Don Henley, like ex-Beatle Ringo Starr, has managed to survive the demise of his old band and take on a new career as a bandleader. Henley is now a singer who formerly played drums. (He did pound away on bongos during the encore, but that was it for his percussion showcase.)
But he definitely showed he’s more than up to his latest challenge Friday night at Robinson Center Performance Hall, where he charmed a crowd that filled nearly all of the 2,214 seats in the newly configured hall, with its fine, improved acoustics.
And while Henley is now considered a solo artist, this was no solo show. He had a 15-person band at times, when the five-man horn section stepped up.
Most of the 19 songs in his set were introduced with stories or wry observations by the Linden, Texas, native. Early on, Henley promised the crowd a lot of music — more than two hours, in fact, and that was what he delivered, playing past 11 p.m. without a break.
And just as at recent Eagles’ shows, Henley’s opened with a nice version of Steve Young’s “Seven Bridges Road,” no doubt in tribute to Young, who died a year ago, almost two months after the death of Eagles’ co-founder, Glenn Frey. Then tearing directly into the raucous “Dirty Laundry,” he followed that by slowing the pace with a sweet duet on “That Old Flame” with the talented Lily Elise, one of his three backing female vocalists.
The show covered a wide swath: Henley originals, including some of the country songs on his latest album, Cass County, plus Eagles material, along with a version of the beautiful “It Don’t Matter to the Sun,” a song recorded by Garth Brooks (during his Chris Gaines period) and a surprising choice of a cover song, Tears for Fears’ powerful “Everybody Wants to Rule the World.”
Other highlights were “The End of the Innocence,” “The Heart of the Matter” and what Henley introduced as a seven-minute song about manifest destiny — “The Last Resort.” Then came the first half of the encore: “Life in the Fast Lane” and “Hotel California” (on which the band members excelled) and then, finally, a pair of songs that Henley had written with Frey, his late band mate: “Wasted Time” and “Desperado.”
Guitarists Steuart Smith and Chris Holt were consistently amazing and Little Rock’s own Milo Deering, concealed under a giant hat, played pedal steel, various guitars and a litany of other instruments that Henley named, all of which somehow led to the calling of the Hogs, much to the bemusement of Texan Henley and some of his band members.
The show opened with a 45-minute set by JD & the Straight Shot, a New York City country rock band, whose leader, JD (Jim Dolan) can certainly claim to be in it for love, not money, as his main gig is that of owner of a professional sports team, the New York Knicks, along with other properties.
Dolan did a decent job fronting a four-man, one-woman band, with Erin Slaver, the woman, almost stealing the show with her fiddling and singing. The band did original songs except for a fine cover version of Spirit’s “Nature’s Way.”