Review: The Eagles play Brisbane Entertainment Centre, March 10, 2015
REVIEW: The Eagles’ retrospective night out in Brisbane was old-school in more ways than one.
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YOU might have paid $1000 for your front-row seat, but The Eagles still want you to keep your phone in your pocket and not snap a souvenir shot.
The American country rock legends returned to the Brisbane Entertainment Centre last night, and while the long roll call of hits remains the same, this time the band requested that fans switch off their phones and refrain from taking photos, filming or sending texts.
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The band’s Don Henley says they want the audience to experience the show rather than sharing it on low-quality video captured on their phones.
The older demographic at an Eagles show is happy to comply — past a certain age, a night without a phone feels like a holiday — and it’s quite an old-school experience to look down on a sold-out crowd and not see glowing screens. I didn’t see one phone come out all night.
This tour is billed as The History of The Eagles, and the night takes the form of a chronological narrative with Henley and Glenn Frey explaining the band’s early years.
They are soon joined by band co-founder Bernie Leadon, who has been welcomed back into the fold in the past year.
The first set of the two-act show concentrates on the band’s country rock phase and classics like Best of My Love and Lyin’ Eyes.
It’s all about a peaceful, easy feeling with plenty of space for their trademark harmonies to soar.
After the break guitarist Joe Walsh gets his chance to shine and inject some fun into the proceedings with Life’s Been Good before the inevitable encores.
The Eagles have copped some flak on this tour for their phone ban, but they are not alone in trying to cut out the technological intrusion, with younger artists from Jack White to Bjork trying to stop the practice.
The narrative treatment here is overdone: When you have as many slow songs as The Eagles, you don’t need to put any more brakes on.
But with another sold-out show at the venue again tonight, the fans show no sign of hit fatigue.
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