Some bands have jaw-dropping instrumentalists. Some have standout vocalists and gorgeous harmonies. Some tell stories so powerfully that tears gather at the corners of your eyes, and some are so musically diverse, they cross genres in the space of minutes. Some, however, do all of the above.
The Eagles are one such band, and Desperados, the 518 region’s incarnation of the Eagles, came pretty close to doing it all, too, on Friday, April 17 at the Glove Theater in Gloversville, NY.
Playing before a sold-out house, “Desperados – A Tribute to the Eagles” delighted their audience with a string of Eagles hits which showcased the original 70s phenom’s crossover genres, vocals (with more than a tinge of Don Henley flavor), slick picking on both guitars and bass guitar, solid vocal and instrumental harmonies, and enough showmanship to tie it all together with a bow for the crowd.
Hailing from nearby Glens Falls, NY, the Desperados are made up of Mark Caruso (guitar, vocals), Johnny Clifford, (guitar, vocals), Scott Bentley, a 25-year veteran of the regional music scene (guitar, vocals, banjo), Ernest Larouche, a Berkeley music graduate who helped World Play open for Roger Daltrey, Joss Stone, Darius Rucker and the Goo Goo Dolls and served as Britney Spears’ principal drummer (drums, keyboard), and “DC Steve” Hymowech (vocals, bass guitar).
Each band member brings impressive music credits and broad experience to the mix, and most, if not all, play regularly with both the Desperados and other regional bands.
Clifford, for example, wowed the Glove a month ago as lead singer for The Broken Hearted, a Tom Petty tribute band, and Ernie Larouche has his own namesake band featuring Bentley among other talents.
The hefty resumes make for a diverse skill set that enables the Desperados to alternate who does lead vocals. If you were in the back of the theater and couldn’t at first pick out whose lips were moving for any given number, you might have thought there was some ventriloquism going on. This uncertainty was compounded when three, four or even all five sang harmonies in unison. (Who’s in charge here anyway, guys?!)
While Hymowech served as the band’s spokesman for the evening, each of the members was featured in instrumental solos and duets throughout the show.
In the first set, which started at 7 p.m., the Desperados led off with the Eagles’ “Take It Easy,” co-written by Jackson Brown. Clifford appeared to be doing lead vocals but was joined at the mics by Hymowech and others for harmonies. Mid-song, after some animated footwork by Hymowech on bass guitar, Clifford and Hymowech, both dressed in long sleeved shirts and black vests, paired off for an instrumental duet.
“Heartache Tonight,” one of five No. 1 Eagles hits the band played, followed with its twangier, honkytonk barroom rhythms and Bentley on lead vocals. Band members meanwhile pitched in on the chorus with backup and overhead hand-clapping to get the crowd going.
“Victim of Love,” which Hymowech described as coming off the Eagles’ Hotel California, “an album so big, this was one of the B-side songs,” saw Caruso take his turn at lead vocals with some slightly drawling vocal swagger. Hymowech added to the showmanship by half squatting in a wide-legged stance and tearing off chords with arm flourishes.
“The Eagles were a band that liked to indulge in a few things once in a while,” Hymowech said, introducing the next number. “And one of them was Tequila.”
The Desperados’ version of “Tequila Sunrise” was very much in keeping with the Eagles’ original, displaying a mellow, relaxed tempo, guitar harmonies, a Tex-Mex (or Cali-Mex) flavor, distinctive percussion beat, and the “ooh-ooh” vocal harmonies I associate with the Eagles’ 1970s California light country rock. Another No. 1 hit, the ballad/love song, “I Can’t Tell You Why,” shared many of those qualities with its easy, lulling strumming and soft BeeGee-like vocal harmonies.
Then the Desperados switched things up.
“In 1975, the Eagles began to change direction,” Hymowech told the crowd at the Glove. “They’d been a country-western band for a long time, and then they decided they wanted to be a rock band. A lot changed.”
The Desperados used “One of These Nights” and “Witchy Woman” as evidence of that change, bringing in guitar work that ranged from sensually smoldering to blistering in order to accompany the she-devil imagery and internal conflict of the narrator searching for balance between “the dark and the light” and “the wrong and the right.”
“There’s dancing out there,” Hymowech acknowledged after a few people gathered in front of the stage during “One of These Nights.” Alluding to the character of Elaine Benis on the hit comedy Seinfeld, Hymowech encouraged one obliging audience member to model Elaine’s dance moves during “Witchy Woman”. She did, along with six other spirited ladies.
As the first set wound down, the Desperados went back in time to the Hotel California album with the Mex influences of “New Kid in Town.” They then pivoted to the intimate tone and lyrics of “The Best of My Love” (which drew a few slow dancers), then jacked up the sound again for the shorter, snappier musical phrasing and playful, scolding lyrics of “In the Long Run” (plus some vocal improvisations as the song wrapped up).
The set closed with clip lyrics, burgeoning sound and interludes of jamming for “In the City,” a high-energy finish to keep the audience hanging during intermission.
The second set opened with a harmony-lovers’ dream as all five Desperados joined around a microphone to deliver the opening to “Seven Bridges Road” acapella. They closed the haunting tune with vocal harmonies accompanied only by Bentley on acoustic guitar.
The music segued to the sorrowful yet easy-listening strains of “Lying Eyes,” which built in volume and fullness on the multi-voiced refrains. The band then moved on to a wonderful vocal homage to Don Henley’s solo hit “The Heart of the Matter,” crooned by Caruso. Caruso not only sounded like Henley, he channeled Henley’s pathos: “I’m learning to live without you now. But I miss you sometimes. And the more I know, the less I understand…Forgiveness, forgiveness, even if, even if you don’t love me anymore…”
Hymowech explained to the audience, “There was a long hiatus between 1980 and 1994,” referring to the band’s 14-year dissolution and the solo music produced by both Henley and other Eagles during that time. A “landmark tour,” during which Henley produced the inspirational hit, “Love Will Keep Us Alive” followed in the second half of the 1980s. Hymowech sang the Henley lead parts at the Glove.
One of the highlights of the evening for me was Joe Walsh’s hit “Life’s Been Good,” which came midway through the second set. The Desperados’ rendition reminded me of how devilishly sardonic Walsh could be with lyrics. Consider the paradoxes of largesse in these few verses:
I have a mansion, forget the price
Ain’t never been there, they tell me it’s nice
I live in hotels, tear out the walls
I have accountants pay for it all
…My Maserati does 185
I lost my license, now I don’t drive
I have a limo, ride in the back
I lock the doors in case I’m attacked
The images are disenchanting, but the music is really fun, even as it’s ruthlessly satirizing the narrator’s hollow lifestyle and the pitfalls of success. The instrumentation can rock you with reckless abandon, running the gamut from playful (almost humorous) to boldly thumping and repetitively memorable. You can hardly resist “mwah mwahing” along with some of the repeated phrasing while feigning air guitar.
The foibles of free-wheeling youth and the treachery of love and success are themes which run deep in the Eagles’ lyrics. For me, despite the Desperados’ strong instrumental skills, veteran stage presence, and varied set list, it was the Eagles’ lyrics that struck the most powerful chord of the evening.
From the Eagles’ debut album to their transition to a more rock-based sound, their solo work, and their reunion tour, Eagles’ songs consistently told stories, sometimes cynical, sometimes tender and sometimes cautionary about life on the edge, loneliness, hollow relationships, etc. How many of those lyrics were autobiographical to some degree, I don’t know, but they were relatable to a searching generation and continue to resonate after decades.
The Desperados’ spot-on delivery of those bittersweet lines certainly helped with the resonating Friday night.
When the Desperados’ Bentley crooned about the irony of loving an unfaithful “honey” in “Lyin’ Eyes” or when Clifford, in “Peaceful Easy Feeling,” confessed resignedly that ‘the voice whispering in [his] other ear” said, “I may never see you again,” you, the listener, had “been there, done that” on a star-studded desert night with the narrator — or known of someone who had. The Eagles knew how to describe the human condition through painfully accurate details in their lyrics, and the Desperados know how to maximize the emotional effect of those lyrics through internal tempo and interpretation.
Examples include the Eagles’ cynical, lost-soul “Life in the Fast Lane” with such verbal imagery as:
He was brutally handsome…she was terminally pretty.
They had one thing in common: they were good in bed…
…They knew all the right people, they took all the right pills
They threw outrageous parties, they paid heavenly billsThere were lines on the mirror, lines on her face
She pretended not to notice, she was caught up in the race
Out every evening, until it was lightHe was too tired to make it. She was too tired to fight about it.
The same theme of rudderless living is equally dark and creepily surreal in “Hotel California,” which arrived close to the end of Friday’s performance when Hymowech kiddingly introduced it as “one of those rare Eagles songs people don’t know.
“Oh, you’ve heard of that one,” he teased as Bentley played the first few bars on acoustic guitar and cheers went up from the crowd.
The Desperados did justice to both famous hits, building flirting-with-death intensity in the cautionary “Life in the Fast Lane,” then painting the sordid details of the nightmarish “Hotel California” with clip, Latin-influenced delivery, both vocally and instrumentally.
For “Desperado,” the song for which the band is named, most band members exited the stage, leaving only drummer LaRouche switching to keyboards and Caruso slowly, purposefully peeling off those famous mournful, yet hopeful, lyrics:
Desperado, why don’t you come to your senses?
Come down from your fences, open the gate
It may be rainin,’ but there’s a rainbow above you
You better let somebody love you (Let somebody love you)
You better let somebody love you before it’s too late
Wrapping up the night with a rousing rendition of “Already Gone”, The Desperados’ left the crowd desperately wanting more. The Desperados’ next performance will be in Ticonderoga July 8 as part of the 250th anniversary of the US.
Set 1: Take It Easy, Heart Ache Tonight, Victim of Love, Tequila Sunrise, I Can’t Tell You Why, One of These Nights, Witchy Woman, New Kid in Town, Best of My Love, Long Run, In the City
Set 2: Seven Bridges Road, Lying Eyes, Heart of the Matter, Love Will Keep Us Alive, Life’s Been Good, Peaceful Easy Feeling, Life in the Fast Lane, Desperado, Hotel California, Take It to the Limit, Already Gone
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