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The Eagles sure didn’t stink in Cologne… part 5

Tuesday night was the night we’d been waiting months for.  I was finally going to get to see the Eagles play live.  Yes, I was going to do it without Glenn Frey, who was a founding member and co-wrote so many of the songs.  Fortunately, I’m a big fan of Vince Gill’s, and he and Frey’s 25 year old son, Deacon, have joined the band and kept it awesome.

I managed to score us 5th row seats, which was even more amazing to me.  They were expensive, though not as expensive as our tickets to the Rolling Stones were last year.  For that show, I got 13th row seats and still couldn’t see so much, thanks to all the tall people around me.  It was an amazing show and well worth the 1200 euros I shelled out for two tickets close up.  I spent about 800 for the tickets to the Eagles and enjoyed the show a lot more.  In fact, I’d say that for many reasons, it was one of the best concerts I’ve ever been to.

For one thing, we got really lucky and sat near considerate people.  The lady to my left had the good sense not to wear a tank top (like the guy at the Stones concert wore) and there was no smoking allowed.  There was no one sitting in the seat directly in front of mine, although the guy sitting in the next row to the left was a bit tall.  I still managed to get lots of pictures.  Since the Eagles asked us not to video the show, I didn’t.  I noticed some people ignored the rules and videoed anyway.  I guess they’re never going to be able to stop people from doing that.

I don’t do that many selfies, but somehow Bill manages to make me look pretty contented.

 

The view before everyone showed up.  I could see it wasn’t quite a sold out crowd, but it was a very well-attended show with most seats filled.

 

There they are!

The band was about ten minutes late getting on stage and I could tell some of the natives were getting restless.  But when they came out and began with “Seven Bridges Road”, everyone loved it.  Below are some pictures I got of the show.  Here’s a link to the setlist.

I got a huge kick out of Joe Walsh, who is always entertaining, gregarious, funny, and super amazingly talented.

 

It also wasn’t lost on me that Joe and I have the same hairstyle and color.  However, you will never catch me wearing leather pants, faux or real.

 

Check out that facial expression.  Joe Walsh is entertaining if all you do is watch his face contort.

Timothy B. Schmit was pouring his heart into it.

This guy, Steuart Smith, is a fucking genius on guitar.  I read that he took Don Felder’s place when Felder was fired from the Eagles.  He toured with Don Henley during his solo projects.  He was an excellent “straight man” to Walsh’s wild guitar licks.  He was also technically brilliant, although he said nothing to the crowd.

 

Dreamboat…  too bad I’m old enough to be his mother.

Glenn Frey’s handsome son, Deacon, sang a couple of his dad’s songs.  He has a very nice voice, although it didn’t remind me of Glenn’s.  Some children of rock stars end up “cursed” with their rock star parent’s sound.  Ben Taylor, son of James Taylor, comes to mind.  Actually, I hear his mom, Carly Simon, in his voice too.  And Julian Lennon, John Lennon’s son, also sounds a lot like his famous dad.  On one hand, it’s awesome to sound like someone famous.  On another, it makes it hard to carve out your own niche.  Deacon’s voice is warm, rich, and actually reminded me of a much less twangy version of Travis Tritt– who covered “Take It Easy” by the Eagles back in 1993.  Deacon sang “Take It Easy” and “Peaceful Easy Feeling” on Tuesday night.  I’m glad he has his own sound, too.

The crowd was loving it!

I knew about Vince Gill from his 90s country hunk days.  He’s married to Amy Grant and, I’m sure, always dreamed of playing with the Eagles.  He probably would have been about Deacon Frey’s age during their heyday.  I was delighted when they played “Don’t Let Our Love Start Slippin’ Away”, which was a big hit from his solo days.  It was great to hear it done Eagles style.  The Germans seemed unfamiliar with it, though.

 
 

Here’s an illegal video from a show they did in Oklahoma.  I knew all the words, but no one else around me did.  I love this song!  And Vince Gill is an amazing choice for the Eagles.  He has a beautiful tenor voice, plus he’s a kick ass guitar player.  I’m getting goosebumps just listening to it now.  Joe Walsh doing a guitar solo… hot damn!

And here he is… Don Henley.  I have a love/hate relationship with Don Henley.  I think he’s an amazing singer, a fantastic songwriter, and I even appreciate his famous crankiness.  He seemed to be in a good mood on Tuesday night, probably because he’s in Europe.  He quipped that he’s happy to be Europe… and given his political leanings, I think we know why.  He said they were going to play 2.5 hours, commenting that 2.5 hours is a long time for guys their age to play.  It’s a long time for women like me to listen, too.  But the bladder gods apparently blessed us all and we made it without a potty break.

 

These guys played horns on several songs and they were bloody awesome.  One guy played an epic trumpet solo for “Hotel California”, which was the first of three encores.

Final bow!

Easy going crowd.

The stadium was almost full by the time the show got going.

A selfie with Don Henley in the background?  Why not?

At one point, Timothy B. Schmit occupied the crowd by having everyone cheer as we looked up at the monitors over the stage.  I’m glad I didn’t see myself up there.  They probably did that to give the roadies a chance to set up for the next song and/or allow one of the band members to whiz.

“He’s cool!” (because life’s been good to him so far…)

Big crowd!

Nice tribute to Glenn Frey.  I think he was with us in spirit.

Everyone got out their phones for “Desperado”, encore #2.

Pre-flighting before the show?  Not us. 
 

I’d definitely go back to the Lanxess Arena for another show, even though I prefer concerts in smaller venues.  It was super easy to get to the venue and I thought the facilities were very good.  There were plenty of toilets and plenty of food vendors, so people had a choice besides wurst.  We didn’t actually eat at the concert, but it was nice to see we could have if we’d wanted to.  The security wasn’t obnoxious and the seats were quite comfortable, which is more than I can say for both the Paul Simon show and The Rolling Stones.  I also like Cologne and the Excelsior Hotel Ernst… so if we stay in Wiesbaden, I think we’ll be back for more.  I’d also see the Eagles again.  The tickets were worth every penny!

We got back to the hotel at about 11:30pm.  The piano bar was still open, so we went in for a night cap.  The same bartender was there and he remembered what we drank on Monday night.  We had a couple more cocktails, some barbecued potato chips, and almonds while a different piano player played.

The barman was impressed by Bill’s knowledge of libations.  It’s hard to believe he was a Mormon when we met.  However, he’s also quite Irish– though not as Irish as I am.

Nice piano player!

 

I think I finally drifted off to sleep about about 1:00am.  I was very excited about the show.  The Eagles are playing in Munich tonight, having taken yesterday off.  I’m sure the Munich crowd is in for a big treat!  I hope I’ll get another chance to see them play again before I (or they) die.

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The Eagles sure didn’t stink in Cologne… part 1

Last October, as Bill and I were preparing for our big move from Stuttgart to Wiesbaden, I found out that the Eagles, one of my favorite bands of all time, was going to be playing two dates in Germany in 2019.  2018 was our summer of concerts.  We saw The Rolling Stones in Stuttgart, Paul Simon, Bonnie Raitt, and James Taylor (all at one show) in Dublin, Roger Hodgson in Stuttgart, and the Irish Folk Festival in Stuttgart.  I also knew we were going to be seeing Elton John in Stuttgart in May 2019.

Given that we’d already spent so much money on shows and knowing that a move always requires more spending, I hesitated slightly before I bought the tickets.  When we go to concerts, they usually turn into major spending events.  I usually book us a nice hotel, so we don’t have to worry about driving far to get to the venue or trying to park (although we made the mistake of driving to the Elton John show).  I also don’t bother with “nosebleed” seats.  There was a time when those were the best seats I could afford, but now I want to sit closer, which always means more money.

I asked Bill what he thought about seeing the Eagles, even though the band’s legendary frontman, Glenn Frey, passed away in January 2016.  After some thought, Bill was okay with attending the show.  Now it was time to choose a city.  I had a choice between Cologne and Munich.

We had been in Cologne once before, back in May 2012, when we took our very first Space A military “hop”.  I remember we stayed at the Ibis in the train station, which was fine for a night when we were totally exhausted, but probably wouldn’t do now that I’m older and richer.  I also know Munich is expensive, since we did a blind booking out of Cologne on Germanwings (now known as Eurowings) during that same Space A hop and got Munich.  Don’t get me wrong– Munich is so much fun; but it’s super pricey.  Even average hotels down there cost a mint.  Munich is also further away from us, now that we’re in Wiesbaden.

Both of the shows were on work nights, but the Cologne show was the day after Memorial Day, so we decided it would be easiest to go to Cologne.  Bill would use up one less vacation day, and both the concert tickets and the lodging were less expensive than Munich.  Now that we’ve been back to Cologne, I can say that we’ll probably go there for more shows.  Not only was it super easy to get to the concert venue, it’s also super easy to get to Cologne from where we live.  And, as a bonus, we discovered an amazing hotel in the Excelsior Hotel Ernst!  As long as we can afford it, I think the Excelsior Hotel Ernst has effectively ended our Ibis days in Cologne.

This trip was also important, because it provided an excellent opportunity for our dogs to try out a new doggy pension.  When we lived in Stuttgart, we used Dog on Holiday, which I would absolutely recommend to anyone.  In fact, we’ve decided that anytime we need to go to or through Stuttgart with our dogs, we will try to have them stay with Max and Christine.  But it wasn’t practical to take the boys to Dog on Holiday from Wiesbaden, so we needed to find a place for them closer to our new town.  In February, we visited the Tierpension Birkenhof, and arranged for our boys to have their first stay during this quick trip to Cologne.

 

I got us fifth row seats!

 

With all of the arrangements made, we set off for the “city of pleasant smells” on Monday of this week– Memorial Day.  Since our hotel was super close to the train station and the train station had a stop near Cologne’s Lanxess Arena, which was where the Eagles would be “crying”, we decided to take the Inner City Express (ICE) train from the Frankfurt Airport.  The Tierpension Birkenhof is fairly convenient to the airport, although not as convenient as Max’s pension is to the Stuttgart airport.

 

 

 

The Tierpension Birkenhof was recommended to Bill by one of his co-workers.  It’s always interesting to see the differences in the “doggy hotels” in Germany.  When we were in Stuttgart the first time, we used to use Hunde Hotel Haase, which was a beautiful facility in Bad Niedernau, a very country hamlet south of Stuttgart.  Kiersten, the  lady who ran it back in those days, was absolutely awesome.  But, when we came back to Stuttgart in 2014, she’d left and took the hotel’s good reputation with her.  We used the Hunde Hotel Haase a couple more times, but kept hearing horror stories about dogs that were left there.  That’s when we switched to Dog on Holiday, which has been universally great, despite it’s somewhat urban location.

 
 

Tierpension Birkenhoff is a rather large facility that cares for dogs and cats.  It’s located in a somewhat suburban area, yet it’s near farmland.  The owner doesn’t accept VAT forms, and we haven’t yet met him.  We have met two of his employees, both of whom seemed very kind.  

 

I have noticed that each German dog facility has its quirks.  At the Birkenhoff, you’re not allowed to bring your own dog bed.  I’m not sure exactly why this is… I think it’s because the other doesn’t want to have to worry about the owners’ beds getting dirty.  Nevertheless, it does make things somewhat more convenient for us, since we’re about to trade in our RAV 4 SUV for a Volvo SUV and will probably have to bring the dogs in my Mini Cooper next time they stay.  Mini Coopers are small.  Dog beds take up a lot of space.

 

Frankfurt Airport train station to Cologne Messe

 

Once the dogs were dropped off, we made our way to the Frankfurt Airport.  Bill had reserved parking with ACS at the airport, which turned out to be very convenient, once we figured out where P4 was.  The reserved spots are reasonably priced and located near the terminal, so there’s no need to haul heavy bags long distances from far away lots.  Frankfurt Airport is a bit more confusing than Stuttgart Airport is.  It’s huge, and finding parking can be super confusing and annoying.  But now that we know where the ACS parking is, I’m sure we’ll use it all the time.  It really made parking super easy.

 

Frankfurt Airport also has a big train station, making it easy to access a lot of cities.  If we had left from Wiesbaden, it would have taken a lot more time, required us to park in the parking garage from Hell, and we would have needed to change trains at least once.  From Frankfurt Airport, it was a straight shot to Cologne.  

 
 

I like how, in Germany, “bullshit” isn’t a bad word.  You’ll even see it on billboards.

 

We had time for lunch, so we stopped at a restaurant called Little Italy, not to be confused with the Little Italy in Wiesbaden, which has become one of our favorite Sunday lunch stops.  The Little Italy at the airport is in the shopping area called The Squaire.  It’s not long on ambiance, but the food and service are good.

 
Mmm…  food!
 
 

Bill went vegetarian with spaghetti and fresh vegetables, tossed in a little olive oil and washed down with a tempranillo.

 

I had a very lovely tagliatelle salmone.  The salmon was cooked to perfection and melted in my mouth.  I love salmon that isn’t overcooked, and they did a really good job with this.  However, I probably would have preferred about half this much food.  

 

With lunch sorted, we headed down to the platform where we’d catch our train to Cologne.  But then, about ten minutes before we were to depart, our original train was cancelled due to some people on the tracks.  Don’t ask me what that means.  I have no idea.  Bill ran up to the Deutsche Bahn (DB) information kiosk, where he was advised that we should take another train. 

 

Instead of dropping us directly at the Cologne Hauptbahnhof, would go to the Cologne Messe stop.  That would require us to take a city train one stop over the Rhein River.  The nice thing about the train we took was that it went directly from Frankfurt to Cologne, with no stops.  It was also practically empty, which was a good thing, since changing trains also erased our seat reservations.  Within an hour, we were whisked to Cologne, having flown past beautiful scenery at about 280 kph.

 

I was surprised by how fast our trip from Frankfurt to Cologne was on the ICE train.  It was also very comfortable, since the train has clean toilets and a restaurant.  We did not use the restaurant during our trip to Cologne, but it was nice to have had the option.

 

 

Bill checks the schedule…

 

This is the life.  First class all the way.  Second class probably would have been fine, too.

 

We could have taken a more leisurely train to Cologne and probably saved some money, but this was a really nice way to get where we were going.  It’s been too long since our last train trip.  I think we need to take them more often.

 

It was a simple thing to take the S-bahn over the Rhein River to get to Cologne’s main station, home of the city’s majestic Dom and our hotel, the Excelsior Hotel Ernst.  

 

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