HAMILTON, Ont. - If anyone needed proof that The Eagles are greater than the sum of their parts, look no further than Don Henley’s solo show at Copps Coliseum on Tuesday night.
The 62-year-old drummer-co-frontman of the quintessential California ‘70s rock-country act, who is touring this fall in support of a second greatest hits solo collection, drew just 3,000 fans to the venue which can hold six times that amount.
And despite Henley’s talents as a storyteller, he didn’t really ignite as a performer until the final stretch of the nearly two-hour show and sometimes struggled with his distinctive, raspy voice, whose problems he blamed on the changing weather and frequent flying.
“We have a little voice trouble this evening, I’m struggling a little bit,” he admitted before launching into The Last Worthless Evening. “I want you to sing the chorus ‘cause it’s a bitch.”
If only Henley had moved next door to the much cozier Hamilton Place Theatre, which holds around 2,200, his earlier attempts at crooning sophisticated tunes likes Kurt Weill’s September Song and Leonard Cohen’s Everybody Knows -- he also citied homegrown talent like Neil Young, Joni Mitchell and Gordon Lightfoot as among his favourite songwriters -- might have actually worked.
Instead, Henley, dressed elegantly in a black suit and tie and backed by an eight piece band including Canuck Peter Thorn (Chris Cornell), who shared lead guitar duties with Stuart Smith, chose to tough it out in the empty-looking arena with a backdrop showing a large clock.
The passage of time turned out be a major theme in the show but it seemed a bit forced at times although Henley did have a good line about trying to explain getting older to his 13-year-old daughter: “It was like talking to a tree.”
That story was later topped by a particularly good tale about attempting to steal Jack Nicholson’s companion, “a beautiful blonde actress,” at a Hollywood party in the ‘80s and failing miserably.
As a well-lubricated Henley asked the woman to bum a smoke (he wasn’t a smoker), she never even bothered to turn to face him while handing the cigarette over her shoulder, as Nicholson commented: “Excellent work Henley.”
The whole experience inspired him to write The Last Worthless Evening.
After the concert’s sleepy first half, who would have thought it would be a decent cover of Tears For Fears’ 80s anthem, Everybody Wants To Rule The World, that would finally perk the proceedings up.
From there, Henley, who never sat behind the drum kit but did play rhythm guitar, finally pulled out all the stops with such upbeat solo hits as Dirty Laundry, Boys of Summer, and All She Wants to Do Is Dance and major Eagles classics like Life in the Fast Lane, Hotel California and Desperado.
Sadly, he came back for a second encore consisting of I Will Not Go Quietly and the holiday song, Please Come Home For Christmas, when he should have quit while he was finally ahead.
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SET LIST:
One of These Nights
Everything Is Different Now
September Song
New York Minute
Everything Knows
It Don’t Matter to the Sun
The End of the Innocence
Everybody Wants to Rule the World
The Last Worthless Evening
The Heart of the Matter
Dirty Laundry
Boys of Summer
All She Wants to Do Is Dance
Life in the Fast Lane
Encore:
Hotel California
Desperado
Second Encore:
I Will Not Go Quietly
Please Come Home for Christmas
Don Henley
Copps Coliseum
Sun rating: 2.5 out of five stars
Tuesday night
