According to the following review, the band was an hour late for the concert because their contract had the wrong start time:
“Eagles opened the late afternoon concert after an hour of waiting by the audience. The lead guitarist apologized for the delay saying they had been eating barbecued chicken in Birmingham at 3:30 p.m. when they noticed a poster for the concert that said 4 p.m. Their contract said 5 p.m. Panic ensued and the band hot-rodded it to Tuscaloosa.”
This date marked the end of their two-month long tour opening for Yes. It was an unlikely pairing of country rock and prog rock bands. Before Yes, the band had also toured extensively as an opening act for Jethro Tull and Joe Cocker. Randy remembered: “There was always a question of how we would go down with those kinds of bands but we always seemed to get a good response.” He also remembered that it was the first time anyone in the band had ever toured to that extent and they took full advantage of the perks of being touring rock musicians: “I was married at the time, but I was on the road and away from my wife and I fell off the wagon once or twice. Anybody who has been in my position and says they didn’t is lying. It was very exciting to us because it was the first time any of us had been on the road to that extent and so we were a bunch of innocents. Traveling and touring was all new to us. We just didn’t know.” (The Story Of The Eagles: The Long Run, Marc Shapiro, 1995)
Lead singer Jon Anderson recalled that the Eagles had a surprise for the band after the Charlotte show:
“The last show we did with Eagles -we became friends – I love these guys – they were great – we finished our show – 15,000 people – we get up-stage, backstage, there’s no lights, it’s all dark, and it’s like, ‘What the hell is going on?’ And there were guys with flashlights, like, ‘Come this way, the lights are gonna open up.’ “What happened was: we finished up in the room, and it was so dark, couldn’t see anybody, and then all of a sudden the lights came on, and there was a table set up with the Eagles standing behind with two dozen pies, they threw these cream pies at us, and I joined in, and it was the best time ever.” (Interview with Jon Anderson, Radio Forrest, August 2020)
Photos from this session were used on the front and back cover of Desperado, released in 1973. Additional photos were published in the Desperado Songbook the same year.
“The original concept was to depict The Eagles ‘gang’ alive on the front cover and dead at the hands of the posse on the back –with pictures of the bank robbery and ensuing shoot-out in which they met their grisly fate displayed across a double spread in the middle. ‘Then, at the last minute, without telling anybody, David Geffen scrapped the centerfold,’ Diltz says. ‘He was always doing stuff like that to save three cents on the production costs.'”
Uncut, May 2007
via Henry Diltz Photography – Facebook
Diltz also filmed the session and a short film showing the band members in a staged gunfight was later shown during the Eagles’ performance of “Doolin-Dalton/Desperado (reprise)” on Don Kirshner’s Rock Concert in 1974.
In 1989, Randy told radio personality, Redbeard, some funny stories about the making of the short film and the horses here:
Photo shoot for the cover of the Eagles’ debut album. Photography by Henry Diltz. Art direction by Gary Burden.
The Eagles wanted the cover of their first album to have a “California” vibe, so Diltz suggested a “secret mountain top” in Joshua Tree National Park “where certain Hollywood actors would take psychedelics.” (Uncut, February 2022)
Bernie Leadon sets the scene:
“We met at the Troubadour at one in the morning and just drank our faces off, smoked all the pot and dope we could find and went out in my Toyota jeep and somebody else’s car and drove off to Joshua Tree. We arrived at four in the morning, before dawn, to the secret spot of all the old time dopers, way out in the back overlooking Palm Springs. They had this old barber’s chair way at the top of the mountain… you could sit there and it was great. We carried some guitars and all the camera equipment in the middle of the night, stumbled up this fucking mountain… made a fire and a camp and began making peyote tea and trying to eat peyote without throwing up… and the peyote was starting to come on and keep us awake… gave you that acid-like speed effect… those pictured are well stoned.”
The Story Of The Eagles: The Long Run by Marc Shapiro, 1995
