The Eagles
Royal Area, Copenhagen Touring the UK until July 4
After the Eagles split up in 1980, there was a question people would ask Don Henley, the drummer and joint lead singer. When will you get back together? ‘When hell freezes over,’ he would cheerfully reply.
In 1994, sure enough, America’s most popular home-grown band reconvened for the Hell Freezes Over tour. Hell remained chilly for ages: according to Setlist.fm, the Eagles played 789 shows between 1994 and 2015, whereas they had managed only 473 before the split.
Then, in 2016, their other lead singer, Glenn Frey, died, aged 67. ‘I don’t think you’ll see us performing again,’ said Henley.
Deacon Frey tackles Take It Easy, which isn’t easy at all: thrown in at the deep end, he swims but the main man is still Don Henley, who takes the lead on a magically sparse Desperado
And now here they are, playing Wembley Stadium tonight. You can check out any time you like, but you can never leave.
Like their fellow soft-rockers Fleetwood Mac, the Eagles have sent for reinforcements. It takes two men to replace Frey – the country star Vince Gill, who is 62, and Frey’s son Deacon, only 26.
When I see them in Denmark, the new-look Eagles begin with an old trick, given a twist. They take the moment in mid-gig when a band gathers round to perform unplugged and move it to the start of the show.
Six men stand in a line, strumming acoustic guitars, exchanging crystalline harmonies. The tune is Seven Bridges Road, a solid folk song that suddenly feels like a classic.
Moments later, Deacon Frey is being introduced by Joe Walsh, who’s old enough to be his grandfather. The crowd responds like 16,000 mums meeting their daughter’s handsome new boyfriend.
Deacon tackles Take It Easy, which isn’t easy at all: thrown in at the deep end, he swims.
Not much in rock ’n’ roll is hereditary, least of all star quality, but Deacon shares three of his father’s assets: the tone, the diction and the moustache.
It turns out that he’s only one of five lead singers. The Eagles have become more democratic in their old age. Vince Gill, naturally, takes New Kid In Town, and proves that it’s possible to sing like an angel while looking like a removal man.
Joe Walsh, a great guitarist, now gets to sing more than is entirely wise. But he does bring one bull’s-eye, Life’s Been Good, which vies with Randy Newman’s I’m Dead (But I Don’t Know It) for the title of the sharpest satire on rock stardom sung in a yelp.
Timothy B Schmit, the softest of soft-rockers, croons I Can’t Tell You Why, the song showing that, in 1979, even the Eagles wanted to sound like the Bee Gees. Deacon Frey returns to do Peaceful Easy Feeling and again makes a tricky task seem perfectly manageable.
One line goes ‘I wanna sleep with you in the desert tonight’, which would be quite a test even if the song hadn’t been recorded by your late father.
Gill glows again on Lyin’ Eyes and Heartache Tonight. But the main man is still Henley, who takes the lead on a magically sparse Desperado and a suitably majestic Hotel California.
In September, in Las Vegas, the Eagles will play the whole Hotel California album for the first time.
The great American public, whose judgment can be fallible, got it right when they bought those 38 million copies of Their Greatest Hits.
On this form, the Eagles are not just the best-selling American band: they’re simply the best.
eagles.com
THIS WEEK’S CD RELEASES
By Adam Woods
Mark Ronson Late Night Feelings Out now
Rating: 
Mark Ronson’s had a smash with Nothing Breaks Like A Heart, a sort of glitterball Jolene featuring Miley Cyrus. The album from which it derives seemingly owes its mopey mood to Ronson’s divorce, and though Miley’s song bangs hardest, contributions from Lykke Li and Camila Cabello share its glamorous gloom.
Bill Callahan Shepherd In A Sheepskin Vest Out now
Rating: 
Bill Callahan’s first new collection in six years is pretty, nylon-strung folk with an almost unthinkably jolly feel at times. ‘Like motel curtains, we never really met,’ he shrugs on Angela – and he’s even written a song about the Hulk. If the wisdom is less stony than his previous output, there’s rather more humanity in it.
Hot Chip A Bathfull Of Ecstasy Out now
Rating:
Hot Chip are quietly building up a substantial catalogue of soulful electronic pop that will probably mark them out in the end as a classic British band. Their seventh album deploys a connoisseur’s feel for the history of dance music, a huggy positivity in its subject matter and an Eno-ish ear for a placid melody on songs like Clear Blue Skies and No God.