Joe Walsh, guitarist for the Eagles band, talked about the bond he shares with his bandmate Vince Gill and their blossoming Las Vegas residency at the Sphere Venue.
Gill, who joined the band after Glenn Frey’s death in 2016, received love and respect from Joe Walsh.
In an interview with USA todayWalsh said his new bandmate was his unrelated “big brother” and his “mayor of Nashville” because of his grounded, unaffected personality.
He credited his band with pushing Gill to be himself instead of Frey: “He didn’t know what to do when he joined and we finally told him, ‘We don’t want you to be Glenn.’ We want you to be Vince,” and that helped a lot. He’s settled in and he’s an Eagle now.”
Walsh also likes to make fun of him, as he admitted that their constant jokes about Gill are like “little speed bumps in his dressing room or go in there and retune his guitar.”
Aside from their band, their Las Vegas residency is the longest-running residency, consisting of 56 performances, surpassing U2’s 40 shows. It started in 2024 and will run until March 2026.
Walsh counted the initial adjustment to the venue’s massive 40-foot LED screen and 360-degree views, calling it a “non-musical” challenge that forced the band to rethink the basics of love performance.
“At first, everything we all collectively know about live performance has nothing to do with the Sphere,” says Walsh.
He added, “There are non-musical things that are part of what the Sphere makes possible that we all have to accept and we had to learn how to do it and then it’s okay, I’ve got this.”
Revealing future plans for the band, he added: “We’ll always have a residency there, but maybe next summer we can do something (different). We’re not done yet.”
