The Improbable Reunion
3 Out Of 5 Stars

"Just for the record, we never broke up. We just took a fourteen year vacation."

With those words, the Eagles kicked off their first concert in over a decade for an MTV broadcast special titled "Hell Freezes Over." The band took it all in stride, playing a tight set, leaning heavily on their most popular album (5 of 11 live tracks are from "Hotel California"), and adding four new songs to the disc as a bonus. The best of those four, "Get Over It," is the hardest rocking song the band has ever produced. Based on a Chuck Berry riff and Don Henley's annoyance with "a whole lot of people saying don't blame me," it's an epic rant.

But no one is fooled by the new material. It's the classics they came to hear, and Eagles bests are as good as classic rock gets. The band does keep it mostly mellow, with favorites "Tequila Sunrise," "I Can't Tell You Why" and "Wasted Time" all being mid-tempo to downright slowpoke, while it isn't till the end that the electric guitars come out for "Take It Easy" and "Life In The Fast Lane." In fact. there is little straying from the original arrangements. The exception is the Spanish guitar version of "Hotel California," which significantly alters the opening of that song.

But throughout, the Eagles are in fine voice, with the ever so pristine harmonies fully intact. They turn Henley's solo song "New York Minute" into an Eagles song and the longing of the closing "Desperado" sounds as good as it did in 1973. Henley remains the band's dominant voice, singing the bulk of the material and two of the four new songs. That matters little to the audience, who cheer enthusiastically after classic after classic. Pretty much a souvenir of the band's unlikely reunion and subsequent tour, "Hell Freezes Over" is a polished document of that new beginning.