Guitarist Tim Pierce opened for the Eagles — and got banned from the show the same night

Guitarist Tim Pierce recently recounted on his YouTube channel how he opened for the Eagles — and was banned from the concert the very same night.

Tim Pierce is one of the most prolific session guitarists in the game. Perhaps few can boast of the incredible discography and collaborations that he holds including big-time names like Celine Dion, Christina Aguilera and Elton John among others. Despite this fame and prestige, Pierce shared an anecdote recently on his YouTube channel that pointed to the contrary. The guitarist spoke of an incident long back when he got to open and get banned from an Eagles concert all in the same night.

Guitarist Tim Pierce recently recounted on his YouTube channel how he opened for the Eagles.(X)

Pierce took his online audience back to a fated New Year’s eve event at the turn of the century where he got a chance to open for Jackson Browne and the Eagles at the Staples Centre as part of Linda Ronstadt’s backing-band. Calling it “probably the biggest night for musicians in history at that time”, Pierce added, “it was called the Millennium Concert. Every musician and artist I knew had a huge gig for great fees that night. No matter who they were, somewhere in the world they had a huge gig. It was the biggest and best New Year's in history.” Understandably, security was tight to the point where even Don Henley had trouble getting into his own concert.

Though Pierce got no actual tickets to the concert, something he said he didn’t take personally, he and his wife planned on “hanging around in the huge acreage on either side of the stage backstage” using their all-access photo-ID passes.

After delivering a “pretty short and a bit odd” set with Greg Bissonette on drums, Bob Glaub on bass, John Gillitin on keyboards and the legendary Waddy Wachtel on guitar, Pierce then took to the side of the stage to watch Jackson and his band perform their hits. But, soon after, matters took a turn for the worse.

“About halfway through the Jackson set, my wife and I went backstage and I was informed all of a sudden that my backstage access was about to be revoked and denied. We were informed that at the end of Jackson Brown's set we were no longer welcome in the building,” revealed Tim. Suddenly, his mind went into overdrive and he figured that their all-access passes missed a small yellow dot that was featured on all the Eagles crew and support staff- their ticket to staying right where they were.

In trying to figure out a way to stay, Pierce soon remembered his friend Dave Cavelli whom he had spent four years on the road with while touring with Rick Springfield. “I saw him earlier that day; congratulated him because he was the manager of the Staples Centre. That meant he ran every event- sporting or concert … I said "Dave any chance of us getting credentials to stay cause they want us out of here”,” reveals Pierce.

And so that one call to Dave Cavelli became Tim’s ticket to staying backstage; now armoured with special Staples Centre passes hanging from his pants. “It was a ghost town by the way. We watched Eagle staffers pass us by with daggers in their eyes over and over as they looked at us sitting there and they were about to eject us because we didn't have the yellow dot. But then they saw our Staple Centre credentials which were unimpeachable,” he adds.

Pierce then went on to appreciate the Eagles for an incredible performance and specifically Joe Walsh, who to him was “the frontman of the band”. Though Pierce felt really lucky to have found a workaround, there was one more hurdle in store for him before the night ended.

Having decided to leave before the encore in order to beat the traffic, Pierce went to the dressing room to get his guitar from backstage where he was stopped by an LAPD officer. “Even with all my credentials during the Eagles concert it was a forbidden zone to go back into the dressing rooms … I don't blame him for doing that but I had to start telling this nice officer my story about how I had just been on stage in L Rod's band and opened and we were going to leave and my guitar was in the backstage,” says Pierce. In a twist of fate, the officer agreed to make an exemption. And so Pierce got to take a walk down “the hallowed halls of Eagledom” in order to extract his guitar and drag the fated night to an end.

Referring to the incident as “pretty humorous”, Pierce spoke about how grateful he felt to have experienced the show the way he did. He also pointed out how this well reflects the “reality of big-time touring and big-time show business” and shared another similar anecdote from a 1958 Live Aid concert in Philadelphia.

By Stuti Gupta