The Eagles, July 22, 2013

Concert Details:

Bands: The Eagles
Location: Verizon Center

The Eagles

1. Saturday Night
2. Train Leaves Here This Morning
3. Peaceful Easy Feeling
4. Witchy Woman
5. Doolin-Dalton
6. Tequila Sunrise
7. Doolin' Daltion/Desperado (Reprise)
8. Already Gone
9. The Best of My Love
10. Lyin' Eyes
11. One of These Nights
12. Take It to the Limit

Second Set:

   13. Pretty Maids All in a Row

   14. I Can't Tell You Why

   15. New Kid in Town

   16. Love Will Keep Us Alive

   17. Heartache Tonight

   18. Those Shoes

   19. In the City (Joe Walsh)

   20. Life's Been Good (Joe Walsh)

   21. The Long Run

   22. Funk #49 (James Gang cover)

   23. Life in the Fast Lane

Encore 1:

   24. Hotel California

Encore 2:

   25. Take It Easy

   26. Rocky Mountain Way (Joe Walsh)

   27. Desperado

This show was part of the History of the Eagles tour featuring both Eagles original guitarist Bernie Leadon and Joe Walsh.   I should start by saying, while I appreciate some of the Eagles music, I'm not a big Eagles fan, and am much more a Don Henley solo fan, but went to this show because my father is a fan and I bought him tickets and regardless of how I felt about the show, for Eagles fans it seems to have been the perfect show.  There was one peculiarity for me, primarily the inclusion of Joe Walsh songs in a History of the Eagles show,  but the prevailing theory seems to be that that's how they got Joe Walsh to agree to play on the tour.

The show was an attempt at turning an arena show into a private intimate show by playing the songs by the respective members almost as solo sets moving back and forth between each member.  They all performed as if they were at the top of their game still and put on a almost three hour show running through their greatest hits, most of which are known to anyone who ever listened to a classic rock radio station in the 90's.

Interlaced between the songs were videos telling a bit of their history as a group that had been together for a large part of the last 40 years.  As there were Joe Walsh songs, I would have personally liked some Don Henley songs dropped in as well, but again, according to Eagles fans I talked to, the show was perfect.  Unlike most bands which choose to go out huge and loud in a strong way, the Eagles chose to close out their show with Desperado and unlike most bands which close on a slow song and fizzle out, they used it to fade away in glory.

Fun.: July 20, 2013

Concert Details:

Bands: Fun., Tegan and Sara
Location: Merriweather Post Pavilion, Columbia, MD

Fun. setlist

1. Some Nights (Intro)
2. One Foot
3. Walking the Dog
4. All Alone
5. Why Am I the One
6. At Least I'm Not as Sad (As I Used to Be)
7. All the Pretty Girls
8. It Gets Better
9. Barlights (Rock and Roll Part 2 snippet)
10. Carry On
11. The Gambler
12. You Can't Always Get What You Want (The Rolling Stones Cover)
13. We Are Young
14. Take Your Time (Coming Home)

Encore:

   15. Some Nights

   16. Stars

Tegan & Sara Setlist

1. Drove Me Wild
2. Goodbye, Goodbye
3. I'm Not Your Hero
4. Back In Your Head
5. The Con
6. Where Does the Good Go
7. I Couldn't Be Your Friend
8. I was a Fool
9. Now I'm All Messed Up
10. Living Room
11. Alligator
12. Shock to Your System
13. How Come You Don't Want Me
14. Feel It In My Bones
15. Closer

This is a case of a band that may have gotten a bit bigger than they are ready to deal with.  Don't get me wrong, Fun. put on a great show but they just seemed barely able to deal with the crowd they were handed, a sold out show.  One problem they had, was a disorganization in their setlist, in what I at least felt was a little disjointed such that the show reached a climax in the middle of the show instead of peaking at the end and then leaving on a high note.  In retrospect, for me the highlight and most memorable part of the show was Tegan & Sara.

Tegan & Sara, the identical twin canadian indie pop duo has some of the most fun and exciting stage presence of any band I know of, ripping through their setlist song to song, taking turns taking control of the show with equal skill, both playing multiple instruments.  It turns out I knew more songs going into the show than I expected and thoroughly enjoyed the show and left the show looking forward to going to see them again as soon as possible.

On the show initially being over I felt that Fun. would be a band I would want to go see over and over again, but with time that feeling diminished.  Fun. has a slew of well known songs and put on an pretty decent show and really got the crowd into their show.  At a lot of shows at pavilions, the show could be ruined by rain, but with the simple line "I'm so over the people not getting rained on", the lead singer Nate Ruess was able to put a spell on us so that we didn't even care it was cold and raining with a feeling of April instead of hot and humid as one would want and expect from July.  They moved through their songs with speed and grace but what limited them in their show was the choice of where to put their key songs.  They went out into the encore on a high note with We Are Young followed by a lesser known song and then came in quietly to the encore with Some Nights but while Stars is a good song, it is slow and doesn't have the warm, open crowd feeling of their other songs, so it felt like a diminished finale that they could have avoided with a later placement of their more well known songs to a crowd that was their to hear what they knew of this young band's career.