(Credits: TIDAL)
Sun 30 November 2025 19:00, UK
Eagles were never meant to be a band with a bunch of hired guns thrown into the mix.
As much as there are some fresh faces in the band compared to their early years, Don Henley felt that it was only fair to get people that he felt could play the material the best while still keeping the bones of what made the band great to begin with. But even though Henley is the only original member of the band steering them forward, that also means that he knows when the band is sounding right and when things need to be changed.
While working with Don Felder was never going to work after one too many bust-ups behind the scenes, it’s not hard to see why the long-standing members have lasted so long. Whereas most of their music was almost ironically mellow based on how much they fought, Joe Walsh and Timothy B Schmit have helped bring that easygoing feeling to every show they play, whether that’s through the bassist’s tender voice or Walsh getting up to his goofball antics whenever he plays.
It would be one thing to have the three of them alongside Glenn Frey at the front, but losing in 2016 made it seem like the band was done for good. There would be the occasional tribute concert to his memory, but there was no way of replacing Frey, really. He wrote all those songs with Henley, and the idea of making a new record felt wrong if it didn’t have the same voice singing tunes like ‘Take It Easy’.
But if they were to entertain the idea, Henley did have a few people in mind for taking his position. Vince Gill already had that soaring high voice to help carry a lot of Frey’s best tunes and could even give Walsh a run for his money, but the real litmus test would involve Glenn’s son, Deacon, stepping up to the place. And looking back, not many people realised how much of a risk this was.
Deacon hadn’t been a proper gigging musician and certainly hadn’t played to Eagles-sized crowds before, but when he opened his mouth, he worked like a charm. He would close his eyes the same way his old man did, and when listening back to them playing together, Henley felt that the band would have never been able to come back had Deacon not been there to help them.
It was trial by fire in a sense, but Henley felt at home in the band for the first time since Frey passed, saying, “The only way it felt justified to me was to have family blood in the band. And I have to hand it to Deacon. He had done some gigs with his father – private parties, in front of maybe 200 people. To go from that to 50,000 people is extraordinary. I don’t know many people who could have done that without freaking out.”
Granted, Deacon’s voice is slightly gruffer than what people were used to from his father, but what he did helped give them a new sound as well. They were always close to country throughout their career, but with Gill and Deacon carrying Frey’s songs throughout the set, it actually managed to rope in a few more country fans, with Deacon sounding like a younger version of Travis Tritt when he sang ‘Take It Easy’.
But beyond being a decent vocalist, what Deacon did for the band felt nearly impossible given what they had gone through. Most people wouldn’t have been able to think about carrying on without a core member of their band, but the rest of the world didn’t need a lot of time to figure out that Deacon fit his old man’s shoes pretty well.
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