Joe Walsh, guitarist of the Eagles band, opened up about the bond he shares with his bandmate Vince Gill and their thriving 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 US Today, Walsh said that his new bandmate was his unrelated “big brother” and his “Lord Mayor of Nashville” for his grounded, unfazed personality.
He credited his band for urging Gill to be himself rather than 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 loves pranking him, as he admitted that their ongoing jokes on Gill are like “little speed bumps in his dressing room or go in there and retune his guitar.”
Apart from their bonding, their residency in Las Vegas is the longest running residency consisting of 56 performances, topping U2’s 40-show-run. It began in 2024 and will run till March 2026.
Walsh counted the initial adjustment to the venue’s massive 40-foot-tall LED screen and 360-degree visuals, calling “non-musical” challenge that forced the band to rethink love performance basics.
“At first, everything we all collectively know about performing live has nothing to do with the Sphere,” Walsh says.
He added, “There are non-musical things that are part of what makes the Sphere possible that we all have to accept and we had to learn how to do it and then it’s OK, I’ve got this.”
Revealing the future plans for the band, he added, “We’ll always be in residence there, but maybe next summer we can do something (different). we’re not done yet.”
