Who do you think is the most famous Los Angeles artist? Randy Newman comes close, born and bred in the city and gifting the West Coast metropolis its unofficial anthem with 1983’s ‘I Love LA’. Guns N’ Roses and the surrounding Sunset Strip’s hard rockin’ and partyin’ metal scene could make a confident claim, and for a moment in Compton, Dr Dre’s G-funk gangsta whine was the soundtrack of the city in the early 1990s.
There are a myriad of artists from punk to surf pop who have captured the soul of ‘The City of Angels’, yet, commercially speaking, 1970s soft-rock stalwarts Eagles tower over any competition.
Founded in 1971 and centred on the songwriting efforts of future 1980s stars Don Henley and Glenn Frey, Eagles’ frothy blend of country twang and edgeless solos proved to be a Billboard monster. Their Greatest Hits (1971–1975) best-of package and 1976’s Hotel California were the fifth and sixth biggest-selling albums of all time, having shifted over 40million copies each.
As they geared up for their 1978 Hotel California tour, the Eagles were the world’s biggest band. On the other end, rubbing shoulders with them was the steve miller band, having scored a Billboard Hot 100 number one with ‘The Joker’ and equally making a name for himself in the American soft-rock corner. With a subtle twist of humour to his lyrics and a frisson of comic drama in his arena-pop appeal, Miller cut a unique shade in the 1970s MOR crowd.
While he had been slogging it since 1968 with his earlier psych-folk efforts, a turn toward The Joker‘s blues rock saw a swift rise in the charts and a sudden co-headline tour with the Eagles. Now, for whatever reason, the latter had some beef with Miller during the tour.
After Pablo Cruise had warmed up the audience at the August 2nd date in Milwaukee County Stadium, Miller stepped onstage to tear into their recent hit ‘Fly Like an Eagle’ as his big opener, following a wild response from the mostly teenage crowd. “Look at that guy,” Eagles manager Irving Azoff scoffed to Rolling Stone‘s Charles M Young after flicking the finger behind a stack of speakers at his perceived conservative attire. “He even looks like an accountant. Undoubtedly the cheapest man in rock & roll. You know he gets all his equipment into one truck?”
After probing why Miller was booked in light of such contempt, Azoff cynically quipped, “He’s the least of the worst… Some other act, we’d get a hundred bikers in the front row.” It’s a curious motive, booking a support act of perceived low calibre to not outshine the main act, but it reeks of managerial, behind-the-scenes bitchiness than any grievances from the band itself.
Whatever the dirty laundry, it didn’t last. Years later, on the current Long Goodbye Tour set to wind up this year, Miller stepped up to support duties once again to replace steely Dan for the Eagles across ten tour dates in 2023, both acts still possessing the same soft-rock shimmer after 50-odd years.
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