Author: Urban Bolta
Location: Piazza Napoleone / Lucca / Italy
Concert date: 03.07.2014
Attendance: 10,000
Ticket price: 60€ (standing) / 108€ (seated, rear) / 158€ (seated, front)
The start of summer usually lures the biggest music stars in the world onto concert stages, and over the past decade that trend has only intensified: with sales of their music in a dizzying freefall, musicians began chasing their income through bigger and more frequent tours. In practice, that means June and July are jam-packed with big-name shows year after year, if not in Slovenia, then at least among our northern and western neighbors, where rock culture is far more developed than it is here.
The people of Tuscany, or more precisely of the little town of Lucca, are lucky in their own way. Every summer the town hosts a music festival that in recent years has welcomed eminent names like BB King, Eric Clapton, Roger Waters, David Bowie, Santana and plenty of others. This year’s edition has (and still will) once again draw some seriously interesting names to this idyllic historic town in July, and one of its highlights came right with the opening show, as the legendary American Eagles played Lucca.
Plenty of people (especially across the Atlantic) rank the Eagles at the very top of the biggest rock outfits ever. Lists like that are of course a matter of personal taste, but one thing is certain: the Eagles are among the biggest music names of their era, and on home soil they are still the best-selling American rock band of all time. Last year the Eagles released a documentary called »History of the Eagles« and hit the road on a massive world tour to go with it, one that, according to drummer Don Henley, might even be their last. Most of the tour dates are in their homeland, the rest on the British Isles, which left just five shows for continental Europe, the closest to us being Lucca, more than 500 kilometers away.
Lucca is a picturesque little town with a rich cultural heritage, and the whole of it is still ringed by a medieval defensive wall, so finding a thousand and one ways to kill a free day is no problem. During the afternoon a growing crowd started to gather around the center, in the narrow alleys and countless bars, until at half past seven in the evening the organizers opened up Piazza Napoleone, where everything was ready for the concert spectacle. Seats had been set up in front of the stage for those with the fattest wallets, while the rest of us squeezed in all around the square. As it turned out, my choice of a spot not far from the mixing desk was an excellent one, because I enjoyed good sound while the folks up front complained about a total collapse of the mix.
The Eagles showed themselves to be a wonderfully tight unit right from the opening number, How Long, whose heart lies in its harmonic vocal lines: four guitarists stepped up front for the chorus and, with the rest of the members backing them on vocals, hinted at how the evening would unfold. The members met in the early seventies, when they were the backing musicians for singer Linda Ronstadt. As seasoned studio players they never left anything to chance and always followed the ideal lines, and they still stick to the old recipes today. Of course, the Eagles are now in a position to hire studio musicians themselves, so no fewer than nine players on stage took care of the fullness of the sound curtain. Among them, on mandolin, keyboards and backing vocals, was former member Bernie Leadon, though apart from the classic foursome the rest of the crew didn’t get a proper introduction.
Despite the band’s mellower soft-rock heritage, the show was packed with dynamics, as the Eagles constantly pass the baton of leading man to one another on stage. In the first stretch of the concert most of the lead vocal duties fell on the shoulders of Glenn Frey, one of the two remaining original members; bassist Timothy B. Schmidt sang I Can’t Tell You Why in his trademark high register; and in the middle of the show the spotlights most often landed on 66-year-old Joe Walsh, who by the sound of it is the weakest vocalist of the classic lineup.
In their sound the Eagles blend the personal, confessional intimacy of the typical American school, rooted in rhythm & blues and above all country, which not even their megalomaniac success in the mid-seventies managed to shake. Every song they played brimmed with that unmistakable Eagles melodiousness, whether it was the country-sounding ballad Lyin’ Eyes, the bouncier rock’n’roll tune Heartache Tonight or the more experimental Those Shoes. In the latter, Joe Walsh made his name with the guitar talk box; he joined the Eagles in 1975, in the run-up to their most famous album, »Hotel California«. The softness of the sound, and especially of the vocal harmonies, was also nurtured by One of These Nights, where drummer Don Henley first stepped up as the singer, »the best American songwriter ever«, as Glenn Frey, not exactly modestly, whispered into our ears while introducing him by name. Despite their huge success and the financial pie that comes with it, Eagles shows remain free of spectacular stage sets and all the other clutter of the modern concert industry, so they seek contact with the audience exclusively through their primary artistic calling card: the music! After a trio of covers, or more precisely live renditions of two Walsh songs and one Henley song, the main set ended (far too soon!) with Life in the fast Line.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jAe9tQ5HD74
Although the crowd was mostly older concertgoers, even at the Eagles there was no avoiding the annoying glow of thousands of phone screens the moment the band crowned their return to the stage with the opening bars of the immortal rock classic Hotel California. It’s a hugely irritating factor at concerts in recent years, but with that magical melody and one of the most beautiful twin-guitar duels in rock history flowing from the fingers of the Walsh / Frey duo in the song’s outro, I managed to shunt it onto a side track. Another radio-friendly anthem, Take It Easy, followed, with the bluesy, fiery Rocky Mountain Way the Eagles dished out one last serving of proper rock’n’roll for the evening, and for the final unveiling of their performing brilliance they saved the atmospheric Desperado.
The Eagles’ show lasted just an hour and forty-five minutes. Sure, a whole host of acts (even ones half their age!) don’t reach even that kind of running time, but given the stories from recent tours, when they were known to serve up three-hour journeys through their own treasure trove of hits, a big lump was left in the throat after the final goodbye from the stage. Especially considering that the (farewell) tour, with the very name History of the Eagles, suggests its nights were supposed to carry the Eagles’ entire history to stages around the world. Even so, drawing the line under another big concert night brings an indescribable satisfaction, because this meeting with one of America’s greatest rock institutions ever was more than a performance triumph. Anyone who has never managed to experience the magic of the Eagles live may have just let their last chance slip through their fingers to meet these veterans of sonic perfectionism before (their) departure to the great beyond.
Photos: Laura Casotti (Lucca Summer festival)
Setlist
1. How Long
2. Take It to the Limit
3. Tequila Sunrise
4. I Can’t Tell You Why (bassist)
5. Lyin’ Eyes
6. Heartache Tonight
7. Those Shoes
8. In the City
9. One of These Nights
10. Life’s Been Good
11. Dirty Laundry
12. Funk #49
13. Life in the Fast Lane
———-
14. Hotel California
15. Take It Easy
16. Rocky Mountain Way
17. Desperado
Photo gallery
