La storia degli Eagles

The reviewers before me have pretty much summed this film up. I would put my money on 80% of the viewing demographic will have grown up with the Eagles and many of them, like myself, would know them first and foremost for their music. All of us have heard snippets of stories and probably read differing opinions as to how they imploded and reassembled and then generally just came and went again at random. Many of us would have been to a concert, possibly more than one and seen them in the flesh, marveling again at their magical ability to blend voices and instruments into some of the best music produced in modern times. This documentary knits it all together. There will be millions of words written online over the coming months and perhaps years critiquing this film for better or for worse.

I have adopted the stance that this is a group of musicians that are just as human as all the rest of us, extraordinarily gifted in their chosen fields and were at the intersection of preparation and opportunity just at the right time.

The addition of a copious amount of personal home movie footage, some never aired before adds the essential layer to the production and wraps the package up like a tightly constructed wine. I'm sure there are many who will be watching this who will see themselves in the background of some of the footage, even at the third encores and will will be gasping in their living rooms grateful for the fact that the passage of time is the best camouflage for human recognition. Could you just imagine..." OMG Mom, I don't believe you did that ! How am I going to explain this to my friends !! "

I remember the Eagles as a kid when they had a few hits in the British charts but it was not the music I grew up with. By the time I was a teenager they had already broken up.

They were a band I got to know retrospectively through their hit songs and then later their new songs after they reformed in the 1990s.

So I arrived to this two part documentary rather fresh knowing little about the band apart from band members Don Henley and Glenn Frey had pop hits as solo artists in the 1980s.

Part one focuses on the formative years of the musician from being kids onwards, the early days of the band until they hit the big time and their creative tensions leading to their breakup. Its a fascinating and informative story for me. I had no idea that such a Californian sounding rock/country/blues band recorded their early work in London and how much they were in awe of the music of The Who, Beatles, The Rolling Stones.

The band has gone through lineup changes with disputes among band members. Joe Walsh with his past demons comes across as the most honest in the documentary, Frey and Henley as the victors and the defacto leaders of the Eagles get to write their version of the history.

Great documentary on a great band.

Made in 2013, a documentary on the Eagles, from the early days of Glenn Frey and Don Henley to the (then) present day.

Includes interviews with the band members at different times in their lives, including in the mid-1970s. No narration, the movie is effectively narrated by the interviews.

Not your simple chronological telling of their story either, there is an examination of the impact of their music. Quite emotional at times.

Also quite bluntly told too. The frictions within the band are often examined and the truth is not sugar-coated.

A wonderful musical and emotional journey.

And this was an authorized bio. Wow.

Though I've loved The Eagles music, there was something I never liked about the band. So I decided to learn and find out more about the guys now that I have time. I always wanted to watch their documentary, and started to like them at the beginning of the movie. But boy did that change about halfway through. Now I think I had good intuition. Henley and Frey were total unlikable a-ho___s. My gosh.

I saw the Eagles in concert back in the summer of 77 (Linda Ronstadt opened!) at KC's Arrowhead Stadium, when the Eagles were at their peak, shortly after "Hotel California" had been released. Fast forward about 4 years, early fall 1981, I was hung-over in the afternoon after having celebrated my bachelor party the previous evening. I would be getting married in about 5 hours and was scared shitless. So I popped a beer, lit up a joint, threw a steak on the grill and listened to the HC album as it was the perfect background music for my brain as I tried to get a perspective on where I had been and where I was going. (BTW, still married to my love) The Eagles and their music were the perfect soundtrack for my life during the 70's when my priorities were girls, booze, recreational drugs, girls, bars, music, cars and girls.

So I was and remain a huge fan, although not interested in paying $200 plus for decent tickets to see them in concert (I might have paid $10 in 1977) and I've viewed the SHO doc about 4 times, recently for the first time since Frey's passing. I assume virtually everyone reading this page has also viewed it, so all can do is offer a few thoughts on a solid documentary about a what was a truly great band.

As is with most of these type of documentary's, the most interesting part are the early years, when the Eagles formed a group after being sidemen for various bands in the LA music scene of the late 60's and early 70's. Henley made an excellent observation about making it big but realizing that there were other musicians and writers, just as talented, but for one reason or another didn't get the big career break. Sometimes it's just being in the right place at the right time and for the Eagles, the wave broke just perfectly. After hitting the band hit superstardom with HC, Henley and Frey would align to take creative control of the group, which would ultimately cause the departure of two of the other originals, guitarist Bernie Leadon and bassist Randy Meisner. Lead guitarist Don Felder joined the band on album #3 "On the Border" (my personal favorite) and kicked the band up a notch with his blistering work, plus wrote the music for tune "Hotel California" (Henley & Frey try to minimize his contribution.) And it seems after HC everything pretty much went into the shitter as far as their relationships with one another as greed, arrogance and drugs devoured the band.

Some nice reflections by Joe Walsh, who was already a big name in rock when he joined the group for HC, replacing Leadon. Walsh almost killed himself through years of drug and alcohol abuse. He was able to clean himself up when the group reunited in 94 after 13 years and was able to tolerate the arrogance of Henley and Frey. Felder wasn't willing and ultimately would be fired by Henley, Frey and their manager Irving Azoff, the consigliere of the band. In retrospect Felder may have made the mistake that many make, overvaluing their contribution and importance to their organization. He did file a lawsuit for breach of contract that was settled by both parties and wrote a book about his experience that ultimately left him persona non grata to Henley and Frey and not in consideration for any further work with the band.

To this day the Eagles are still touring, with only Henley left from the original lineup. More power to them,but maybe we would be best left with just our memories of perhaps the most outstanding band of the greatest era in rock.