You can harbor any opinion you want about the Eagles’ big-buck
\nreunion tour of a few years ago. But I think that Glenn Frey and
\ncompany blew it big time when it came to
\nHell Freezes Over<\/i>, the combination live package and new
\nstudio track offering from 1994. They blew it in that they could
\nhave easily picked up their career as a band and kept going, based
\non the strength of this material.<\/p>\n
After what the band called a “14-year vacation,” they came back
\nstrong with four studio tracks, covering all bases from rock to
\nballad to country-folk. “Get Over It,” the first single, is a
\nrollicking little number that dares to call those mutants who go on
\nJerry Springer to accept their faults as their own, and to get past
\nthem. (Best line from the song: “I’d like to find your inner child
\n\/ and kick its little ass.”) But the true beauty of the reunion
\ncomes forth in the two ballads, “Love Will Keep Us Alive” and
\n“Learn To Be Still,” songs that showed so much promise of what
\ncould be had the band continued to record together.<\/p>\n
Then, there is the live portion of the show. While a few moments
\nof this set do drag a bit, there is enough new life injected into
\nsome of these songs to make them sound brand new. Case in point:
\n“Hotel California,” now done in a flamenco guitar style.
\nPersonally, I think this version blows the 1976 electric guitar
\nversion away. To hear Don Felder, Joe Walsh and Frey playing with
\nsuch zest on a style of guitar we’re not used to hearing from this
\nband is jaw-dropping.<\/p>\n
While you’ll probably think of some favorite from the past that
\ndidn’t make the cut for
\nHell Freezes Over<\/i>, there are enough chestnuts from the
\nEagles’ archives to put a smile on your face. Whether it’s the
\nexcitement of hearing “Take It Easy” again, or Walsh’s wonderfully
\nnasal rendition of “In The City,” even to the mournful finale of
\n“Desperado,” this is a live album par excellence. (The only change
\nI’d make would have been to leave off “New York Minute,” a snippet
\nfrom Henley’s solo career, and put “Best Of My Love” on in its
\nplace. Then again, they
\ndid<\/i> let Walsh do “Pretty Maids All In A Row,” so maybe this
\nis justice being done.)<\/p>\n
I guess my one complaint with this album is that it’s too short.
\nAfter people waited 14 years to hear one of America’s best-loved
\ngroups perform again, they could have at least put out a package as
\ngrand as the tour that hawked it. As much as I’m not a big fan of
\ndouble live albums (mainly because they always seem to be
\noverkill), this is a show that begged for the big-package
\ntreatment. Or, I would have been happy with one disc live and a
\nfull studio album to balance it out. The talent was
\nthere<\/i>, and it hadn’t been diminished. (Then again, maybe
\nsomeone in the Eagles camp will read this and decide to give the
\nstudio another shot.)<\/p>\n
\nHell Freezes Over<\/i> is one of those rare live albums that
\ncaptures the mood and the moment well. The studio tracks serve as a
\ncruel teaser, seeing that the band apparently is on cold storage
\nonce again. But if these performances tell anything about the
\nEagles, it is that they took their vacations way too soon. Here’s
\nhoping they’re stamping their return tickets home right now.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":24915,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"tags":[],"artist":[5764],"rating":[5613],"class_list":["post-36120","review","type-review","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","artist-eagles","rating-rating-a-minus"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/36120","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/review"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=36120"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/36120\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/24915"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=36120"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=36120"},{"taxonomy":"artist","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/artist?post=36120"},{"taxonomy":"rating","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/rating?post=36120"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}