The Eagles show that Bernie Leadon walked out on
Every member of the Eagles, aside from Glenn Frey or Don Henley, needed to understand the dynamics of the band. While each member contributed their unique talent to every song, Henley and Frey served as the primary overseers of every project, consistently striving for innovation. However, by the mid-1970s, Bernie Leadon reached his breaking point. After being ousted from the group, he found one particular show too bizarre to endure any longer.
When the band were first cutting their teeth, they lucked out by getting Leadon to join the outfit at all. Since Henley and Frey had already been making waves as part of Linda Ronstadt’s backing group, Leadon was operating among country rock legends, getting the invitation from Gram Parsons to join The Flying Burrito Brothers before joining the group.
Leadon was never just limited to guitar, though. After mastering the signature Telecaster bends that most country music thrives on, he also became a major banjo player, covering any kind of roots music that the band wanted. Being able to play all kinds of music is all well and good… but that’s not what they wanted to play all the time.
Once they got over the success of their first album and the bomb of Desperado, they wanted to spread their wings into new territory, which meant flirting with material that didn’t have time for a banjo solo. Although they were still proud of their country-rock roots, Leadon sensed that he should probably think about leaving the group.
By the time they got to making One Of These Nights, Henley could feel the animosity growing between everyone in the studio, telling History of the Eagles, “For Bernie, any kind of success was synonymous with selling out. There would be a lot of disagreements, and sometimes I would agree with Bernie, but most of the time I would agree with Glenn.”
As the band were about to take the stage, Leadon practically brought his departure upon himself when getting into a heated argument with Frey. After the frontman talked about the different moves they had to make to stay relevant, Leadon poured a beer over his head and told him to chill out, leading to him not taking the stage with them for decades.
Since they had rock and roll dynamo Joe Walsh as their opener, it was a no-brainer to get him in the group, trading in the tender voice of Leadon for Walsh’s… let’s say, unique vocal tone. While Leadon didn’t have any resentment over being replaced, he didn’t bother sticking around when seeing them for the first time.
When looking for the sidelines, Leadon was not ready to internalise the fact that he was gone, saying, “I saw them play, and the band are interacting the same way that they did when I was in the band, except it was Walsh up there. It was very strange watching it and not being able to be a part of it, so I actually left that show. I was like, ‘This is too weird.’”
For all of the disagreements they shared back in the 1970s, Leadon did get the chance to make up with some of his old bandmates, playing a handful of shows in the 2010s alongside Walsh. Leadon may have had personal problems with the Eagles over the years, but sometimes you’re not ready to see the rock and roll machine move on without you.
