable Keith Richards once said: “You’ve got the sun, you’ve got the moon, and you’ve got the Rolling Stones.” Well, we got the California stars and the Eagles, and we braced ourselves for a two-hour show.

A digression: Before that, the once-controversial Dixie Chicks opened the show. The cowgirls’ tunes, for some strange reason, reminded me of the songs of the Indigo Girls. Especially their cover of Landslide, sung originally by Stevie Nicks with Fleetwood Mac and mauled by Billy Corgan, the Smashing Pumpkin in a leather skirt. (Nicks, an elegantly wasted gypsy singer with a golden throat, in the ’70s, was Henley’s onetime girlfriend — what a weirdly wonderful decade.)

Dixie Chicks singer Natalie Maines did a lot of spiels. She said the Chicks celebrated Halloween early this year by throwing a party. Emily Robison on the banjo (who looked like Sarah Jessica Parker) dressed up as one of the characters in The Flintstones. And violinist Martie Maguire (who could pass for a Corr) came in as a “sexy Ringo.” Ooh.

“And I dressed up as Amy Winehouse,” chuckled Natalie, “after a trans-Atlantic flight — give or take a few pounds.”

Maybe Natalie should’ve dressed up as Pink instead. Before their last song, the singer said they’d love to stick around but they get paid per song. One guy got annoyed. “Why does she even say those things?” he blurted out, shaking his head. Big mouth strikes again. I’d rather listen to Winehouse whine.

Anyway, the cowgirls had their American Idol moment when they performed Not Ready To Make Nice. Lighters afire. Thunderous applause. Standing O. I stood also — albeit to urinate.

Back to the Eagles.

The guys open their set with How Long, the first single from the new album. Great theater acoustics, not as loud as I want it to be, but great acoustics nonetheless. The tune was written by J.D. Souther, an old Eagles (and James Taylor) collaborator. He co-wrote Best of My Love with Frey & Henley, among other tunes. Nice to hear Frey and Henley exchange verses in this particular song, which has an Already Gone feel to it.

Busy Being Fabulous and Paul Carrack’s I Don’t Want to Hear Anymore follow. Schmit does vocal chores on the latter. It is quite odd not to hear him sing in falsetto. I guess I’m just used to his Smokey Robinson impersonation in I Can’t Tell You Why. Why? I can’t tell you.

The irrepressible Joe Walsh sings Guilty of the Crime, a blues-funk number. I read in the LA Times how he told the crowd about his brand new teeth. I will always remember the former James Gang guitar player being introduced in the ’80 “Eagles Live” album as “The Next President of the United States — Mr. Joe Walsh.”

After the four new tracks, darkness rose. Then a lone trumpet played snippets from Rodrigo’s Concierto de Aranjuez (those evocative passages that both Miles Davis and Chick Corea recorded in one form or another). Well, this could only be the start of a Fellini-esque journey to the desert highway with cool wind and the warm smell of bolitas, er, colitas in the air.

It is weird to watch the highlight of the show at the beginning, but I am not complaining. No matter how many times you’ve heard this track — in bars and clubs from Tomas Morato to Tokyo to Cape Town, in slow-rock compilation tapes from Saudi, in jeepneys and jukeboxes, in Hell Freezes Over test DVDs in appliance stores — it still sends shivers down the spine. Same thing with Bohemian Rhapsody and Stairway to Heaven.

“Stab it with their steely knives but they just can’t kill the beast,” sings Henley with cinematic paranoia, as if he were narrating an episode of The Twilight Zone. Rod Serling on drums. “Steely knives” is a tip of the cap to Steely Dan, which name-checked the band in “The Royal Scam”: “Turn up the Eagles, the neighbors are listening.”

Henley bashes the drums with the aggression of a teenager. Did you know he played drums for the guys from Guns N’ Roses in their country-rock rendition of Patience at the American Music Awards? That was the time Steven Adler got fired from Guns, and before Matt Sorum came into the picture. In turn, Axl Rose even did backup vocal chores in Henley’s I Will Not Go Quietly off “The End of the Innocence” album. Henley said Axl’s squeals nearly blew up an amp.

Then come the dueling solos courtesy of Walsh and session-guitarist Steuart Smith, replacing Don Felder who was responsible for Hotel California’s “Mexican reggae matador” guitars on the album. Felder wrote the tune in ’75 in E minor with open chord voicings, but Henley changed the key to B minor, so out came the capos.

B minor as it may, watching Walsh with a black Stratocaster and Smith with a double-neck guitar (Gibson, I think) trade licks before going into the harmony parts is such a thrill. For some, I’m sure, a perfect time for either some air guitar or a spliff. Howard Moon in The Mighty Boosh plays an instrument called “the human face.” Well, Walsh could play it, too.

Peaceful Easy Feeling and One of These Nights follow. The latter is a song from what Henley jokingly considers their “satanic country-rock” period. It is actually the band’s tribute to rhythm & blues singles from Philly. Great vocal harmonies, great rhythm guitars, great meandering bass. “You got your demons and you got desires, but I got a few of my own.” The only things missing are former bassist Randy Meisner’s high-pitched vocals that Henley once said could only be heard by dogs.

Frey announces that they’re dedicating their fifth and sixth shows to the victims of the California forest fires. “We’re donating proceeds for every show to the firefighters of California.” Applause. Then he changes topic. “This next song is always dedicated to my first wife,” Frey says with a mischievous wink. “This is Lyin’ Eyes. Plaintiff!”

Henley then revisits one of his ’80s hits, The Boys of Summer, as Schmit picks up a fretless bass. (Later that night, Walsh would do Life’s Been Good, another Eagle-flies-alone record.) As Henley sings about baseball players, sun visors, and Wayfarers — “Don’t look back, you can never look back…” — I start fearing Frey might dust off his own solo blockbuster hits: the god-awful You Belong to the City, The Heat is On, and The One You Love. The first reminds me of espadrilles and Don Johnson; the second, dance numbers on German Moreno’s ’80s show; and the last, saxophone breaks lamer than those in Careless Whisper. Good thing Glenn sticks with Eagles tunes.

In the City and The Long Run bring back more memories — albeit hazy and shady. The Long Run, which features those slide guitars that are supposed to work like horns, is about longevity, but ironically it was written during a time in the Eagles’ career where there was a lot of infighting and bickering. Just before the breakup in ’80 or, as Frey would say, the “14-year vacation.”

Walsh tinkers with a malfunctioning helmet cam in Life’s Been Good with its catchy faux-reggae beat and rich-rock-star lyrics. Henley wheels out Dirty Laundry, a tune about sleazy journalists. (By the way, the Eagles dislodged Britney Spears from the top of the charts, and we all know how TV, tabloids and websites love Britney’s dirty laundry. Crap is king, indeed.)

Walsh and company funk up the jam with Funk 49 which, despite the exhortations of one reporter in the LA Times, doesn’t sound to me at all like George Clinton’s Parliament-Funkadelic. Was she serious? The guys wrap up the set with Life in the Fast Lane and Heartache Tonight. Eagles lore has it that Frey got the phrase “life in the fast lane” from a drug dealer called “The Count.”

“This night will last forever, last all, last all summer long,” Frey sings in the latter. True, true.

Then the Eagles bow out with encores Desperado and Take it Easy. Henley is bathed in warm light as he sings the ballad that the Carpenters also recorded. Co-written by Frey and Jackson Browne, Take it Easy with its feel-good lyrics and melodies is a great way to cap an Eagles show. Just before everyone hits the road, as stars begin to fade.

The clamor, the clamor. The roadies take the stage. Lights on. The end. Walk out into the cold California night. Even if they didn’t perform my personal favorites The Last Resort, The Sad Café or their cover of Waits’ Ol’ 55, I still got high with the Eagles.

And without the aid of a spliff.

Special thanks to MCA Music Philippines’ Ricky Ilacad, Wilson Cruz and Grace Foronda.