Of Eagles, Relationships, and a Guy Named Bob
Set List One
The first time I saw the Eagles, they weren’t. Although my memory is a bit murky, it was in Anaheim, California and the year was either 1971 or 1972. The Eagles, at least back then, were known as Linda Ronstadt’s backup band for a tour or two, and as the story goes, Linda recruited Don Henley, Glenn Fry, Randy Meisner, and Bernie Leadon as her exceedingly accomplished support crew. With talent like that, it isn’t hard to imagine that the guys went off on their own, Lickety-split, and never looked back.
Since then, I’m not certain how many times I’ve seen the Eagles in concert, perhaps six or seven more times, including in Madison, Wisconsin where we lived and several times in L.A. at what was once called the Inglewood Forum. It was there that I first saw them play Hotel California, and my mouth was agape as the curtain rose to reveal what appeared to be the Los Angeles Philharmonic Orchestra providing more than accomplished support for what was already more than accomplished.
I remember it to this day, even though it was probably 52 years ago. It was both a spectacle and spectacular. Unrivaled even to the concerts I saw of the Grateful Dead, the Allman Brothers Band, the Dave Clark 5, Fleetwood Mac, Bonnie Raitt at Red Rocks, Muddy Waters, Poco, a few of The Beatles, Jethro Tull, James Taylor, Crosby Stills Nash & Young (and without the Young), Gerry and the Pacemakers, the Rolling Stones, Tom Petty, the J Geiles Band, the Youngbloods, Tedeschi Trucks Band, Elton John, Jason Isbell, Steve Goodman, Jackson Browne, Al Green, Stevie Wonder, and the list goes on. And then all of those spectacles moved down a notch.
That’s when I saw the Eagles twice at the Sphere in Las Vegas. In a town where the spectacular is often times more peculiar than anything else (yes, I have seen Cook E. Jarr several times in Las Vegas and he is the original lounge lizard). But there was nothing peculiar about the Eagles concerts at the Sphere. It’s a performance, not to be confused with performative, that’s mind-boggling any way you choose to look at it. It is, of course, experiential, as any great concert should be, the music is timeless — assuming you’re in a 1970s through 2026 time warp — the musicians are poster child’s for what doesn’t necessarily happen to ageing musicians: they are steady on their feet, blended and tight, seemingly in possession of all of their marbles, and surprisingly in excellent voice having not, at least to the naked eye and ears, lost a single beat. But there was something else about these shows, a consciousness other than the elementary, but often true, regarding insights about how music can create a bond between people who couldn’t be more bond-averse than what is imaginable; how music fosters community (spoiler alert: it does); how good tunes make us appreciate the arts, which are seemingly being stripped away from us faster than the slight-of-hand, three card monte zealots perched on the scorched-earth pavement of Las Vegas Boulevard; it’s that, but it’s not just that.
Glenn Fry's Guitars
Joe Walsh's Guitars
The Eagles, from my sphere, are a wonderful distraction from the dirty ways of the world; a place far away that isn’t really all that far away. Like 7 Bridges Road in Montgomery County, Alabama, Winslow, Arizona (Take it Easy), the Wild West (Desperado), the West Coast (Hotel California), New York (In the City), and many songs about the border. For me, even a start-to-finish, three-hour distraction is mental medicine without a needed prescription from a head-shrinker, a couch doctor, or any version of a quacker. Although short-lived, and not a cure, the Eagles distract because they allow us to wander in wonder, and, I suppose, provide us with the ability to wonder about wandering, and by that I mean wandering away from the all too prevalent broken bonds of humanity, communities spoiled, and the arts roiled.
Las Vegas is certainly an odd place for that mental goodness to occur. Yes, it’s a city with hard working people, neighborhoods — other than The Strip and downtown — industries, non-profits, superb food, and some culture. But parts of the city are an atrocity. It takes more than it gives, and it’s underbelly is bookended between the words “belly-up” and “up all night”; two phrases that aren’t in my lexicon. And never were.
I’ve been to Vegas more times than I can count. Some of the time by choice, and plenty of other times without having any choice. 53 years ago, when I was attending the Claremont Colleges, outside of LA, there were shuttle flights for 29 bucks, and still other times we would load ourselves into Luther Kroninger’s convertible and be in Vegas in less than four hours for a weekend stay at the god-awful dorms at the Westward Ho. Other times we would ride in Keith Zwillinger’s car dubbed the cantaloupe ala mode, in part because it was a ride that was orange with a white roof, but also because Keith’s father was in the cantaloupe business somewhere in the Imperial Valley, or so we were told. This was all by choice.
But there were plenty of times it wasn’t up to me. That’s when convention season hit the strip, and my attendance was mandatory. It’s also a favorite spot for incentive travel destinations and my wife, Kathy, and I would routinely win free trips to Vegas in exchange for the placement of media dollars with CBS, ABC, NBC, or cable television.
I can’t think of a person less suited for Las Vegas than Kathy Marks. She is what Las Vegas is not. She is real, truthful, a person who can spot a player or imposter one thousand yards away, and a rare human who understands that we learn more from the quiet of the day, and far less from the noise of the night. She also loves the outdoors, a notion that is so foreign to the Vegas visitor that I know of people who routinely step outside a casino and talk about the sweet air they breathe even if it’s only for a few breaths. It’s phobic as well as claustrophobic.
So, when word came down that we were going to Las Vegas to see the Eagles at the Sphere it was enlightening and frightening. This wasn’t cocktail hour with the boys, a few ill-timed spirits before a lounge act, a dinner buffet, and a different sort of buffet at Crazy Horse 2. No, this was me, Kathy, and our daughter Sydney, who had never summited Vegas, let alone spent any time at its base camp. I was looking forward to seeing Sydney, to going to the concert, and to being immersed in the Sphere. But it was going to be a different experience for me, and that meant it was out of my routine, and apparently when I’m out of my routine I can get a little cranky; so I’m told and therefore I disagree. But I was excited about it and spent no time dilly-dallying about making reservations and dropping some well-earned retirement coin in the process.
Set List Two
Sydney’s a good human to have around. She’s an environmental scientist in an environment where some believe scientists should be obsolete because, after all, apparently science is obsolete. In the tech business we call it planned obsolescence, in the people business we call it idiocy because, after all, idiocy will never be obsolete. Sydney was the drumline for our beeline to Vegas, but her friend Scott Crago, was the drumbeat that made it happen for us.
Kathy Marks, Sydney Nick, Scott Crago, Tom Marks On Stage At Sphere
Scott Crago is a good guy, engaging, friendly, and hospitable beyond common pleasantries and niceties. That’s when a person overdelivers on kindness, not because it’s a good thing to do, but because it’s the right thing to do. If Scott’s name doesn’t ring a cowbell, it should. He’s been the drummer and percussionist for the Eagles since 1994. But the Eagles aren’t the only band he’s percusssioned for. Add to the fray just about everyone except The Fray including Stevie Nicks, Paul Simon, the Bee Gees, Jackson Browne, Sheryl Crow, Bonnie Raitt, Bryan Adams, Bob Seeger, Chris Isaak, and the one musician who was actually born with “the beat”, the indelible other Stevie, as in Stevie Wonder.
We spent a lot of time with Scott before the show, in fact, we arrived at the Sphere three hours before showtime. We were in the VIP Lounge, we were backstage, on stage, we talked to a lot of people, but the one thing we weren’t, was upstaged. That’s another type of distraction in short supply; let’s just call it a sphere of kindness where, geometrically speaking, wherever you are it’s the same distance to kindness from the edges to the center. Uninterrupted. No shortcuts. No pretenders. No fast talkers and no money grabbers. When we weren’t behind the scenes, in the wings, or in the lounge, we were sitting, not surprisingly, in the best seats in the house.
I’ve never seen a concert like this, and never will. Over time, I have perfected the art of lowering expectations. At the very least, that makes it very plausible that I’ll rarely be disappointed, or as the physicist and cosmologist, Stephen Hawking said, “My expectations were reduced to zero when I was 21. Everything since then has been a bonus.” High expectations, low expectations, or no expectations aside, the concert, starting with Hotel California, a lyrical and musical masterpiece, and ending with a rousing rendition of Heartache Tonight, was perfectly paced, was graphically exhilarating, and emotionally distracting. But not just for a few hours, or a period of time hither and yon. But, rather, for moments in time, snapshots that are moonshots, and images that stick around like reminders of places we were when we hear a song, even the first few notes. I’ll call it a distraction for the ages, and for the aged. And that’s me.
Set List Three
There are some relationship that are for the ages, but they’re rare. They come and go, fizzle out, and run too hot too soon. But some pick up where they left off, even when they left off decades previously. I’ve known Bob Weirauch for 48 years, not exactly a lifetime, but during that time with Bob, I’ve had the time of my life. There was that time in Phoenix, in Minneapolis, Chicago, Minocqua, Wausau, the lost night in Las Vegas, lost lives, found purpose, reinvention, world changing invention, sadness and despair, confidence and joy, heartache, heartbeats, heartwarming acts of civility and greatness, but above all, it’s been a relationship with a sturdy backbone on promises made, promises kept, and a principled existence, as corny as it sounds, to make the world a better place particularly for people, who through no fault of their own, should own a better place, not through entitlement, but because they choose to do it right, not for themselves alone, but because they understand when it’s better for all of us, it will be better for ourselves. It sounds so simple, even geometrically and spherically correct, but it also sounds so complex, and that’s mostly because people view the world as if it belongs to them, not to 8 billion others.
I sent some photos of our time at the Eagles concert to Bob. I’m not certain of this, but I think he wanted “in” as soon as he saw them. And who better to navigate the Sphere, the ins and outs of the venue, and a possible VIP Lounge get together with Scott Crago? That was me, but I needed the help of Sydney to arrange a meeting with Scott and Bob before the show. That, of course, happened, but so much more, too.
Bob and Scott Crago in the VIP Lounge
Because I had seen the show before with Kathy and Sydney, I did spend some time watching Bob watching the show. I knew from the moment Don Henley sang to us, “On a dark desert highway, cool wind in my hair, warm smell of colitas, rising up from the air…” that in spite of being 20 seconds into the show, it was going to bring great delight to Bob, which brought great delight to me. I think that’s what friendship is, why we should feel better giving than receiving, why happiness is grounded, to a large extent, in the adage that what we think, we become, and for me, I choose to think about the happiness of others because I know, even if it’s the long way around, it will ultimately make me happy. As Bob does, as the Eagles do, as Sydney always has, as Scott Crago did, and as Kathy has for decades.
Watching Bob Watch the Show
I do not know what’s next for me and Bob. And I suppose it doesn’t matter one bit. That’s because a true and honest friendship should never be defined by time, what’s next, keeping score, or the search for more. We should never forget that there is no path to happiness, it’s not a destination as most people think. But the path of happiness, the moments along the way, the odyssey of finding happiness, must be the path we’re always on. That’s what solidifies a friendship, being on the path of happiness with someone you belong with; and life will be better when you have a companion on that path. So, in addition to Kathy, and my children Ben, Hannah, and Sydney, I choose a guy named Bob to be on the path with me.
