Eagles at Sphere in Las Vegas in 2024
Proto-Americana rock ’n’ roll chart-toppers Eagles have been staples of classic rock radio as long as I can remember, and I’m easing into my 40s. In January, the band’s Their Greatest Hits 1971-1975 received the RIAA’s first Quadruple Diamond certification marking 40 million units sold, keeping its ranking as the bestselling LP in the United States some 50 years after its release. Maybe you love the mellow rockers who were Linda Ronstadt’s backing band once upon a time, maybe you can’t stand them (don’t tell your rideshare driver). But one thing’s for certain: The newly announced leg of their farewell tour The Long Goodbye Act III is coming May 9 to Vanderbilt University’s football field (known since 2022 as FirstBank Stadium, not to be confused with FirstBank Amphitheater in Williamson County).
The touring lineup consists of longtime members Don Henley, Joe Walsh and Timothy B. Schmit alongside Deacon Frey (son of the late Glenn Frey) and Music City’s own Vince Gill, and Tedeschi Trucks Band supports.
Let’s proceed with the riffs: If you want to get that peaceful, easy feeling of tickets in your, uh, digital wallet, there are presale events on March 3 and 5, and tix go on sale to the general public Friday, March 6. Sharpen up those steely knives, set your alarm for 10 a.m. Central and get ready to take your Visa to the limit one more time.
Setting aside the Rites of Spring festival and Commodore Quake homecoming party — both of which have suffered from budget cuts and weather-related cancellations in recent years — large outdoor concerts at Vanderbilt University are somewhat unusual. Over the past three decades and change, the football stadium has hosted only a handful of big gigs. Those include Pink Floyd (1994), The Rolling Stones (1997), U2 (2011) and Luke Bryan (2015).
The school’s athletic director — the first Black woman to hold the position in the SEC — is helping her teams dominate
The most recent one we at the Scene covered was Beyoncé and Jay-Z’s 2018 On the Run II Tour stop, when security seemed overwhelmed by an audience much larger than the typical game-day crowd of the time. Suffice it to say that times have changed for Vandy’s athletics programs, as Eli Motycka and Logan Butts detailed in our recent cover story — making this Eagles concert the first major ticketed show at FirstBank Stadium of this new era for the ’Dores.
