We aren't going to The Classic East. We aren't going to the Classic West either. That might seem a bit odd to those of you who know us. I mean, since 1994, we've seen 107 Eagles shows (dont' even try to count up the $$). Deacon Frey and a mystery guest will be playing. It will be super exciting and we won't be there. Weird, right?

We have our reasons and they are probably more mundane than you may expect.

We'll be honest. When we first heard about this we had our reservations. We were of the camp that thought that continuing the Eagles without Glenn was sacrilege. Part of that belief came from Don Henley's comments. We agreed with what he said in the weeks after Glenn's passing. When we first heard rumors of Deacon joining in, we had reservations about that as well. Would he fit in? Could he hack it? Would it be seen as some sort of exploitive commercial money grab? We had a lot of thought and we did our fair share of griping. A friend of ours coined a not-very-nice name for the whole venture that we won't repeat here.

After hearing Don talk about it, though...after hearing him discuss his reasons and hearing both Joe and Timothy discuss it in interviews, we don't think like that any more. We're okay with the band experimenting with ways to continue without Glenn. I think the part that hits home the most is hearing Don talk about all of the people who still want to hear their songs. We see comments and get emails and messages from people all of the time who regret not seeing the band when they had a chance. They should have a chance and we're glad that Don, Tim and Joe are looking for ways to do that.

So why didn't we snap up tickets? Here's the mundane part. We don't like festivals. We don't like paying money for bands we don't want to see. We don't like sitting out in the heat and the sun in huge stadiums to see the only band that we care about take the stage. We like Journey, but for me at least, Journey isn't Journey without Steve Perry and I prefer to blast their greatest hits in the car or on the home stereo while I'm doing housework. I like Steely Dan too, but I don't want to see them in a baseball stadium. The Dan doesn't seem like a stadium band. If I get the chance to see them in a small theater, I'll go, but not like that. We wouldn't even go to the 2nd night. I've seen Fleetwood Mac (and Stevie Nicks solo) and we can take or leave them. And the Doobies and Earth Wind and Fire kind of fall into the classic rock I sort of like, but wouldn't seek out a concert experience for.

Maybe because we're old. Maybe it's because we're introverts, but all of the hassle and people involved in a festival just aren't worth it. We loved seeing the Eagles at ACL Music Festival a few years ago, but the experience leading up to it was awful. It was hot. You couldn't leave your spot for fear of losing it. You coudn't carry in water (I think they've changed this) so I languished against the mesh fencing suffering from heat stroke and dehydration listening to band with names like "Portugal the Man" and "Band of Horses" until the Eagles took the stage. I had to have someone bring me water from back stage. It wasn't fun. We should say, though, that we did have a postive festival expereince at the Aspen Jazz Festival. We might blog about that soon because it was such an amazing evening.

So....we aren't hyped about all of the bands and we aren't hyped on the festival aspect because we are old and like creature comforts.

Then there's the price. To get close, you have to pay a lot and we have paid a lot for shows. We just are choosing not to spend our concert dollars on other bands. The Don Henley birthday party Runaway Weekend seems like a much better dollar value for us. This is just us, though. We know there are thousands of you excited for the Classics and we're glad. We can't wait to read your reviews and hear you recount what it was like to see Deacon take the stage. Do we have a slight FOMO (Fear of Missing Out). Sure. But we sure are glad that this community exists to help alleviate some of that for us.

So....are you going? Tell us how you made your decision.