Don Henley
Frank Erwin Center, May 22
With his first new release in 11 years being released the day after this performance, Don Henley rode into Austin with something to prove. Inside Job is the title of his latest, and while the show certainly wasn’t akin to robbery, it felt like a dress rehearsal. Some of the song’s endings were unusually tentative, and Henley even forgot the words to one new song, causing the band and the accompanying light show to stumble. But those bits of spontaneity added a human touch to the proceedings, rare for an arena event. Vocally, Henley was in fine form, his reedy tenor stretched comfortably to fit into his new, groove-laden songs that stood up remarkably well next to his classic hits, a sign that, despite the extraordinary amount of time between albums, his muse is still with him. “Working It,” a “Valentine to corporate America,” the lanky Texan explained, while in the same vein as the set opener (and crowd-pleaser) “Dirty Laundry,” showed Henley with reinvigorated energy. “Everything Is Different Now” merged electronics and gospel in a way that was positively unique. Playful takes of a couple of old Eagles chestnuts fell flat, however, the beat-heavy, rapping take on “Life in the Fast Lane” being positively embarrassing. “After you do things for 25 or 30 years, you gotta do something to them,” said Henley by way of explanation. The first encore, a ska/reggae version of “Hotel California” was better, if only because the song in its original form had some reggae elements, but with four trombones replicating the song’s dueling guitar ending, some of its power was lost, and it ended up just feeling goofy. The second encore featured exquisite renderings of Eagles favorites “Wasted Time” and “Desperado” that sent the attentive, if hard to excite, crowd to the exits happy. Not happy, it seemed, was Henley, who throughout the evening seemed generally uncomfortable onstage, his between-song patter incredibly understated for such a large venue. He rarely, if ever, played to the audience, composed mostly of greying yuppies and folks that think Lite FM “rocks.” There were times when he stood stock still at the microphone, seemingly content to let his skillful accompanists do the talking musically. While this worked during a transcendent performance of the little known “Talking to the Moon” from his first solo album, Henley’s songs possess so much swagger, sweat and emotion, more of those qualities from the stage would have gone a long way to producing a richer, more satisfying performance.This article appears in May 26 • 2000.