Editor's Note: They were good, but they weren’t taking requests

By the end of the ’70s, it’s true, they were done creating most of their hits. But what a body of work they’d accumulated. Throw in the best of Don Henley’s solo career, and this band has quite the repertoire. So many great songs, in fact, that they can play a solid set of old hits and still not get to a lot of them.

Laura and I caught Henley back in Portland about nine years ago and the reunited group at the brand-new amphitheater outside Auburn, Wash., in ’03. Still great, still (thankfully) playing the old stuff, but, I noticed, still not playing certain songs that are among my favorites.

I’ve fantasized about yelling out requests for “Outlaw Man” and “Ol’ ’55” at Eagles concerts, but the venues have always been too big and foreboding. So when the Eagles tribute band, Life in the Fast Lane, played Elk Valley Casino on Saturday night, I thought my chance had arrived.

I’ve always been a bit skeptical about tribute bands, although no more so than my feeling about bands that hang around too long or still use their big name even though all the original members are gone except maybe the bass player. But these guys were good. I closed my eyes a few times and imagined Henley, Glenn Frey and company were actually on stage. One time when I opened my eyes I saw county Supervisor Martha McClure boogying on the dance floor.

I did yell out “Play ‘Outlaw Man’” once, but the suggestion was lost in the general raucousness. I don’t get it. Back in the day, the AM stations played it over and over. At some point it fell off the bus, perhaps too thoroughly overshadowed by “Desperado,” its companion on a country-rock album released in ’73.

By Monday morning I was enough of a desperado to consult the oracles of Google, which quickly led me to a YouTube clip of the longhaired young Eagles performing “Outlaw Man” in Seattle in ’76. The picture and sound quality were poor, but it was pure magic.

CHAMPIONSHIP SEASON IN EUGENE?

For the record, I will officially consider the Oregon Ducks to have won college football’s national championship if they win the rest of their games and no team goes undefeated. That’s because there is no real championship in college football, the one sport that lets pollsters and computers decide things.

Some of those pollsters are idiots, like the coaches who still ranked the California Golden Bears ahead of the Ducks after UO decimated UC 42-3 on Saturday. The Associated Press poll more appropriately ranked Oregon 16th and Cal 24th. Sometimes, you see, journalists are the smart ones.

True, Oregon looked terrible in losing its season opener to Boise State. But college football fans everywhere should feel free to anoint their favorite teams as the champions — compete with customized T-shirts, beer mugs, etc. We might as well make the best of it since the NCAA doesn’t have the gumption to dump its current bowl system and allow a true champion to emerge on the playing field.