Under the glow of pixels: The Eagles rock the Sphere

Like many sensory-sensitive individuals, I’m easily unsettled by a cool-toned overhead light or a bad perfume. The idea of an “immersive experience” is about as undesirable as getting flossed at the dentist or attending a morning lecture. For me, the best aspect of live music is not the shared experience with others, the talented musicians, or hearing my favorite songs live. It’s the fact that shows often occur in cool, dark spaces. 

Needless to say, I was almost more anxious than excited to see The Eagles during their last show of 2024 at the Sphere, a 580,000 square foot LED-fortified dome east of the Las Vegas Strip. 

To a pretentious music fan, the Sphere initially seemed like the pinnacle of tacky: the crown jewel of corporate entertainment culture and another example of “just because we can doesn’t mean we should.”

The Eagles announced their final tour, “The Long Goodbye” in 2023 with Steely Dan. This tour leg led into their summer 2024 residency announcement at the Sphere, a stretch which initially was supposed to be eight shows last fall. Now, the Eagles have extended their stay well into April of this year — a whopping 32 shows rounding out their so-called final hoorah. 

After the death of a founding member and co-lead singer and songwriter (“Hotel California,” “Take it to the Limit,” “Lyin’ Eyes,” etc.) Glenn Frey in 2016, the surviving members restructured the group. Members Don Henley, Joe Walsh, and Timothy B. Schmit still maintain the structure of the band. Henley recruited bluegrass savant Vince Gill to play with the Eagles in 2017. Glenn Frey’s son Deacon Frey rounds out the group and stands out — he’s the youngest on stage by a couple decades. 

With only an hour until showtime, the Sphere was surprisingly easy to navigate. Short entry lines, multiple spots to buy vintage-inspired merchandise, and accessible, clean bathrooms: a routine concert-goer’s dream. 

The show opened with a digitally projected junkyard of the band’s history: a digitized collection of their old logos and brand styles, iconic buildings of their labels like Capitol Records, and key Californian landmarks like Chateau Marmont, the Troubadour, and Tower Records. A blimp buzzes around the screen with a flashing timestamp before the sky breaks open, the seats shake, and audience members are thrust into a storm leading right into “Hotel California.”

Though I’d braced myself for a light-and-sound induced panic attack, it only took about a song to go from disorientation to awe. The sound quality lacked the glaring metallic nature that many stadiums promote. Instead, it sounded understated, the product of about 1,500 permanently installed speakers and 300 mobile modules mostly hidden behind the screen. It was like Henley was in my living room and not encased in a multi-billion dollar freak of industrial design. 

Alongside their numerous hits like “Witchy Woman,” “Peaceful Easy Feeling,” and “Life in the Fast Lane,” the Eagles also played a number of solo tracks like Walsh’s “In the City” and Henley’s “The Boys of Summer.” Frey led the encore with “Take it Easy,” shortly followed by songs like “Desperado” and “Heartache Tonight.”

Each track on the setlist had a corresponding visual aid that poured down from the top of the Sphere and coats the space. For tracks like “Hotel California” and “Lyin’ Eyes,” these visuals were highly sophisticated stories, complete with both CGI and real human actors. Some of the visuals followed a more traditional music video scheme while others took spectators down backroads of nondescript roads with beautiful greenery. 

The only thing more moving than the general adoration that emanated from the audience of nearly 18,600 people was Henley’s introduction speech which set a gracious tone for the rest of the evening. 

“We’re so grateful people still want to hear these songs,” Henley said. 

The Eagles performance at the Sphere had the potential to be a cheap caricature of a great band’s legacy, exploitative of their extensive history. Instead, it was a dazzling endeavor that honored not only the organic sonic experience the group is famed for, but also the roots of camaraderie and connection it still manages to cling to. Even 50 years later. Even under the glow of millions of pixels.