Customer Reviews

Eagles Live

5 star:		(21)
4 star:		(10)
3 star:		(4)
2 star:		(4)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

"Eagles Live" is my favorite live album. The songs have excellent edits between different years of performances. I have heard of the studio enhancing rumors too, and they are obvious in a few places. Great sound quality all around, and excellent performing! My only regret is the playlist. The Joe Walsh songs came out great but seem out of place for this collection. And why did they include the "Doolin-Dalton Reprise II?"(obviously a Bill Szymczyk studio creation) So many other classic tunes should have been substituted in place of LBG, ANL, and Doolin Dalton... Perhaps there were no pristine multitrack recordings fit enough to work into the collection. The total playing time is about 77 minutes-- so much more could have been inserted here. Hopefully someday the album will be remastered with extra tracks.

I am writing again about Eagles Live in reference to the 1999 Ted Jensen remastered release. My original Eagles Live discs are played out by scratches, so last week I got the only available release-- the one remastered in 1999. I was pleased with the results of remixing, such as the whole first cd not fading out at all in between songs! Nonetheless, I found two bad places in the mix that are mastering defects. I asked people on alt.music.eagles to listen at certain points as well and they all heard the flaws. There is a blip at the end of "New Kid In Town," right around 4:54. Another bad glitch occurs right as Glenn starts talking before "Seven Bridges Road" on the second disc. How could these have been overlooked??? I was also disappointed to see that the album is split into two cds again. The entire album could have fit on one cd, lowering the cost of the album. The cd booklet and album covers are identical to the original 1989 release with the exception of including the month and date of remastering. These flaws are so nasty they need to do a recall or something! Don't let it hinder you from buying this album-- the performances are fantastic. And for a little piece of trivia, the tapes used for Eagles Live were shipped back and forth between Miami and L.A. studios because Glenn wanted to work on his parts away from the rest of the guys in FL with Bill Szymzyck. According to Bill Szymzyck, all of Henley's vocals are from the actual shows--no studio overdubs because of drum mic leakage. Most of the overdubbing involved 3 part harmonies and guitar parts. Hopefully the mastering flaws will be fixed so you can enjoy this album in its entirety...

Love them or hate them, the Eagles have had a huge impact on rock music. To paraphrase Ringo Starr, there are biggies and there are monsters. These guys were monsters in terms of sales, airplay and impact.

Frequently accused of being misogynistic (yep, some of their stuff could be seen that way)Henley & Frey are still two of the most talented songwriting duos in music. Henley has one of the most distinctive and rich voices in rock music while Frey is an underrated singer who can easily hold his own with Henley.

So how are the performances? This album (it should be noted that this had a lot of overdubbing in the studio as the band members are perfectionists)is pretty good as far as live albums go. In many respects this is no different than listening to their studio albums although some of the energy of the raw performances leak through. While they weren't noted for their spontanity in concert (their performances were always rooted in recreating the sound of the albums, the band does bring a harder edge to these performances. Joe Walsh acts as band clown on his contributions and still manages to get in some mean guitar licks (with Felder & Frey). Back up drummer Joe Vitale does a great job of helping to fill out Henley's performance.

The sound on this remastered edition is exceptional. Producer Bill Szymczyk and remaster engineer Ted Jenson (although the previous edition sounded terrific as well)do an incredible job. It would have been nice to have bonus tracks (perhaps a couple of unreleased performances) and better notes in the CD booklet (it would have been interesting to hear the band's thoughts on this album twenty years later).

Despite these minor drawbacks, Szymczyk is to be commended for getting the ball rolling with WEA to get these classic albums remastered. Regardless of the shortcomings (and there aren't many) of this reissue, the songs are the most important part. They still retain their vigor and power despite radio overexposure after all these years.

The Eagles put out some good albums before Hotel
California, and Hotel California was nearly a great record.
They followed Hotel California with the lethargic "The
Long Run" and this contractual fulfillment.

Four reasons to hate this album:

1) Dull as dust. No surprises, no significant changes to the
arrangements relative to the studio albums, no compelling
reason to listen to this.

2) The least live "live" album in history. A comparison of this
album with bootleg versions of the same shows demonstrates
just how overdub/rerecord crazy the Eagles went with this.
No warts, just airbrushed mediocrity.

3) Dull, unsurprising, uninteresting song selections, save
a modest Steve Young cover (good song, bland performance)

4) A rip off: This set runs less than 78 minutes and could
easily fit on one CD. Why is it on 2 CDs even after the
1999 remastering? Why, for the same reason that they are
still selling the chintzy short vinyl era greatest hits
album for full price: Money grab.

Skip this one.

dap

I recently purchased this recording without any preconceived ideas....I just saw it and bought it. I thought it was quite good; the standout are "Hotel California", "I Can't Tell You Why", "Seven Bridges", "Desperado", and of course "Life In The Fast Lane". The whole set is quite good - for a live set. I'm not sure what all the complaints regarding the remastering are all about. A live album is going to have flaws that's why they are "touched up" for listener appeal; there's no such thing as a flawless concert.

This set is, for me, a good introduction to the Eagles music. I found the two songs by presidential candidate Joe Walsh a pleasent surprise. Over all, this would make a good addition to anyones cd library.

This is one of the best records I have ever heard, and one of the very few, in my opinion, that truly deserves a top rating. This album is filled to the point of overflowing with some of the greatest songs the Eagles have made, among them such hits as "Hotel California", "New Kid in Town" and a tremendously powerful live version of "Take It To The Limit", which far surpasses the original album recording. You will not find one weak track on this album (and that's a rare thing), but you will find a lot of great guitar work and a wonderful mixture of quiet ballads and driving rock songs. The sound is also great for a live album (okay, it was doctored in a studio afterwards, and so what?) This is every bit as good as any "regular" greatest hits package, and better than some.

The Eagles' seventh album Eagles Live was released in November of 1980.
By 1980, The Eagles were going through a schizophrenic time. 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!

I'm a Eagles fan, and the songs on this album are the ones I'd pick to hear live. But they sound almost identical to the original recordings, possibly in part because of all the overdubbing that was done in the studio. To my mind, that defeats the purpose of a live album. Three stars for the great songs.

This is a decent live album of their heyday, but I have to admit the Live at Melbourne DVD is superior to it, and costs less.

Back when they put this out, it made sense that the 15 songs included were the most they could put out at the time, songs like "Hotel California" and "Life's Been Good" are long songs. However, 20 years later, having heard the bootlegs there's a lot of great songs they did live at the time missing.

Here's just a small list of the songs not on here that exist on bootlegs and I'm sure they have the masters:

Lyin Eyes, Witchy Woman, Tequila Sunrise, Already Gone, Peaceful Easy Feeling, One of These Nights, Best of My Love, In The City, Sad Cafe. Ol' 55. Those Shoes. Midnight Flyer. Doolin Dalton. James Dean. The Chuck Berry cover "Carol".

The Joe songs? Funk 49, Turn To Stone, Walk Away, Rocky Mountain Way.

It's a "good enough" collection of live songs, but it would be nice to hear some of these songs added in to make it an essential to have. A band known for excess fell short on this when it came time to put it out on CD.

Get this cd just for Desperado, it's sounds great. One of the better, actually the best cd I own.