This was the Eagles’ third visit to the “Queen City” (and Randy’s fourth).
Cincinnati Enquirer, May 4, 1975
Eagles at UC Fieldhouse. Photo by Tom Kistner.
UC News Record May 13, 1975
Before the show, the Eagles were presented with the key to the city by Vice-Mayor William Chenault. Eight years later, Randy, along with his mom, Emilie, was presented the key to the city during a concert in Omaha, NE at Pogo’s Electric Cowboy.
The Eagles opened for the Rolling Stones at Arrowhead Stadium in Kansas City, Missouri. Joe Walsh, who was not billed, joined them as their guest. The Stones were on their legendary 1975 “Tour Of The Americas.” Opening along with the Eagles were The Gap Band and Rufus featuring Chaka Khan.
Tour poster, 1975. Keyboardist Billy Preston and guitarist Ron Wood appeared as part of the Rolling Stones’ touring band. Wood was not yet an official member of the group.
The bands performed under a tent-like dome on the stage.
Randy’s stage pass/badge for the Arrowhead stadium concert still exists with his family. The badge was pinned to his jeans in the photo on the right. Photo of the badge courtesy of Jennifer Meisner.
Below: Joe Walsh made a surprise appearance with the Eagles for a version of his own “Rocky Mountain Way.” Notice that Randy, who normally plucked his bass with his fingers, is using a pick for this song. Other songs on which he used a pick were “Good Day In Hell” and “Lovin’ You Every Minute” by Poco.
Joe Walsh backstage. Randy’s wife, Jennifer, at right with their son Dana hiding behind her.
Photos
Roadie Tommy Nixon is in both photos wearing a hat and red shirt.
The Eagles exit the stage. Randy is behind Eagles manager, Irving Azoff.
Roadie, Tommy Nixon, hands Don Henley a towel. Behind Henley is another roadie, Tony Taibi, in the Eagles shirt.
This was the Eagles’ first time opening for the Rolling Stones. In his memoir, Don Felder recalled the Eagles’ road manager, Richie Fernandez, setting up a meeting with the Stones in their hotel room the night before the concert. Felder claims it was the first time he’d ever seen heroin. He’d also hoped to meet Keith Richards, but he was nowhere in sight. He was later found motionless in the bathroom. Felder thought he was “a goner.” (Excerpt from Heaven And Hell: My Life With The Eagles by Don Felder).
Mick Jagger and Keith Richards (alive and well) onstage in Kansas City, June 6, 1975
J.D. Souther was also on the bill. The Eagles drew the second largest crowd ever at the festival, which was sponsored by Southern Illinois University/Edwardsville (SIUE), with 29,700 attending. The Who drew the largest in 1971 with 31,000.
The show was not without problems. Festival officials had only planned for a crowd of 12,000, but twice as many showed up. There were traffic jams, fights, and property damage.
Randy backstage before the show
There were more problems behind-the-scenes. The Eagles’ road manager “threw a tantrum” because the food provided to the group was not what they requested:
“The road manager threw a tantrum because the food furnished for the group was cold cuts, not hot fried chicken. He complained about stage security. The group itself couldn’t decide if they wanted a sound check or not.” (Alton Telegraph, July 30, 1975)
Nevertheless, backstage photos show the band’s dining area with what appears to be fried chicken remnants on the table.
The Eagles during a sound check in Edwardsville. Photo by Ken Regan.
PHOTO SESSION
During the afternoon of the concert, Ken Regan took a series of photos of the band at the local Holiday Inn as well as backstage at the festival site. Note that Randy is wearing a red shirt with a white tornado on the front. The shirt matched the band’s stage passes at the time, which also were also red with a white tornado logo. Randy’s ex Jennifer Meisner and their son Dana recalled that the tornado may have meant “whirlwind” or something similar. Below is one of Randy’s stage passes from 1975:
You can see Henley’s stage pass on his denim shirt in the last photo.
Jimmy Buffett opened. Randy sang lead on “Midnight Flyer” and “Too Many Hands.”
When Buffett inducted the Eagles into the Rock & Roll Hall Of Fame in 1998, he recalled that he met the band for the first time backstage at this show.
The State, August 3, 1975
SETLIST:
Take It Easy Outlaw Man Desperado One Of These Nights Train Leaves Here This Morning Peaceful Easy Feeling Ol’ 55 Journey Of The Sorceror Midnight Flyer Already Gone Too Many Hands Good Day In Hell James Dean Witchy Woman Oh Carol (encore) Best Of My Love (encore) Tequila Sunrise (encore)
The Eagles played the Sunshine Festival in Anaheim, CA on September 28th, 1975. Also on the bill were Linda Ronstadt and Jackson Browne. The concert was the Eagles’ last tour date of 1975. A live recording of the Eagles’ concert is included on the recently released One Of These Nights Deluxe Edition.
Los Angeles Times, September 28, 1975
Randy sang “Take It To The Limit” at this show in one of his first-ever performances of the song. He also performed “Midnight Flyer.” The concert also marked Bernie Leadon’s last appearance with the Eagles. He quit the band later that year and was replaced with Joe Walsh.
The Eagles played two nights at Red Rocks Amphitheater in Morrison, CO on August 18th and 19th, 1975. Dan Fogelberg and Tom Waits were the warmup acts.
Straight Creek Journal (Boulder), August 14, 1975
An early ad for the show listing only Tom Waits as the opener. It also included the original dates of the concerts: August 19th and 20th.
Image courtesy of Dana Meisner
The Eagles’ previous album, On The Border, featured a song, “Ol’ 55,” that was written by fellow Asylum artist, Tom Waits, who opened the show. According to an audience account, Waits was booed off the stage before he completed his set on the first night:
“Unfortunately Tom was booed off the stage before he could do a whole set, presumably because the Eagles fans were more accustomed to sweet than dour. The headliners were not pleased, and made a big point of emphasizing the identity of the composer of ‘Ol 55’ when the time came.” (Ken Langford, Tom Waits Library)
It’s interesting that Waits would perform at this show since he disliked the Eagles version of his song and said so publicly in early 1975:
“It’s one of the first songs I wrote so I felt like it was kind of flattering that somebody wanted to do your song but at the same time I thought their version was a little antiseptic.” (WAMU interview, Washington DC, 1975)
The next year his comments about the band were even more harsh when he told the British music magazine, New Musical Express, that their albums were only good for “keeping the dust off your turntable.” One can’t help but wonder if getting booed at this concert added to his contempt for the band.
The Doobie Brothers, Commander Cody, and Kingfish also performed. Elton John joined the Eagles onstage as a guest.
During their first encore, surprise guest, Elton John, joined the Eagles for a version of Chuck Berry’s “Oh Carol.” A week earlier, on June 21st, the Eagles performed at Elton’s Mid-Summer Music Concert at Wembley Stadium in London.
San Francisco Chronicle, July 1, 1975
The review below has a nice description of the Eagles’ set:
Peninsula Times, July 1, 1975
Elton and Glenn Frey backstage. The woman in the photos is Connie Pappas (later Connie Pappas Hillman), who worked for John Reid Enterprises, who managed Elton. 1
Promoter Bill Graham gave each member of the band a gift for participating in Day On the Green. It was a figure with an eagle head made of iron on a wooden bass with a metal plaque. Randy’s eagle head currently resides with his son, Dana. The inscription on Randy’s plaque reads: “Randy, Cheers and thanks. Bill & the F.M. Family, June 29, 1975.” The “F.M.” refers to FM Productions, a company founded by Graham that mostly handled concert promotions.
Photo courtesy of Jennifer Meisner
Meisner family friend and former nanny, Janice Heilbrun, later worked for Connie Pappas Hillman and John Reid at John Reid Enterprises. I hope Connie doesn’t mind if I tell the following story. Last year, she contacted me after seeing my blog post about Elton John’s Mid-Summer Music. In the post, I had mentioned how Janice had been suffering from Parkinson’s Disease the last few years. Connie asked if I would pass along a message to Janice wishing her the best, which I did via Jennifer Meisner. But I couldn’t end my correspondence with Connie without mentioning how much Randy had admired her husband Chris Hillman. I told her that Randy had said in interviews that he was in “awe” of Hillman and thought he was one of the best bass players he’d ever seen. This is what Connie told me in her response: “Chris was very moved when I relayed Randy’s sentiments about him….very, very sweet.” ↩︎
The Eagles headlined the “One Of These Days” concert at Balboa Stadium in San Diego. Jackson Browne and Linda Ronstadt also performed.
The show was filmed and portions of it were shown on Saturday Night Live With Howard Cosell (not to be confused with long-running NBC show).
San Diego Union, September 7, 1975
Photo by Jeffrey Mayer.
Photo by Jeffrey Mayer
Randy’s yellow shirt, with the hand-embroidered design from On The Border, was a gift from a fan named Terri “Woody” Smith. The family still has this shirt. Smith also gave Randy a blue shirt with a hand-embroidered eagle pattern (see it here).
First photos featuring new member, Joe Walsh, who had joined the band in late 1975 following the departure of original member, Bernie Leadon. One photo from this shoot was used to advertise the first American show, with their new lineup, in the Honolulu Advertiser, January 24, 1976. This early advertisement helped date the photos to at least December 1975 because Randy still had long hair. When the band appeared in Australia in January 1976, Randy had short hair.
Honolulu Advertiser, January 24, 1976
Don Felder recalled in his autobiography that this photo session took place at a ranch in Calabasas, “with old wagon wheels in the yard,” while the band was in the early stages of working on their forthcoming album, Hotel California.
These photos were taken while the band was in Chicago for a concert at Washington Park. One photo from this session was used for the Eagles’ first appearance on the cover of Rolling Stone magazine in September 1975, which included a piece about the band written by Cameron Crowe.
