The Eagles opened for the Allman Brothers at Boston Garden on July 26th, 1974. The concert was a benefit for the North American Indian Foundation. An audience recording exists of the Eagles’ set. Listen to it below.
Randy sang lead on “Midnight Flyer” and “Tryin’.”
“Midnight Flyer”:
“Tryin'”:
The Eagles go full blast on “Tryin'” for nearly 7 minutes. The addition of Don Felder on this 1974 recording gives it a hard rock edge not heard in previous live versions.
Full Concert:
Setlist Take It Easy Outlaw Man Already Gone Doolin-Dalton Desperado Peaceful Easy Feeling Midnight Flyer Twenty-One Blackberry Blossom James Dean Good Day In Hell Tryin’ Witchy Woman Chug All Night Out Of Control
The Eagles played the Civic Center in Springfield, MA on May 15th, 1975. Dan Fogelberg opened. Listen to an audience recording of the Eagles’ set below.
Valley Advocate (Hartford, CT), May 1, 1975
Audience Recording
“Midnight Flyer”
“Too Many Hands”
Full Concert:
Recording Setlist Take It Easy Outlaw Man Doolin-Dalton Desperado (reprise) Train Leaves Here This Morning Peaceful Easy Feeling Desperado Ol’ 55 One Of These Nights Blackberry Blossom Midnight Flyer Journey Of The Sorcerer Too Many Hands Already Gone Good Day In Hell James Dean Witchy Woman encores: Chug All Night Best Of My Love (Dan Fogelberg on piano) Tequila Sunrise (Dan Fogelberg on piano)
The Eagles played the Music Hall in Boston, MA on May 14th, 1975. Dan Fogelberg opened. An audience recording exists of the Eagles’ set. Listen to it below.
Randy sang lead on “Midnight Flyer” and “Too Many Hands.”
“Midnight Flyer”:
“Too Many Hands”:
Boston Globe concert review: “Too Many Hands,” a cut from the new LP, offered an expanded blues sound, a far cry from “Desperado.”
Full Concert:
Setlist Take It Easy Outlaw Man Doolin’ Dalton Train Leaves Here This Morning Peaceful Easy Feeling Desperado OL’ 55 One Of These Nights Twenty One Midnight Flyer Journey Of The Sorcerer Too Many Hands Already Gone Good Day In Hell James Dean Witchy Woman Chug All Night Best Of My Love (Dan Fogelberg on piano)
The Eagles played Tampa Stadium on May 31st, 1975. Opening the show were Linda Ronstadt, Seals and Crofts, the Charlie Daniels Band and Michael Stanley. Listen to an audience recording of the Eagles’ set below.
Tampa Tribune, May 30, 1975
Audience Recording
Randy sang lead on “Midnight Flyer” and “Too Many Hands.”
The Eagles played Music Inn in Lenox on August 22nd, 1974. The English band, Snafu, opened. Listen to an audience recording of the Eagles’ set below.
Springfield Union, August 18, 1974
Audience Recording
Randy sang lead on “Midnight Flyer” and “Tryin'”
“Midnight Flyer”
“Tryin'”
Full Concert “James Dean” is mentioned in the Berkshire Eagle review below, but is not part of the recording.
RecordingSetlist Take It Easy Outlaw Man Already Gone Doolin-Dalton Desperado Peaceful Easy Feeling Midnight Flyer Blackberry Blossom Tryin’ Witchy Woman Chug All Night Tequila Sunrise
The Eagles played four sold-out concerts at The Forum in Inglewood, CA, October 19-22, 1976. Get all the details and hear audio from the shows, plus one complete concert.
The Eagles played the Richmond Coliseum on May 25th, 1975. Linda Ronstandt opened.
Richmond Times-Dispatch, May 25, 1975
Photo courtesy of Joan Shaver
According to the review in the Richmond Times-Dispatch, the highlights of the evening were the two songs on which Randy sang lead: “Too Many Hands” and “Midnight Flyer.” The author of the latter, Paul Craft, was in the audience.
“The high points were a sizzling ‘Too Many Hands’ and Paul Craft’s churning ‘Midnight Flyer,’ the author, in the Coliseum audience, is not likely to hear his song done that well again.”
C.A. Bustard, Richmond Times-Dispatch, May 27, 1975
The Eagles played the Seattle Center Coliseum in Seattle, WA on August 21st, 1975. Roger McGuinn opened. Listen to an audience recording of the Eagles’ set below.
Seattle Times, August 19, 1975
Concert photos by Bill Sharpsteen.
Audience Recording
Randy sang lead on “Midnight Flyer” and “Too Many Hands.”
The concert started an hour late because a sound truck was involved in an accident in Oregon.
The Eagles played the Seattle Kingdome on August 6th, 1976. Linda Ronstadt and J.D. Souther opened.
The concert was attended by more than 50,000 fans. It was only the second concert in the newly-built Kingdome. The first was Paul McCartney & Wings in June.
Original concert poster
Cooper Point Journal, August 12, 1976
The sound was terrible in the giant venue unless you were seated directly in front of the stage. Fans who came to hear the Eagles’ perfect harmonies couldn’t hear them unless they were near the front. Patrick McDonald of the Seattle Times, noted that due to the size of the Kingdome and the number of people in attendance, the show resembled an “indoor Woodstock” with people milling around and friends sitting together passing pipes and joints. However, unlike Woodstock, the Kingdome was equipped with a giant video screen that hung near the stage:
“One major difference was the big screen, which did give everybody a good view of what was going on on stage. They were doing different things with than at the Wings show – split screen, dissolves, extreme close-ups, etc. It was like watching In Concert on a giant TV screen except the sound is better on TV.”
Patrick McDonald, Seattle Times, August 8, 1976
Footage
This video screen footage of the Seattle concert exists as a bootleg. Below I have included the footage of Randy’s two lead-singing performances, “Take It To The Limit” and “Midnight Flyer.” I have also included “One Of These Nights” and rare footage of “Seven Bridges Road.” The entire concert is also available at the bottom.
“Take It To The Limit”
Listen to the end to hear Glenn Frey say “That was Randy Meisner, our bass player, hitting the high notes there. We love it every night.” Then Joe Walsh pipes in: “He can sing higher than that if he needs to.” (@2:36) Unfortunately, the footage starts in the middle of the song.
“Midnight Flyer”
“One Of These Nights”
“Seven Bridges Road”
Full Concert
Reviews
“It should be mentioned that the Eagles’ singing was almost flawless throughout. Bassist Randy Meisner’s incredibly breathtaking vocal on ‘Take It To The Limit’ prompted Glenn Frey to remark, ‘The highest voice in the business…and he can sing higher,too.’ Their superb vocal harmonies were featured in a beautiful acoustic version of ‘Seven Bridges Road’ with drummer Don Henley stepping down to sing with the other four. It was reminiscent of Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young.” (Nathaniel Koch, Cooper Point Journal, Evergreen State College, August 12, 1976)
Cooper Point Journal, Evergreen State College, August 12, 1976
Seattle Times, August 8, 1976
The Kingdome show was the Eagles’ second to last concert on their 1976 summer tour. Their last stop was Mile High Stadium in Denver on August 8th, 1976. Several members of Randy’s family traveled from Scottsbluff, Nebraska to see the show. Read more about it below.
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.
Houston Chronicle, November 1, 1976
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:
Houston Chronicle, November 7, 1976
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.”
Houston Post, November 7, 1976
Houston Daily Cougar, November 9, 1976
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
The Eagles played Tampa Stadium on July 4th, 1976. The concert was called “4th Of July Jubilation.” Fleetwood Mac and Loggins & Messina also performed.
