I saw Don Henley with opener Shawn Colvin at the Fox Theater in Detroit Michigan Saturday night. Although I have seen Henley a couple of times with The Eagles this was my first time seeing him as a solo artist. He is touring in support of his new country influenced album “Cass County” and featured a big chunk of it in the show.
Opening act Colvin put in a decent 45 minute set. She does what I would categorize as folk / singer songwriter material. Although I had heard her name before, I was totally unfamiliar with her music. What she does is not really my cup of tea, but she has a nice voice and a laid back stage persona. Apparently her latest album is covers as her set probably had more cover songs than originals. The set did not make me want to rush out and buy her stuff, but it was pleasant enough.
As Henley’s show opened there were about 25 old antique radios suspended over the stage. The lights went down and a spot showed on each individual radio with a playback of either music, news or sports broadcasts from the 50’s and 60’s. It is kind of hard to describe, but was a very cool way to open the show. The stage lights came up with Henley and his large 10 piece band performing “Seven Bridges Road” all standing at the front of the stage singing around several microphones. It was a great opening and one of the highlights of the whole night. Over the course of the next 2.5 hours Henley and crew mixed in most of the new album with various album cuts and hits from his 80’s heyday. His voice was a little rough around the edges at times, and even when he talked he sounded a little bit hoarse. I just saw him with The Eagles less than a year ago, and his voice was in better shape then, so maybe he had a cold or something. That being said, on a few songs he really nailed it vocally with “Dirty Laundry” and “All She Wants To Do Is Dance” being a couple of examples. As I already mentioned his band was huge and included 3 very talented female backup singers who came out and performed duets on several new album tracks during the show. In addition to the 10 person band, Henley also used a 5 piece horn section off and on during the night. In some ways the show was like a storyteller’s session on VH-1, as Henley told a lot of stories in between songs. Some of these kind of rambled on a bit, but overall it was enjoyable to hear the stories behind some of the lyrics. Other than the “Seven Bridges Road” cover he did not touch any Eagles material. He also completely skipped over the “Inside Job” album which I personally like. He did pull out a couple of interesting covers including a very nice take on Tears For Fears “Everybody Wants To Rule The World”.
A rather bizarre thing happened towards the end of the evening. Henley was introducing his band. He got to his guitar player Stuart Smith (who also has been a touring member of The Eagles for years) saying how he was one of the best in the business, and some guy up in the front of the audience, sitting right in front of Smith, yells out something about Don Felder. Henley said something to the guy and then the guy yells “Don Felder taught Tom Petty how to play the guitar”. Well…..this got Henley really pissed off and he called for security to escort the audience member out. Henley says something like “I’ll see that you get a full refund, but you’re outa here”. When security was leading the guy out Henley says to the audience “I apologize, but I did exactly what Glenn Fry would have done in his hometown”. Obviously there are still some raw nerves with the whole Felder situation. It was an odd moment, but the audience applauded when the guy was being led out, and I have to agree that it was rather disrespectful to Smith.
Overall I thought it was a really good show. He leaned a little heavy on the country stuff in spots, but some of the new album tracks came across really well live especially “That Old Flame”, “Take A Picture Of This” and the first encore “Train In The Distance”. He did most of his solo hits, although skipped over one of my favorites “Sunset Grill”, and some of the older albums cuts that he chose would not have been my first choice, but those are minor quibbles.
Here is the set list:
SEVEN BRIDGES ROAD (Steve Young cover)
NO THANK YOU
THE HEART OF THE MATTER
PRAYING FOR RAIN
THAT OLD FLAME
THE END OF THE INNOCENCE
I PUT A SPELL ON YOU (Screaming Jay Hawkins cover)
HOW BAD DO YOU WANT IT
NEW YORK MINUTE
DIRTY LAUNDRY
TAKE A PICTURE OF THIS
WORDS CAN BREAK YOUR HEART
THE LAST WORTHLESS EVENING
WHEN I STOP DREAMING
THE COST OF LIVING
BRAMBLE ROSE
IT DON’T MATTER TO THE SUN
TOO MUCH PRIDE
EVERYBODY WANTS TO RULE THE WORLD (Tears For Fears cover)
SHANGRI LA
THE BOYS OF SUMMER
ENCORE:
TRAIN IN THE DISTANCE
ALL SHE WANTS TO DO IS DANCE
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