Eagles at Wembley Stadium, 23rd June 2019

Review: Eagles at Wembley Stadium

Concerts don’t come much bigger than the Eagles at Wembley Stadium. In fact it’s difficult to deny the Eagles aren’t one of the most popular bands of all time. After all their greatest hits and Hotel California albums are currently ranked no.2 and no.7 best-selling albums of all time. Between them selling a staggering 66 million and 42 million copies respectively.

Review: Sheryl Crow at Wembley Stadium

Sheryl Crow – Wembley Stadium

Opening the night as support for the Eagles at Wembley Stadium was fellow American, singer-songwriter Sheryl Crow. The appearance of Sheryl Crow being a rather personal honour, given she was once backing singer to the Eagles very own Don Henley.

With her music touching on a variety of styles, Sheryl Crow performed a short set covering every aspect of her career. While playing a stadium show as a warm-up act is a daunting task, Sheryl Crow soon had the huge crowd singing along to the likes of “If it Makes You Happy”.

There were also a couple of the more pop orientated tracks with radio favourites “All I Wanna Do” and “My Favourite Mistake”. Elsewhere, the newer country number “Still the Good Old Days” on record features the Eagles Joe Walsh, although he didn’t make a guest appearance on stage. However, live it certainly still hit the mark. In fact, Sheryl Crow at Wembley was as good as I hoped it would be… and that certainly made Mr Teeth Reviews happy.

Eagles – Wembley Stadium

Eagles – Wembley Stadium

While there may have been a change in personnel in the early days, Eagles had firmly become a stadium band by the late 70’s. After a long hiatus, the same line-up reformed in 1994 and have been selling out stadiums around the world ever since.

As of January 2016, founding member Glenn Frey passed away, only to be replaced by both his son Deacon and country star Vince Gill. Even with 3 of the core members still standing, Frey had some big shoes to fill at Wembley Stadium. However, two songs in and Frey junior delivered an Eagles classic perfectly with “Take it Easy”.

His dad would be proud, while for the fans he’s carried on not just the legacy, but it sounded as if Glenn Frey never left us. As for Vince Gill, with over 20 solo albums to his name, it was as if he’d been there all along.

Several Eagles hits were reeled off early on, including Don Henley singing from behind the drum kit for “One of These Nights”. Various instrument changes meant a bit of a disjointed start, with several awkward gaps between songs, but this was a band about to be on stage for 2.5 hours.

Joe Walsh – Eagles

Vince Gill – the New Kid in Town

As night started to fall, surprisingly it was the first of several Joe Walsh solo numbers with “In the City”. Things getting a little heavier as the daylight disappeared, or as heavy as a middle of the road American country rock band get! Walsh however, was very much the “rock” star of the group, while getting the crowd to interact.

Then it was Timothy B Schmit’s turn to take lead vocals for the more subdued “I Can’t Tell You Why”. Vince Gill’s rather apt take on “New Kid in Town” was next along with one of Gill’s own numbers. Apart from perfect harmonies from a band with 5 lead singers, the Eagles are a tight group of musicians. Both Vince Gill and Joe Walsh’s guitar playing particularly impressive.

Following several more Eagles hits there was time for another couple from Joe Walsh’s repertoire before Don Henley classic “The Boys of Summer”. Only the boys have long since grown up and got older, but more than proved why all these years later, they’re still headlining Wembley Stadium.

As for the obligatory encores, which the Eagles dragged out 3 times, from the first notes of “Hotel California” the place literally lit up. I’ve never seen so many camera phones in one place, certainly a change since the start of their career in the 70’s. Encore 2 included “Desperado” before curfew finally being called with “Best of my Love”.

Eagles at Wembley is certainly one of those shows to tick off the bucket list, but it was much more than that. The show was particularly special, complete with all the hits and a few surprises along the way.

Eagles – Hotel California