Today I rise to admit proudly that I am a huge [lastfm link_type="artist_info"]Eagles[/lastfm] fan, and that I always have been, ever since “Take it Easy” 39 years ago this summer. But man, those guys could be jerks.
The late ’70s had not been a happy time for the Eagles — The Long Run, released late in 1979, had required 18 months and five studios to make amid personal conflicts among the members. On July 31, 1980, the band played a show in Long Beach, California where simmering animosity between [lastfm link_type="artist_info"]Glenn Frey[/lastfm] and guitarist [lastfm link_type="artist_info"]Don Felder[/lastfm] finally exploded.
Throughout the show, Frey taunted Felder, threatening to kick his ass. Sound technicians were forced to turn down Frey’s microphone when he wasn’t singing to keep the audience from hearing the threats. After the show ended and the band was exiting the stage down a stairwell, Frey rushed Felder, who picked up a guitar and began whirling it over his head. Frey began shouting at Felder, who smashed the guitar against a cement column. The rest of the band got into the act at that point, screaming and shouting at one another. It took a dozen roadies to break it up.
And that was pretty much the end of the Eagles. They owed their record company a live album, which was released that November, completed “courtesy of Federal Express,” as producer Bill Szymczyk put it. The acknowledgements on Eagles Live thanked five different lawyers. The liner notes said only, “Thank you and good night.”
The Eagles’ troubles may have been fueled by certain substances, although it also seems clear that the egos of Glenn Frey and [lastfm link_type="artist_info"]Don Henley[/lastfm] were as big as all outdoors, and the likelihood of ongoing peaceful coexistence in the same band would have been slim if each were sober as a judge. Cleaning up undoubtedly helped spark their 1994 reunion. The wisdom that comes with age couldn’t hurt. But the record remains: one of the most popular bands of the 1970s did not go gracefully — they went out in a blaze of petulant diva behavior that’s hard for a fan to forget.
Here’s some vintage video of the Eagles performing “Take It Easy” with [lastfm link_type="artist_info"]Linda Ronstadt[/lastfm] and [lastfm link_type="artist_info"]Jackson Browne[/lastfm] from an April 1974 edition of Don Kirshner’s Rock Concert that featured all of them performing together and separately. This is great stuff.
