Podcast: Hotel California dissected

If you’ve been reading my words on music for some time and have an interest in hearing my voice, here’s an impassioned Debbie being the latest guest on The Music Dissectors, an Australian-produced podcast that devotes each episode to an album that has made an impact on the life of the guest. There are many albums that have had that impact on me but I could not go past Hotel California as the number one. So this is 90 minutes of me talking about that, with various tangents as well.

Chicago live for the last time (probably)

Well these pictures have been a long time coming. They are from a Chicago concert I saw back in February, more than four months ago, at the Fred Kavli Theater in Thousand Oaks, CA. I had not planned to see the band live again after their 50th Anniversary show at the Whisky a Go Go last year, and then on February 18 I found myself at this show in an excellent seat due to a gift from a friend…

I saw Paul Simon and I’m no longer crazy (after all these years)

28 May 2018, Hollywood Bowl, Los Angeles, CA

It was a cold night at the Hollywood Bowl as it usually is in LA in May, but my heart was full of warmth as I watched and listened in wonder at Paul Simon. My mouth must have been wide open in amazement too often through the nearly three-hour show, as I woke the next morning with a sore throat and chesty cough that I am still trying to shake. But how could I not be breathing in the brilliance? How could I not smile widely and sing along with everyone else?

A much-needed Eagles fix and why I can never leave

22 May 2018, Moda Center, Portland, OR

It was a wild crowd at the Moda Center in Portland last Tuesday night. Boisterous, talking, singing, hollering, on their feet, snapping every moment of the show on their mobile phones, videoing away despite omnipresent burly security men. Rarely did they take the cue to quieten down. At one point Don Henley looked as though all he could do was surrender to it. So he smirked and said, “Must be the coffee.”

Eagles in Detroit

27 October 2017, Little Caesars Arena, Detroit, MI

Going all the way to Detroit for 48 hours to see Glenn Frey’s son play with the band his late father had founded 45 years before was an emotional experience. Coming just one month after seeing – and reporting on – the Eagles at the Classic Northwest in Seattle, I elected to hold off posting a report and photos on the Detroit show. But seven months later, as I was writing about the band’s Portland show, I found myself referring back to this night.

Anniversaries – Terry Kath

It was 40 years ago today that Chicago’s original and most brilliant lead guitarist, songwriter and vocalist, Terry Kath, died here in Los Angeles. He shot himself in the head. It was a horrible, ghastly accident; he thought the gun was unloaded. He was eight days short of his 32nd birthday.

The news came through to me in Sydney as I lay in bed on a summer morning during school holidays in January 1978.

The Classic Northwest. I was there. Overjoyed.

30 September 2017, Safeco Field, Seattle, WA

I was a conscientious objector and then was most contrite. I made a huge deal about not wanting to see the Eagles continue without Glenn Frey, especially in such a colossal and overly expensive way, so I decided to boycott the Classic West Festival that played right in my vicinity in Los Angeles in July. And then on the day I was hopelessly depressed about not being there, on missing what was going to be a historic event…

Don Henley works it at the Runaway Tours Weekend Q&A

or: The Interview You Do When You’re Not Doing An Interview

23 July 2017, Dallas, TX

Sitting in the front row at Don Henley’s Runaway Tours Q&A in Dallas the day after his 70th Birthday Concert, I could almost have been at a press conference, except that most of the questions being asked at this fan event were more thoughtful, and for the most part more educated, than anything the average journalist would ask.

The Classic West. I wasn’t there. Big mistake.

15 July 2017. Dodger Stadium, The Classic West, tonight, starring the Eagles, and I was not there.

My summer concert season has been in full swing and I have a backlog of at least seven reviews and reports to write with a lot of great photos from great shows. And yet here I am on a warm Saturday LA night writing about a show I didn’t even go to. An absence that has caused me much more anguish than I expected. An absence I will regret always.