EAGLES
The Summit, Houston, TX
November 6, 1976

The Eagles played The Summit in Houston, TX, November 6, 1976. J.D. Souther opened. A bootleg film of the concert exists. Watch it below.

J.D. Souther later joined the Eagles onstage for “Best Of My Love,” which he co-wrote with Don Henley & Glenn Frey. He also wished Glenn a happy birthday. The concert was filmed using the Summit’s in-house video system. Footage of Randy’s lead-singing performances, as well as the full concert, are included below.

The Summit had a four-sided video screen called a “Telscreen” which hung from the ceiling. The screens displayed concerts in real-time for audience members who were not close to the stage. Any band who came in to perform paid a flat fee for use of the Telscreen and received a videotape of the concert in return. These Telscreen performances were often bootlegged, hence the existing footage of the Eagles Summit show, which has never been released officially.

According to a March 5th, 1978 article in the Houston Chronicle, the Summit’s Telscreen production crew were known to add graphics to their video footage as it was happening. During concerts, they focused mainly on whoever was singing. This explains the footage of the Summit show, which included graphics between songs and very few camera angles.

At the show, Randy and Joe both wore white t-shirts bearing the logo for Criteria Studios in Miami where the band was finishing up Hotel California at the time. In fact, the previous night’s show in Baton Rouge was held up for two hours because the band was late arriving from Miami.

In 2006, Randy recalled the grueling touring and recording schedule from this period:

“We had to go out on the road while we were doing that album and then go back to Criteria Studios in Florida to finish it…We went back and forth a lot…wanted to get the tracks right and mixed right. We knew the album was special.“

Interview with Ken Sharp, 2006

The less-than-complimentary review in the Houston Chronicle noted that the band looked and sounded “frayed around the edges,” this was perhaps due to their touring/recording schedule from the time period:

More flattering reviews were found in the Houston Post and the University of Houston’s Daily Cougar newspapers. The Post proclaimed Randy’s performance of “Take It To The Limit” to be “one of the true crowd-pleasers of the evening.”

Video

“Take It To The Limit”

“Midnight Flyer”

Complete Film (This is not the full concert)

The song order in the video does not follow the actual setlist for the Summit concert. The Eagles opened with “Take It Easy,” not “Hotel California.” The performance of “Take It Easy” is not included in the film, neither is “Doolin-Dalton,” which was also played, according to the Chronicle review.

Footage setlist:
Hotel California
Lyin’ Eyes
Wasted Time
Take It To The Limit
Desperado
Midnight Flyer
Turn To Stone
Already Gone
One Of These Nights
Funk 49
Good Day In Hell
Rocky Mountain Way
Witchy Woman
James Dean
Best Of My Love (with J.D. Souther)
Walk Away
Tequila Sunrise