The Eagles Have Landed

Many good things may still happen in my life, but I seriously doubt any of them will top last night. Last night, I had floor seats to the greatest band ever: the Eagles. I can now cross it off my bucket list, which actually only leaves one more thing on there (but don’t worry about me losing motivation to live because the last item on there is touch Michael Jackson’s nose).

Now there may be some of you out there saying “well, yeah, the Eagles were good. But I don’t know if they are the best of all time.” Well, you are all entitled to your opinion. I’m just here to tell you that your opinion is wrong. Every single one of their songs is great. If you are ever in a room of people when “Take It Easy” starts playing and the entire room doesn’t start singing, then I’m sorry to inform you that you are in a room full of dead people and that serial torturer is probably coming back any second now. Then again, how bad a guy can he be if he lets you listen to Eagles music before he plucks out your eyeballs? Their songs are so great my roommate Chris specifically asked that instead of “Happy Birthday,” everybody sing him “Desperado” for his birthday. I have it written in my will that “Already Gone” is to play on repeat at my funeral (although my favorite Eagles song is actually "I Can't Tell You Why”).

But if I thought they were good before, after seeing them in person I now view them as religious deities. Glenn Frye came out and joked that we were at the “Eagles Assisted Living Tour,” but these guys are far from finished. Even in their fifties they still sounded better than anybody alive today (whereas in my fifties I will probably need help peeing). Chris and I air-guitared and sang every song at the top of our lungs. Watching Joe Walsh play the guitar was probably the closest I’ve come to tears since they shot Bambi’s mom.

The only problem with going to concerts in areas with expensive seats is that you encounter pompous jerks who do not know how to have fun. For most of the night the crowd was standing up, but they sat down for some of the slower songs. During one song, Chris and I remained standing up because two girls in front of us were standing up. Then some rich old geezer behind me with a tucked in aloha shirt started yelling over and over again “Hey pretty boy, sit down.” Now as much as I love compliments about my sexy little figure, I confronted this jerk after the concert and politely informed him that if he kept insulting drunk people half his age, he was definitely not going to be around to see the Eagles next tour. Then there were people who got upset anytime somebody bumped into them or spilled something. If you people want to watch a private concert, buy the DVD your majesty. It’s cheaper. I know you didn’t pay $200 to hear me sing, but I did.

Now, there are many reasons I’m grateful that I’m born in the decade I was. I have the Internet, Megan Fox, and polio isn’t running rampant. But the music of my generation sucks. While my dad went to concerts with The Police, Stevie Ray Vaughn, Aerosmith, and Fleetwood Mac, I’m stuck with Lady Gaga dressed up like an evil space villain singing “Rama ooh lala blah blah.”

So you’ll forgive me if I prefer to listen to music from previous generations. Of course, this makes going to concerts hard. For one thing, most of the people who I would pay to see are dead. Unlike some of these people nowadays, when oldies rock stars felt like they were at the peak of their careers, they had the decency to overdose on cocaine, instead of becoming a burden to society (I’m looking at you Mr. Springsteen). And as surprising as this may sound, dead people don’t give very good live performances (although if Tupac has shown us anything, they can still make albums and charge you money for them).

And if the stars aren’t dead, most of the people at the concert with you are. I remember I went to a concert a few years ago for Roger Waters, who was the guitarist for Pink Floyd. I was sitting next to a guy named Bill, your typical aging baby boomer. He had a Dark Side of the Moon T-shirt, a beer belly, and clearly had gone through the best and worst parts of the sixties. For some reason, he was very happy to see a young person there with him, and he kept saying “So, you’re a Floyd virgin huh? I remember my first time. Oh you’re gonna love it.”

Unfortunately for Bill, the opening was some sort of weird techno act, which was some idiot spinning a disc around for what seemed like hours as if the irritating sounds he was making was music. Bored as all hell, Bill kept shouting “This sucks” in between beers. And he had a lot of beers. I’m sure back in his heyday Bill would have been unfazed, but time had clearly taken its toll, because by the time Waters came out he just fell asleep in his chair. Every once in awhile he would jerk awake and yell “F**k yeah, Pink Floyd!” before falling back asleep. And as I looked around at the crowd, most of the people were sitting in their seats, just humming to themselves in a subdued manner.

But then something magical happened. Waters began to sing “Another Brick in the Wall,” one of the greatest songs ever. And as if commanded by some unseen force, thousands of baby boomers woke up, put their hands on their knees, grunted, and summoned the strength to stand up and belt out the chorus at the top of their lungs, “hey teacher, leave those kids alone!” Even Bill was right there with them, although his version was delayed by about two seconds and contained a lot more F-words than I remember in the original (but considering the amount of alcohol that was coursing through Bill’s veins at the moment, I’m surprised he could say complete words).

You just don’t have music that unites people and moves them like that anymore. When the song ended, the crowd shuffled out, ready to go to sleep but still buzzing about a moment of their youth that they had managed to grab back from father time. It just saddens me that thirty years from now, the chorus my generation will be singing will be “Gaga ramama.” But for at least one night, I got to see the greatest band in the world and remember what real music sounds like. Or, as my friend Bill so eloquently said, “F**k yeah it’s time to rock and roll this s**t!”