Audio CD review:
Eagles - Eagles Live

Eagles - Eagles Live

Band: Eagles Title: Eagles Live Rating: Release Date: 03 October, 1989 Media: Audio CD Tracks: 1: Hotel California 2: Heartache Tonight 3: I Can't Tell You Why 4: The Long Run 5: New Kid In Town 6: Life's Been Good 7: Seven Bridges Road 8: Wasted Time 9: Take It To The Limit 10: Doolin-Dalton (Reprise II) 11: Desperado 12: Saturday Night 13: All Night Long 14: Life In The Fast Lane 15: Take It Easy

Customer Reviews The first live effort from The Eagles over 25 years later By 1980, The Eagles were going through a schizophrenic time. The Eagles' seventh album Eagles Live was released in November of 1980. The band had another chart-topping album out of The Long Run but inner tensions between drummer Don Henley and guitarist Glenn Frey reached fever pitch. The strains of keeping up with success were taking a toll on messieurs Henley, Frey, Don Felder, Joe Walsh and Timothy B Schmit. Before splitting up, the band decided to release a live album recorded from its 1979/80 Long Run Tour with some tracks recorded from the pre-release tour in support of Hotel California from November, 1976. The 1980 portions consists of spirited versions of "Hotel California" which is arguably better than its studio counterpart with Don Felder's excellent Gibson double neck guitar and Joe Walsh's Fender Telecaster work, a rocking "Heartache Tonight", a soulful "I Can't Tell You Why", a soul-tinged "The Long Run" featuring some excellent alto sax work from Phil Kenzie (whom played on Al Stewart's Year of the Cat and Time Passages albums), a laid-back unplugged "Saturday Night', a stellar "Life in the Fast Lane" and the closing extended rocking "Take it Easy" which is better than its studio counterpart with some excellent guitar work from Walsh at the end. The 1980 portion also included the band's take on two of Walsh's solo tracks "Life's Been Good" (arguably better than the original) and the then new track "All Night Long" which buried the sterile sounding version on the Urban Cowboy Soundtrack. Lastly, it featured the acoustic "Seven Bridges Road" which was a country number the band would play in rehearsal (see the 1977 Hotel California concert film for proof) and would be the band's last hit for 14 years. The songs recorded from 1976 featured "New Kid In Town" and "Wasted Time" which were at the time the performances were recorded unreleased, an unEarthly version of "Take It To The Limit" with original bass player Randy Meisner hitting an A flat to F Sharp near the end and given a STANDING OVATION for it. Lastly, "Doolin-Dalton Reprise II" was an orchestral interlude to "Desperado" which was a good version. Eagles Live upon release hit #7 on the album charts and quickly hit Platinum status. Millions have been sold since then (I helped the cause when I was 8 when my folks got me this on cassette as a Christmas present and then on CD and now the remastered CD). Recommended!. Don't Over-Pay for this Piece of Junk! This is the original version from way back in 1989. The Eagles Live cd is and always has been a Complete Rip-Off! Warner Brothers has been raking it in on the Eagles catalog for decades and has only continued the tradition with the remasters (see my review of Hotel California). They did not have 80 minute cd's back then, only 74 minute discs. That I understand , but this has also been remastered and released AGAIN on 2 discs! There is absolutely NO EXCUSE for this to have been released on 2 compact discs except that it allows Warner Brothers to demand a higher 2 cd price! I vowed to NEVER buy this release, even though I own all the other standard Eagles remasters. They do sound much better, so it is worth it to me. But, you get NOTHING NEW. Same ol' booklets, same standard gray jewel cases, etc. HERE's The GOOD NEWS - I just bought this at a local SAM's Club for only. . . $12. 88. I could not believe the price. And, it is the newer remastered version in a standard double slim jewel case. It says right on the back, "remastered by so and so at Sterling Sound 1999". I do hope that sometime in the near future, Rhino records or Universal Chronicals will put out a "Deluxe Edition" of this release with more tracks from that era and fill up those 2 compact discs. Until then. Partially Live However I cannot recommend it and hence it only gets 2 stars. This is a fine recording of a great band. The reason for this is that you might have thought that with an album cover which says EAGLES LIVE this would actually be a live a album. But no its not, in fact if you read the credits you'll find that there are overdubs added. So it should be called EAGLES LIVE (EXCEPT FOR THE OVERDUBS WHICH WE ADDED AFTER THE CONCERTS). Now if they called it that I probably would have given it 4 stars. Shame, because the recordings are good, but if I wanted a studio quality recording, I'd have bought the original studio albums. Live is live, it can't be almost live unless its advertised as such! . . You can see a complete list of all Eagles discography, or go back to the Eagles tabs