“It stopped being fun”: The tour that made Glenn Frey leave Eagles
In the world of classic rock, tales of drug-fuelled recording sessions and inter-band fighting are as old as time. The soap opera background gave songs of drama, romance, and betrayal an added element of allure, and so for fans, it was all fun and games, permitting the output to remain consistent. And in the case of the Eagles, consistency in the face of turmoil was very much the mantra.
For the most part, the warm reception of their crowds provided the necessary refuge for the band’s squabbles. Regardless of who had just left and entered the revolving door of session musicians or what fist-fight had just happened backstage, the band could sweep it to one side and put on a show.
You have to commend the band’s fearless leader, Glenn Frey, for making all that happen. An uncompromising artistic pitbull, he was mainly in the eye of every argumentative storm within the band yet never allowed the project to run off course. He knew full well that the essence of the band’s appeal was the alchemy of their blended voices, the harmonies he shared with Don Henley and Don Felder that soared past any internal conflict.
Of the two, though, it was the latter who tested his resolve. The two famously engaged in an exchange of blows in a famous 1980 Long Beach show. The show wasn’t part of the band’s tour but was intended to be a fundraiser for Senator Alan Cranston. The Senator had spent much of the pre-event meet and greet thanking the band for their appearance when guitarist Felder responded with: “You’re welcome, Senator… I guess.”
“I felt Don Felder insulted Senator Cranston under his breath” Frey said. “And I confronted him with it. So now we’re onstage, and Felder looks back at me and says, ‘Only three more songs till I kick your ass, pal.’ And I’m saying, ‘Great. I can’t wait,’” Frey later recalled. “We’re out there singing ‘Best of My Love,’ but inside, both of us are thinking, ‘As soon as this is over, I’m gonna kill him.’ That was when I knew I had to get out.”
True to their word, the pair had their post-show scuffle before Felder smashed a guitar against the wall backstage. As Felder sped off in his limo, so did the existence of the band, which came to a dramatic end following this show.
While the drama of this argument was the spark that lit the fire, it was ultimately an inevitable end for the band, which had been battling with the existence of the band for months, leading to the bust-up. The warring personalities weren’t the only problem; an unruly sense of hedonism fuelled by 1970s Hollywood opulence combined with an overwhelming pressure to follow up their 1976 hit ‘Hotel California’ eventually made the future of the band’s existence somewhat untenable.
“It stopped being fun not because of the people involved but because of the immensity of the band I helped build” Frey told BAM in 1982, remembering the days of that final tour before the fateful Long Beach show. With the beauty of hindsight, Frey could see the problems in the band for what they really were, explaining, “It just got too fuckin’ big. It got so we had to sacrifice everything for this monster we’d created. I had a dark underbelly we couldn’t see for a while.”
