From its origins to its continued legacy, the story behind Randy Meisner’s signature song.

Eagles
Seattle Kingdome
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}

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 right up close. 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 video of Randy’s two lead-singing performances, “Midnight Flyer” and “Take It To The Limit.” Unfortunately, the beginning of “Take It To The Limit” has been edited out and it starts in the middle of the song. I have also included “One Of These Nights” because Randy was groovin’ through the whole song. A link to the entire concert is 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.”

“Midnight Flyer”

“One Of These Nights” with groovin’ Randy and his eardrum-shattering high notes during the choruses at the end.

Watch the full concert here: https://archive.org/details/the-eagles-1976-seattle-wa

Reviews

Cooper Point Journal, Evergreen State College, August 12, 1976

1976, Eagles, Midnight Flyer, One Of These Nights, Seattle, Take It To The Limit, Video, Washington

EAGLES & RANDY MEISNER
SONGBOOKS & TOUR BOOKS

Songbooks

These songbooks were released around the same time as each of the albums (Eagles & Desperado were published as one volume, back to back. Read one side, then flip it over to read the other). They included sheet music and lyrics for each song, accompanied by photos. The files below include abridged (shortened) versions of each these songbooks. I did not want to risk damaging the books by scanning every page (a couple are in fragile condition). All photos featuring Randy have been included.

Eagles – Eagles Songbook
Published 1973, Warner Bros. Publications
Included as a two-in-one with the Desperado Songbook.

Eagles – Desperado Songbook
Published 1973, Warner Bros. Publications

Eagles – On The Border Songbook
Published 1975, Warner Bros. Publications

Eagles – One Of These Nights Songbook
1976 Warner Bros. Publications

Eagles – Hotel California Songbook
1977 Warner Bros. Publications

Randy Meisner – One More Song Songbook
1981 Warner Bros. Publications

Tour Books

To my knowledge, the Eagles only published two tour programs during Randy’s tenure with the band. One to coincide with their Japanese tour in 1976 and one for the U.S. and European tour in 1977. Tour programs were published for Randy’s Japanese tours in 1981 and 1983. The latter is extremely hard-to-find. The ’81 program is included below.

Eagles – Japanese Tour Book 1976
Book included a poster

Eagles – 1977 Hotel California Tour Book
Distributed in both Europe and America.

Randy Meisner – Japanese Tour Book 1981

Photo Archive: Eagles, ONE OF THESE NIGHTS Cover, 1975

Photographer: Norman Seeff
Location: Los Angeles, CA

This was the band’s first session with photographer Norman Seeff, a former medical doctor who emigrated to the United States from South Africa in the late 1960s to pursue a career as a rock photographer. One of his first assignments was the cover of the The Band’s Stage Fright.

An image from this 1975 session with Seeff appears on the back cover of the Eagles fourth studio album, One Of These Nights. Seeff described the session in an interview with Rolling Stone in 2013:

“This session for their ONE OF THESE NIGHTS album resulted in some striking images where each member of the band was being themselves in a confident way. Creating a moment with several artists at once can be challenging. When you work with 5 artists, if you don’t create a simultaneous relationship with every single person and someone loses eye contact, then they’re not all present.”