Eagles at the Wembley Empire Pool, London, 1977

In April 1977, the Eagles embarked on a tour of Europe to promote Hotel California. Playing 17 gigs in 5 countries, this was the band’s first major tour of the continent as headliners. Get all the details below, including an audience recording, a BBC radio interview with Randy, and more.

_{Randy’s folder for the European Tour, which included itineraries and travel information.}

The Eagles traveled to Europe via the Concorde, a new supersonic airliner that could fly between the U.S. and London in half the time. The itinerary below shows the arrival times for the band at Dulles Airport in Washington on April 18th, 1977. Randy, his wife, Jennifer, and their eldest son, Dana, who were accompanying him to Europe, flew from Denver, CO, via their home in Scottsbluff, NE. The rest of the band flew from Los Angeles.

_{Itinerary from Randy’s tour folder. Photo courtesy of Jennifer Meisner.}

The band departed Dulles April 19th. However, Jennifer and Dana flew separately:

Jennifer: “I refused to fly on the Concorde, so Dana and I flew over right after. We did however fly back on the Concorde, which took a lot of forceful coercing from Randy.”

The Eagles stayed at the Intercontinental Hotel.

_{Flight and hotel information from Randy’s tour folder.
Photo courtesy of Jennifer Meisner.}

Randy, Joe Walsh & Joe’s girlfriend, Jody Boyer:

BBC Radio 1 Interview

Shortly after their arrival in London, the Eagles appeared on the BBC Radio 1 program, Rock On, hosted by John Tobler. Each band member was interviewed, with Randy going first. They chatted for a full six minutes about Randy’s career up to the formation of the Eagles. To hear the interviews with the rest of the band, click here.

Wembley Empire Pool, April 1977.
Photo ©Rob Verhorst. Courtesy of Kathy Kurasch.

April 25th, 1977
Wembley Empire Pool

The Eagles’ four shows at the Wembley Empire Pool had sold out within days. Dan Fogelberg was originally advertised as the opening act for the European dates, but cancelled in the days prior to the tour. He was replaced with singer-songwriter Valerie Carter. (Note: the Empire Pool was a different venue than Wembley Stadium, which the Eagles played in 1975 for Elton John’s Mid-Summer Music.)

The curtain rises on the backdrop at Wembley, April 25th, 1977:

The Eagles opened with “Hotel California,” performed in front of a backdrop of palm trees and a hotel, plus two neon “Hotel California” signs on either side of the stage.¹

A 35-piece string section accompanied the band on three songs: “Wasted Time,” “Take It To The Limit” and “Desperado.”

The Eagles played 17 songs with 3 encores.

Audience Recording

Unfortunately, this recording is sped up so voices sound higher than normal.

“Take It To The Limit”

Full Recording

Recording Setlist
Hotel California
Walk Away
Victim Of Love
Doolin Dalton-Desperado (Reprise)
Lyin’ Eyes
Take It To The Limit (Orchestra)
New Kid In Town
Wasted Time (Reprise) (Orchestra)
Desperado (Orchestra)
Turn To Stone
Already Gone
Life In The Fast Lane
Rocky Mountain Way
James Dean
Best Of My Love
Take It Easy

Opening act: Valerie Carter

Later that night, the band hosted an after-party at their hotel, among the guests were members of The Who, Queen, The Moody Blues, and Elton John.

Dutch journalist, Jip Goldsteijn, was at the party and interviewed Glenn Frey the next day. Three years earlier, he’d spent some time with the band when they were in London recording On The Border at the Olympic Studio. He recalled their “rather shabby rented house…with four mattresses on a bare floor that were largely hidden by empty bottles. Social contact consisted of a game of tennis at the local club and a chat with the manager of the supermarket where Glenn Frey and Randy Meisner were shopping.

Four years later, their situation was a bit different. Instead of a run-down house, the band and their crew took up 38 rooms in a posh London hotel. At the party, beer is kept cold in portable refrigerators, with staff standing by to open the bottles for the band. Liebfraumilch was flown in from Germany. The famous guests mingled. One group sat at the bar singing Beatles songs. When journalist Goldsteijn left the party at 3:30am, it was still in progress. He is scheduled to interview the band the next day, but is told that he should not expect them to be available until at least 4:00pm. He recalled that they were only 15 minutes late. He is ushered into one of the hotel rooms where Frey and Henley are reading some of the reviews of their show from the previous night. Although they claim reviews don’t mean much, they are clearly annoyed by the negative ones. Says Frey: “I read all the reviews that are written about us. Sometimes I wish the man in question an incurable disease and then I forget it all again because in the end it doesn’t matter what the media thinks.” Goldsteijn and Frey chat over a meal at a restaurant around the corner from the hotel: “He says he only has one hour and gets clear preferential treatment in the packed restaurant. The food is in front of him within fifteen minutes and in the background you repeatedly hear ‘Take It Easy’ and ‘Witchy Woman.'” He gets off on the attention from fans. He freely admits to Goldsteijn that, of all the Eagles, he is the most “into stardom.”²

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April 26th, 1977
Wembley Empire Pool

There is not much info about the second night, with the exception of a few photos. None of Randy.

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April 27, 1977
Wembley Empire Pool

British musician, Ian Latimer, was twenty when he attended the Eagles’ third night at Wembley. Below are his recollections of the show:

Ian Latimer:

“The Eagles walked onto a darkened stage and after a few moments the huge Hotel California backdrop and neon signs were revealed as Don Felder played the famous intro. Given that The Empire Pool (now Wembley Arena) is a cavern of a place, from where I was sitting the sound was great. It was the first time I had ever seen a band that recreated their recorded sound almost exactly on stage. It became, and still is, a benchmark for live performance and, as a musician myself, was a great lesson. After ‘Hotel’ Glenn spoke… ‘We’re The Eagles from Los Angeles and this is my buddy Joe Walsh.’ Joe cranked out the opening chords to ‘Walk Away’. Nobody knew there was a string section hidden behind the famous backdrop. As Don Henley went into the second verse of ‘Wasted Time’ the screen rose to reveal a thirty two piece orchestra, all dressed in dinner suits and bow ties, on a balcony above and to the rear of the stage...The Eagles had no ‘stage act’ or theatrics but they just looked so dammed cool! Glenn especially in a white and blue Toronto Maple Leafs hockey shirt and Felder in patched jeans, plaid shirt and braces (suspenders). Randy was playing a natural Rickenbacker 4001 bass. Glenn played acoustic guitar and piano but stuck with his trusty black Les Paul Junior for all his electric parts. Joe and Felder swapped guitars for nearly every song to achieve the distinctive sounds for each tune. I remember Don Felder’s solo in ‘One Of These Nights’ sounding exactly like the record.”

_{Ian Latimer’s ticket:}

_{Photos courtesy of Ian Latimer:}

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April 28th, 1977
Wembley Empire Pool

Prior to their fourth and final show, WEA UK (Asylym’s UK distributor) presented the Eagles with silver and gold records for the UK sales of Hotel California and Their Greatest Hits (1971-1975).

The band also posed backstage for pictures with Elton John and Pittsburgh Steelers’ wide receiver, Lynn Swann. Randy’s son, Dana, who was the most excited about meeting Swann, got an autograph and photo with the football star.

For the fourth, and closing, night, the band was joined onstage by their friend, Elton John, for a rousing version of Chuck Berry’s “Oh, Carol.” Randy and Joe Walsh can be seen in the photo duck-walking across the stage.

At the April 28th show, Randy debuted what would become one of his go-to t-shirts of the European tour. A white Harley-Davidson “Great American Freedom Machines” shirt with blue and red stripes. He wore it at least two more times in Frankfurt and Rotterdam.

REVIEWS

Sounds, May 7, 1977

Record Mirror, April 30, 1977

Notes

1. The Eagles used the same backdrop during performances of “Hotel California” at the Inglewood Forum in October 1976. Those concerts also included an orchestra. ↩︎
2. “The Eagles Are Not Stars, They Are Successful Musicians,” Jip Goldsteijn, De Telegraaf, Amsterdam, April 30th, 1977 ↩︎