The Eagles announce ‘Long Goodbye’ final tour: ‘This is our swan song’

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The Eagles are getting ready to exit the stage.

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The ’70s rockers, famous for Hotel California, Desperado, Take it Easy and many more, announced Thursday they will embark on their final tour, which they are dubbing The Long Goodbye.

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“We know how fortunate we are, and we are truly grateful,” the six-time Grammy winners said in a statement posted to their website. “Our long run has lasted far longer than any of us ever dreamed. But, everything has its time, and the time has come for us to close the circle.”

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The band — comprised of core members Don Henley, Joe Walsh, Timothy B. Schmit, along with Vince Gill and the late Glenn Frey’s son, Deacon — said they “hope to see as many of you as we can, before we finish up.” The first set of dates kicks off at New York City’s Madison Square Garden on Sept. 7 and includes shows in Detroit (Oct. 13), Cleveland (Oct. 17) and Atlanta (Nov. 2).

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VIP packages go on sale July 12 with general tickets available beginning July 14. More dates expected to be added in the coming months and the tour is expected to continue into 2025.

“We thank you from the bottom of our hearts for embracing this band and its music,” the classic rockers added in their statement. “At the end of the day, you are the reason we have been able to carry on for over five decades. This is our swan song, but the music goes on and on.”

Steely Dan, the group’s longtime friends and fellow Rock and Roll Hall of Famers, will open the initial run of shows, which wraps Nov. 17 in Minnesota.

After Frey’s death in 2016, Henley hinted that the band was finished. “I don’t see how we could go out and play without the guy who started the band,” he said in an interview with the Washington Post.

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But he was convinced the group could grow new wings by adding Deacon to the fold to sing his late father’s parts.

After ruling the airwaves in the ’70s, the Eagles acrimoniously broke up in 1980 with all the members pursuing solo careers. They reunited in 1994 for the MTV Unplugged special, Hell Freezes Over, which lead to them touring again. In 2007, they released their seventh studio LP, Long Road Out of Eden.

In an interview with Postmedia in 2013, Henley, now 75, opened up on the band’s different eras, saying, “It’s all been fun.”

“In the first act, the highs were higher and the lows lower,” he said. “Since we resumed working together in 1994, things have proceeded on a much more even keel.”

Henley also reflected on what his older self would have thought about the journey he undertook as a young musician struggling to make a name for himself in Los Angeles in the early ’70s.

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“It was no small thing for a kid from a town of 2,500 to pick up stakes and move to a metropolitan area of about 10 million people where he knew only one resident. But he’s on a mission, he’s found his fellow travellers and his intentions are good,” Henley said.

“I see him wrestling with the big questions that plagued him for much of the first half of the Eagles’ career: ‘Is this worth the all the risk and the stress? Are we really any good? What if things don’t work out?’ I had three-and-a-half years of college under my belt, but I didn’t really have a Plan B.”

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Twitter: @markhdaniell

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