BWW reviews: Hotel California's Concert with Columbus Symphony A Little Too Peaceful, A Little Too Easy

A friend once joked the Eagles were "the official band of old WASP men everywhere." To test the person's theory, another woman asked her husband, himself old, fat and balding, "Honey, you like the Eagles, don't you?" The man, who missed out the set up of this conversation, exclaimed "I looooove the Eagles."

As is the case of anything extremely popular, it is easy to dismiss the Eagles. One friend described the band as "music for housewives." In the 1998 movie, THE BIG LEBOWSKI, The Dude (Jeff Bridges) pleads with a taxi cab driver to turn down "Peaceful Easy Feeling" -- "I had a rough night and I hate the (freaking) Eagles." Even acerbic Mojo Nixon had a minor novelty hit with "Don Henley Must Die" in 1990.

The performance of Hotel California, a five-person Eagles cover band, with the Columbus Symphony Orchestra Feb. 23 at the Ohio Theatre was a good refresher course on why older fans are still hungry for the premier American band of the 1970s. Hotel California, made up of John Agostino, Scott Fronsoe, Steve Probst, Dicky Lee Dickinson and Wade Hogue, was created in 1982 in the wake of the Eagles' first breakup. The band touts itself as the number one Eagles' cover band and has been, according to its website, "granted rights and received permission for live performances of the music of the Eagles."

While it wasn't the actual Eagles, Hotel California did give its Ohio Theatre audience a chance to envision what the band would have sounded like with a full orchestra behind it. The Eagles rarely performed with an orchestra but did release a symphonic version of Henley's "In a New York Minute" with the Burbank Philharmonic Orchestra on its 25th anniversary recording of the Hell Freezes Over tour.

One of the challenges of duplicating the Eagles performances is their songs fall into one of two categories -- country-sounding ballads like "Peaceful, Easy Feeling," and harder edged songs like "Life in the Fast Lane."

Hotel California came out strong with the first category of songs. In the first half of its show, they presented beautiful arrangements of "Wasted Time" and Don Henley's "Heart of the Matter," featuring the brilliant lush sounds of CSO's string section. One of the highlights, however, was an acoustic version of "Seven Bridges Road," which combined the vocal talents of all the members of the band.

As they closed out the first half, Dicky-Lee Dickinson promised the crowd to "get ready to rock" in the second part of the set.

That didn't really happen. The band never switched over to electric guitars, perhaps because it might have overpowered the orchestral vibe of the show.

The second half started promisingly enough with fine orchestral arrangements of "Life in the Fast Lane" and "Victim of Love" with violins trying to duplicate Joe Walsh's guitar riffs. It featured one more foot stomper in "Heartache Tonight" but most of the set was just a continuation of the mellow ballads with "Tequila Sunrise" and "One of These Nights." Great songs but not exactly rockers.

Perhaps the oddest part of the show was watching a band who sounded just like the Eagles but who clearly weren't the band. It was similar to when the cast of The Simpsons performed on "The Actors Studio." The actors' voices sounded fine but unless you had a picture of Chief Wiggum up there, it just didn't sound quite right. It was a strange sensation watching Henley's voice come out of someone who was decidedly not Don Henley.

Hotel California is a fine band with an impressive set of credentials. Members of the band have shared the stage with heavyweights like Boston, Van Halen, Vince Gill, the Little River Band, John Belushi, the Pure Prairie League, and even former Eagle Randy Meisner to mention a few. They did a great job capturing the sound of the Eagles. However, I may be just another cranky old man, but the whole show left me longing for the real thing.

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