Eagles controversy- what are your thoughts?

[steelvibe]

First there was the Hotel California thing, now this. I normally don't post here on the Open Mic, and if this was discussed already but I could not find it. I'm going to reserve my own opinion other than to say that it if this is the future of "music", I just might be done with live shows, at least from any of the world's largest bands.

https://youtu.be/jJ6DbH-X-L0?si=0lSC1yAZq5Ei2IAC

[Murphy Slaw]

Eagles broke up many, many years ago.

The Henley Band is about making money. And they are quite good at it.

[Inyo]

Originally Posted by steelvibe

...I normally don't post here on the Open Mic, and if this was discussed already but I could not find it...

https://youtu.be/jJ6DbH-X-L0?si=0lSC1yAZq5Ei2IAC

The video, embedded:

[Bob Womack]

Hi, I'm a recording engineer and work on audio for a living. I put this video up on the big, calibrated monitors here in the studio and analyzed it.

It is true that the vocals sound identical, with just a little phasing between them. However, Fil bases his assertion that they are from two different days on someone telling him that it true, second hand, and on the difference in the background wallah.

The assertion and the background wallah are countered, or at least undermined, by factors within the clips themselves. What are those factors?
1. There is quite a bit of difference in the processing between the two clips. On the left one we are hearing lots of artifacts from the clean up in both Don's voice and the background wallah. On the right one we aren't hearing as many artifacts.

2. Were that not enough to cause concern, there also appears to be reverb added post-cleanup-processing to the two channels. How do I perceive that? I can hear the background reducing software opening and closing and the artifacts imposed on the background modulating, but the reverb isn't discriminated against (as in, sucked out) or modulated much at all. It rings out fairly smoothly. A byproduct of virtually every background noise removal software I've used is removal or tightening up of ambience. The algorithms don't seem to have any problem discriminating between voice and room tone or artificial ambience - they suck it out along with the background noise at least to some degree. As a result, when I am faced with a source that has both background noise and too much room reflection and reverb, I always start with the background noise removal software first. Once I see how much room tone and reverb is removed by the background removal software, I decide whether or not to add a reverb remover. Frankly, all the background noise removal software I've encountered does a pretty good job, so reverb removal is often not needed after background noise removal. I'm not hearing a lot of correlation between the background noise removal and the reverb, so it feels like the reverb was added after the cleanup.

3. And here is another large piece of countering evidence against the idea that these are two performances with the same vocals:
In many places, the reverb trails off to near silence... without any of the band sound in it. If this was truly a recording of the band with cleanup software used to remove the band and leave Don, if the hall reverb trailed off, the band would be in it.

4. In fact, I haven't come across a piece of cleanup software that can clean off a complete band, much less clean off a complete band and leave clean reverb. Remember that the Eagles still use floor monitors and in-ears, and remove the IEMs whenever they want to, so the stage level isn't small, at all..

And crowds? I've got a library of hundreds of selections of arena, auditorium, and club crowds. I could drop a couple of them into each of the tracks and make two copies of the same audio sound convincingly different from one another.

With all these oddities, what is to keep us from believing that these are two copies of the same night that have been tampered with to make them sound as if they are from different nights?

I'm not defending the Eagles. I'm analyzing the primary evidence, the recordings, that was presented. I would need to see the chain of custody on the tracks to draw absolute conclusions on the validity of the claims.

All the best,

Bob

[6L6]

Great info, Bob. Thanks for posting that.

I strongly recommend Don Felder's book "Heaven and Hell: My Life in the Eagles" for a good read.

I heard Don play with his current band up in Truckee, CA recently. Sounded fantastic!

[TheGITM]

In the modern music era I don't assume anything is truly an honest live performance any more. The backing track technology is (usually) so consistent and well-timed that if the artists can do their part on stage it looks like a great performance. Every time.

Obviously, this isn't new. It's just so much better now than it has ever been in the past that I can understand why some artists would enhance their live shows. Tours are tough enough when you're young. Touring at Henley's age has to be exponentially more difficult.

So, whether or not they audio track stuff live... I guess it doesn't matter much to me. I stopped going to see them after the Hell Freezes Over tour (which was pretty darn awesome, btw).

I've seen Walsh solo since then, but won't ever go to another Eagle show.

[mr. beaumont]

Originally Posted by TheGITM

In the modern music era I don't assume anything is truly an honest live performance any more.

This is why I listen to jazz. Certainly nobody on the stage is being paid nearly enough to be able to pay for tracks

[Rolph]

I saw the Eagles in the mid '90's at the Rose Bowl in Pasadena, Ca. Thankfully, Sheryl Crow opened the show and performed well. The Eagles were playing to recorded music and were arguing instead of moving their hands! I was embarrassed for them. I saw them in the late '70's. and they were fantastic.

[steelvibe]

Great analysis Bob! That is why I dropped this here, to open the discussion. I appreciate that you don't attack the work or the creator, but rather add your own very important questions. These are questions that have me wondering about the validity of the claims that the recordings are the same track, but from 2 different venues. What a potentially amazing court battle this could play out in. Allegations, drama, celebrities and more!!

Okay, I can't hold it in...RANT ALERT. What I certainly do know, other than the fact that I hate the Eagles (but that is just like my opinion man), is that bands and artists have been effectively caught doing this; KISS, Motley Crue, Ashlee Simpson, Milli Vanilli, among others.

The Eagles are about to start a residency (oh the irony of that word) at the Las Vegas Stratosphere, where tickets will range from $350-over $1200 a pop. Why add this little important piece of info? Because one of my favorite vocalists of all time is Geoff Tate (Queensryche), of whom I got to see live on the Building Empires Tour in 1991.

It would crush me to learn that Tate used a tape to enhance that performance. It remains one of the best live performances I've ever witnessed. I would like to think it was real, as I do Tate's more recent live performances where age is clearly catching up to him. He struggles a bit nowadays, but still has it 65! Can he hit and hold the E5 like he did in his 20's? No way, but man the guy can still truly sing. Don't we go to shows for an experience and not necessarily perfection?

Some of the comments on the YouTube video are along the lines of, "if a band's lead singer cannot perform it should be listed in the concert notes", "disclosure of pre-taped/ recorded shows are more important than Warning- Explicit Lyrics", etc. I cannot say I disagree with some of these comments if in fact these bands are charging their FANS these kinds of premiums.

Phew....I feel better. Thanks all.

[KevWind]

Originally Posted by TheGITM

In the modern music era I don't assume anything is truly an honest live performance any more.

No doubt the technology is now very capable and as noted lip-sync has been around for a long time , Milli Vanilli being one of the most famous examples but lets not forget that was and I would think still is,, the exception not the rule ....

Because ::
The fact that it is technically possible, does not take into account the necessary drive determination and Ego of most performing artists . Which I would think would deter them engaging in a complete lip-sync type situation .
Likely some do use Auto-tune (and that is a different discussion) but that is not lip-sync

[fazool]

There once was a time when society eschewed fraud and this would have been a career ending scandal (milli vanilli and ashley simpson for example)

nowadays,society actively participates willingly in the delusion

[Bob Womack]

Originally Posted by steelvibe

Great analysis Bob! That is why I dropped this here, to open the discussion. I appreciate that you don't attack the work or the creator, but rather add your own very important questions. These are questions that have me wondering about the validity of the claims that the recordings are the same track, but from 2 different venues. What a potentially amazing court battle this could play out in. Allegations, drama, celebrities and more!!

Thank you. Yeah. I do recovery work of all types so little audio things just raise questions in me. I went into the video with an open mind and was willing to be swayed but the tale of the tape brought up my concerns.

There are all sorts of reasons someone would want to attack Don. He is a controversial figure, not warm and cuddly. Hilariously, Joe Walsh described a typical work day for the band back in 2005-ish: 'The band is in a rehearsal space and we are all waiting. Glenn hasn't arrived. Timothy is on the phone. Don is in the corner. He is mad about something, which means he is writing.' Her described the band politics thusly: 'By the time I joined the band, the members had already taken sides and the rivalries were already set. I walked into all this tension and decided I had to become neutral Switzerland.' So the whole Don Felder vs. "the Gods" thing had its roots in the mid-70s and because of it, lots of fans show up with their steely knives, so to speak. I thought it was funny to hear that after hearing himslef being referred to as an SOB, Glenn wore a T-shirt to sound check that said, "That's Mister SOB to you." And finally, there's the hilarious comment made by Don at their Hall of Fame induction: “I wanna thank Irving Azoff, without whom we wouldn’t be here today. Well, we might still be here, but we wouldn’t have made as much money. As I’ve said before, he may be Satan – but he’s our Satan." The prominent Eagles personalities long ago decided they were going to be all business. Hard, cold business. And that draws criticism. But still, you want to be fair

Bob

[edcmat-l1]

Last live show I saw was a couple years back. It was Metallica in the Atlanta Falcons stadium. It was a great show. I took my step son and step son-in-law. My step SIL is a fantastic drummer and does a lot of audio work. When we left the show my first comment once we could hear each other talk was "They sounded way too good. I'd bet they're using backing tracks". My step SIL agreed and went on to explain in detail a bunch of audio jibe that was way over my head.

I've been going to concerts of all types since 1981 if not earlier. A lot has changed since then. Nothing sounds acoustically authentic anymore.

[TheGITM]

He did a shorter follow up to address some questions. He responds to the question of whether someone could have taken one vocal track and applied it to another recording... he eliminates that in his analysis, and includes additional fan posted recordings from the same tour... and...

[frankmcr]

Don Henley, Metallica, big stadium bands, maybe.

Acts at your local City Winery or equivalent, seems highly unlikely. And those are the bands I'd go to see.