The Day I Refused Eagles Tickets

or, Everything's a question of personal preference

I saw that The Eagles will be playing Vegas at the Sphere, which is the cool way to play Vegas these days, and I was reminded of the time I was offered free Eagles tickets, by my brother’s significant other. They’d gotten a pair from some business connections and had conflicting plans, so she offered me the semi-precious tickets to see The Eagles at the Boston Garden, or whatever corporate name it was being called at the time. The band was on some iteration of their parade of reunions, I’ve forgotten the details. She, my brother’s partner, was especially pumped about it, because she knew I was the big music buff, saying, overexcitedly, “Won’t it be great!”

I demurred, thought a minute about how I was going to respond, then politely refused them, explaining that there were bigger Eagles fans out there who would appreciate the tickets more than me. This was true. I liked them, I said, but I’m not a super fan. The real truth was more like, putting me in an arena with 20,000 uber Eagles fanatics screaming as the band began to play each hit wasn’t my idea of a good way to spend a night. In fact, it was analogous to a teeth cleaning at the dentist. Oh, I like some of their stuff alright, Desperado is good, but I would have been an imposter, an interloper, a secret spy logging words in my head, like pretentious, overblown, middle of the road - well, that’s not a word, it’s a phrase - like predictable, polished, vanilla. Great harmonies, though, I’ll give them that. Henley’s a good drummer too, but does he even drum anymore? I wish Joe Walsh never dissolved The James Gang.

When it came to the opening notes of Hotel California, when everybody started going out of their “I can’t believe I’m hearing it live!” minds, I would have been cringing in my seat, considering walking out early to beat the crowd. Contrast that with a hypothetical show by Robyn Hitchcock, where he played Raymond Chandler Evening, with me reduced to a surrealist gushing fanblob.

Different strokes for different folks, as the sage Sly said.

In direct contrast, a friend of mine once got free corporate tickets for The Stones at Fenway, and I was there in a Boston minute. Great show. I’m not going to parse the difference between The Stones and The Eagles.

There is no moral here, except, in the immortal words of the aforementioned Robyn Hitchcock -

God finds you naked and he leaves you dying
What happens in between is up to you

So, all things considered, with the limited time we get here, my advice is, despite what the crowd does, screw that. Do what you like.

And you can take the time to relax, sure, but never take it easy. They’ll pounce on you the second you do.