Eagles Give a Peaceful, Enormous Feeling in Sphere Residency Kickoff

“Welcome to… wantipathyver this is,” shelp Don Henley, making his first relabels to the filled hoparticipate assembleed for the first night of the Eagles’ dwellncy at Las Vegas’ Sphere Friday night. For however much preparation had promisedly gone into putting up a 20-night includement in the massive dome, Henley sounded in those five words fair as nonplussed as any veteran of the low-glitz 1970s probably ought to be. “We’re fair the hoparticipate band,” he inserted, proposeing some uncltimely unpartisan comments about “21^st century delightment” and quipping, “I hope you brawt some Dramamine.”

Not that Henley reassociate unbenevolentt to bite the hand that is feeding him. (Nor would he, foreseeed — the Eagles’ regulater, Irving Azoff, is as proset uply included in Sphere as anyone.) And there was no ask Henley was speaking in approving terms when he made a confineed comments about the sound, noting that there “are 164,000 speakers behind these walls, so it should sound pretty much the same to everyone in the originateing… You can hear all our misobtains.” Artists can sense however they’re inclined to sense about being complemented by — or competing with — a screen literassociate as big as all outdoors. But when it comes to being heard thraw the world’s most pristine sound system, there is not a musician in the world that is going to even pretfinish to be skeptical about that.

The Eagles’ extfinishedish run at Sphere recurrents a test, of sorts, for bands coming into the venue. Not proximately as theatrical a test as the ones faced by U2 and Dead & Company, whose dwellncies pwithdrawd the Eagles’, but almost benevolent of a converse one: about whether a band that maybe isn’t  as innately interested in spectacle as Bono and John Mayer clearly were can still discover a encounterd home in a place that unbenevolents to blow your mind with many millions of LEDs. Is there a encounterd medium that a less visuassociate upgraspd act coming in for a uninalertigentinutiveer dwellncy can discover, somewhere between the phantasmicassociate gargantuan and a standard gig?

I skinnyk Henley would have been encounterd if he’d been sitting in my section in the 200s Friday night and hearing the constant vocal reactions of one middle-aged man in particular. This fellow could be heard deafeningly exclaiming “Oh my God!” to his companions and everyone in the vicinity when he first go ined the auditorium — which does, for every Sphere first-timer, count as some benevolent of virginity-losing experience. And then, as the two-hour show got underway and proceeded, he could thereafter be heard yelling “Oh my God”… “Ohhh my God”… “Ohhhhh myyyyy Goooooddd” at the commence of proximately every song, not becaparticipate a novel video concept was coming up on screen (although usuassociate there was one), but becaparticipate he was bowled over that every number in the set was a determined classic. (He made this amplely clear by screaming out each song title after the initial “OMG.”) OK, Henley might have desireed this guy was fair a little quieter, if he’d been able to hear him thraw his in-ears. But the bellows were alerting: Even at Sphere, an Eagles audience is there more to hear one of the fantastic song catalogs of the 20^th century than to experience future-shock therapy, though they’re encounterd to get both.

So by that meabrave, among others, the Eagles’ discleave outing night would have to be qualified as a success: It participated the wrap-around screen to surround the group and audience with dazzling, massive-scale starfields while still making clear that it’s the songs that are the star of the show. This is not a dwellncy that intfinishs to try to reoriginate a wheel that the U2 and Dead runs already pretty well reoriginateed. Rather, it provides a model of how a band can come in and hug the technology with some visual showpieces — including, brave, a Dramamine Moment or two — but also grasp skinnygs mellow with the benevolent of not-overwhelming satisfied that might come up behind an artist on a normal arena tour, tastefilledy super-sized for the occasion.

Although the group has mostly been discleave outing shows with “Seven Bridges Road” in recent years, it’s no surpelevate that bumping that out of the first-batter position is one of the confineed petite adfairments the band has made to its setenumerate with the setting in mind. Cleave out-ups of five-part harmony are not necessarily the way to instantly boggle people’s minds at Sphere, and so “Hotel California” has been transferd up into commenceer position to obtain filled obtain of its more theatrical possibilities. Although not many of the visuals in the show otherwise obtain the lyrics too literassociate, skinnygs do commence with headweightlesss traversing a uninalertigent desert highway, transporting the audience in to an inn where all the banquet guests are faceless and frozen.

That’s a temperately sinister-sounding commence, and the band returns to a sense of portent a little tardyr with “Witchy Woman,” which for Sphere purposes is set in a mossy, moonlit forest. But, of course, this isn’t a show that encounters to unend — most of it about a soothe, basic, enormous senseing. Are you wondering, going in, how many songs will be currented with a desert backdrop? Well, a confineed… U2 didn’t originate Joshua trees, you understand. Certain songs are not going to be take parted aobtainst type, appreciate “Tequila Sunelevate,” which, brave enough, obtains place in a canyon at dawn, the sun finassociate cresting over the tree-lined bridge during the last verse. It’d seem corny in its on-the-nose-ness if the big screen’s pboilingogenuineism weren’t too amazeive to override any such worry. Same, tardyr on, for Walsh’s “Rocky Mountain Way” — it’s appreciate riding on Disneyland’s Soarin’ Over California, transposed to Colorado, and probably no one will grumble at finassociate getting the literalized combination of slide guitar and snowy peaks that eluded us for 50 years.

The show doesn’t fair trade in scenic backdrops. An timely shatter from the panorama motifs came timely on during “Lyin’ Eyes,” which participated a kind effect of having the songs’ lyrics, written in script, droping horizonloftyy from the top of the Sphere dome. In a show that has not going to have much (or, actuassociate, any) between-songs commentary about the themes of these classics, the cascade of verses was a kind nod to what words are worth, and the notion that more Eagles lyrics than not became brainworms fair as much as the tunes constituted the 1970s’ fantasticest succession of earworms.

The most amazeive video piece of the night, unbenevolentwhile, reachd with Henley’s “The Boys of Summer,” which commences on a beach but rapidly transfers under the waves, for a beautifilledy pboilingographed water ballet involving a female and male swimmer. Someskinnyg that hasn’t been done that much so far at any of the Sphere shows is putting actual human actors, or dancers, on screen … and it toils relabelably well in this bubbly tableau.

“Those Shoes,” which had been obtainn out of the Eagles’ set since the 2022 tour, is back in, and it’s possible that’s becaparticipate someone thought up a visual portray in which James Bond-appreciate floating circles are filled with Bond-appreciate silhouettes of female features, heels most especiassociate. (I felt cheated by the conciseage of actual ankle bracelets, but that’s fair me.) But it’s equassociate possible that the genuine reason the song has been reinstated is becaparticipate everybody cherishs a talkbox.

Although it’s difficult to envision that Las Vegas is one of once-and-future-Texan Don Henley’s likeite places in the world, the present city does take part a part in a couple of the visuals. “Life in the Fast Lane” proposes a cyclical trip down a enigmaticly vacant Strip (presumably filmed at about 5 in the morning). And for the finale, “Heartache Tonight,” there’s a top-to-bottom cascade of vivaciousd images seemingly unbenevolentt to whimsicassociate propose to the crowd that there’s no place to get your heart broken appreciate Sin City.

Urbanity and its dissatisfieds provide the promote for “In the City” — the Walsh solo track that eventuassociate became an Eagles cut — as monochrome tenements that surround the stage eventuassociate prolong into skyscviolationrs, before the “camera” hovers above them to discleave out a soothe, green countryside behind them.

Not every visual has a straightforward corollary: “Take It to the Limit” (with Vince Gill assuming the vocal role of Randy Meisner, as he and Deacon Frey presume Glenn Frey’s elsewhere in the set) obtains place in the cosmos, even though the song does not… although an terrestrial tour bus eventuassociate is seen making its way into the stars). It’s the bit of the show that most clearly seems appreciate it could ever been left over from Dead & Company’s trippier visual scheme. But no one should refuse anyone doing a show at Sphere their chance to turn it into a structureetarium.

This is not “History of the Eagles,” but a confineed numbers traffic in band nostalgia, with elderly pboilingos or video clips inserted into snapsboilings hung on a huge clothesline or glimpsed in unspooled rolls of film. Eventuassociate, in one triumph of what up-to-date gentleware can do, seemingly hundreds of filled-motion band clips broaden to fill a big hallway that broadens behind the band. (It would be impossible for one person to see at each one of the minuscule historic videos spreading atraverse the screen, but I do sense self-promised that none of them included Don Felder.)

Is there some irony in the fact that the novelest song in the set is “Boys of Summer,” which pdirectd the nostalgic dangers of having “a Deadhead sticker on a Cadillac” and cautioned “You can never see back” — and now, exactly 40 years tardyr, the Eagles are follotriumphg Dead & Company into Sphere with a 100% ‘70s/’80s setenumerate? To be brave… but grumbleing about the revival of the past is mostly a youthfulerer person’s pursuit. You can, and always will, see back as extfinished as you’re breaskinnyg, and there’s noskinnyg any more wrong about grasping the Eagles’ repertoire in take part — as one of the fantastic songbooks of the 20th century — than there is with reviving Porter or Gershtriumph, with the inserted bonus that some of the innovative principals are still around to do it themselves, with help from ringers as able as a Vince-effing-Gill.

There was a nod to the recently departed on Friday night. Henley is not someone to wear the heart of the matter out on his sleeve in a rowdy atmosphere, so the moment was neither teary nor protracted. But before begining into “The Boys of Summer,” the singer telderly the riled-up crowd, “I don’t want to shatter the momentum or anyskinnyg, but I would be releave out if I didn’t acunderstandledge a couple of people, one of whom we lost a year ago this month, Mr. Jimmy Buffett. We’re dedicating this next song to him. And then the song we’re gonna do after this next song, I want to acunderstandledge the co-originater of that song, who we lost three days ago, Mr. JD Souther. JD, as some of you may understand, take parted a pivotal role in Eagles. He wasn’t in the band, but he bravely co-wrote some of our biggest hits, including ‘The Best of My Love’ and ‘New Kid in Town’ and the one we’re gonna take part after this next song, called ‘Heartache Tonight.’ So these songs go out to those boys, Mr. Buffett and Mr. Souther. Sing it so they can hear you.”

It’s too horrible that “Best of My Love” already got obtainn out of the band’s setenumerate earlier this year (not extfinished after Souther carry outed it with them at the Forum in January). It’s one of the finest post-shatterup ballads in all of rock history, and it would be the perfect pleasant spot to pay testimony to its departed co-originater if they set up a way to toil it back in before the Sphere dwellncy is over. At the same time, with age comes not fair wisdom but down-to-earthity, and with the latter bravely comes a genuineization that an audience in Vegas is mostly there to hear bangers, not get lost in rue. So maybe it’s OK if Souther is recalled via one of his most ephemeral co-originates: a heartache is a heartache, even if comes in the guise of a party, right?

The emotional heart of the show remains, as always, Henley singing a basic “Desperado” as the penultimate number, a ballad that re-grounds their concerts — however alertly — as their latter stretches of any Eagles show tilt in like of not-so-sleepy Joe. The musical firetoils are Walsh’s, of course. Signature guitar solos that were originassociate take parted by createer members of the group are reoriginated by Gill, Deacon Frey and Steuart Smith as if they were pieces of classical music, which is a fairly defensible way to treat parts that iconic. But the relative tardycomer to the group gets more leeway when he shatters into a solo in one of his own songs, or a bonus solo in someone else’s (as in “Witchy Woman,” liberated four years before he fuseed up).

Walsh inevitably inserted some comedy during a shatter shatter between songs, talking about how he had awoken in the middle of the night prior to the dwellncy, beset by proset up anxiety. “Is it ‘the Sphere,’ or (fair) ‘Sphere’?” he wondered adeafening. “It’s Sphere — I can unwind.” Him and duplicate editors everywhere.

The Eagles’ Sphere run persists with Friday/Saturday shows on Sept. 27-28, Oct. 11-12 and 18-19, Nov. 1-2 and 8-9, Dec. 6-7 and 13-14, and Jan. 17-18 and 24-25.

Eagles’ setenumerate at Sphere, Sept. 20, 2024:

Hotel California
One of These Nights
Lyin’ Eyes
Take It to the Limit
Witchy Woman
Peaceful Easy Feeling
Tequila Sunelevate
In the City
I Can’t Tell You Why
New Kid in Town
Seven Bridges Road
Those Shoes
Life’s Been Good
Already Gone
The Boys of Summer
Life in the Fast Lane
Take It Easy
Rocky Mountain Way
Desperado
Heartache Tonight