Review: The Eagles at Wachovia Center

The Eagles brought their Long Road Out of Eden tour to the Wachovia Center Monday night.

The experience was like being invited over to a couple's house to enjoy a beloved old movie that you never get tired of watching. But first your hosts insist that you sit through home movies of their recent cruise ship vacation.

Before the venerable pop group got to its greatest hits - the expectation of which had packed the building to the rafters - the boys insisted on playing extended selections from their turgid 2007 double album, Long Road Out of Eden.

In fact, they inflicted this punishing strategy on the audience twice. The 3-hour show was broken into two halves and each portion began with numerous songs from their Walt-Mart special, the band's first collection of new material in 28 years.

At least Glenn Frey was polite enough to "beg (the crowd's) indulgence" as the band continued to wade through claptrap like "How Long" and "Busy Being Fabulous".

He made this quasi-apology after paying homage to a South Philly landmark. "Just like the sporting teams, we've moved next door," he said. "But we'll never forget the Spectrum - dressing in Bobby Clarke's locker."

In all fairness, the songs from Long Road Out of Eden sounded better live than they do on disc. But that's not a terribly high bar to vault. Even with the added verve and focus the Eagles brought to their newer tunes on stage, "Waiting in the Weeds" still seemed interminable. And the album's title track was interminable, an epic and tedious opportunity for Don Henley to exercise his social conscience.

The bulk of the show was given over to the group's imperishable favorites, beginning with "Hotel California" complete with the requisite call-and-response guitar duet between Joe Walsh and hired gun Steuart Smith.

The Eagles have long been a jukebox act. They're not interested in reinventing their recordings onstage. They replicate them.

Which was just dandy with the notably seasoned and ruly crowd at the Wachovia, many of whom seemed to be contemporaries of the 60ish singers on stage.

I saw my orthopedist going into the arena. He's an expert in joint replacement. I'm not sure if he was there for the show or if he was making a house call.

The Eagles' catalogue is uniquely suited to note-for-note recreations with its clean, romantic melodies, its tongue-in-groove harmonies and tasteful, restrained musicianship. As Frey sang on "Lyin' Eyes": "My oh my, you sure know how to arrange things." The band's philosophy seems to be: why try to improve on perfection?

Apparently, though, musicians get finicky as they age. After all the equipment was set up, roadies took the stage with Swiffers to assiduously mop the area where Frey, Henley, Smith, Walsh and bass player Timothy Schmit would stand.

The band certainly took a democratic approach to performing, with each of the four principals getting his moments in the spotlight as they worked through chestnuts like "Peaceful Easy Feeling", "Take It to the Limit" and "Heartache Tonight".

Curiously though, the liveliest parts of the night didn't involve Eagles' songs. They emerged from a couple of the band member's solo careers.

Henley's offerings, such as "Boys of Summer" and "Dirty Laundry", sounded edgier than the Eagles' generally anodyne style.

During the latter song, the big screen at the back of the stage showed clips of Rupert Murdoch and his Fox News minions, as well as Jerry Springer, the ladies on The View, TMZ, and even Philly exile Jerry Penacoli on Extra.

The real live wire, as usual, was Joe Walsh, who as he ages, looks more and more like craggy British actor David Warner. Even Walsh's lesser songs, like "In the City" brought the Wachovia crowd to their (its?) feet. And he whipped them into a frenzy with "Rocky Mountain Way", the first encore, and a crackling "Funk #49" which was blasted into overdrive by the Eagles' burly horn section.

On "Life's Been Good to Me So Far", Walsh donned his helmet-cam, projecting footage of the audience onto the screen. One brazen middle-aged woman in the front row, apparently convinced she was at a Motley Crue concert, flashed him.

It was a gratifying and generous show, even if it contained all the precision and spontaneity of a Swiss watch. But then, the Eagles are nonpareil at giving the people what they wanted.