Driving into work today hearing Steve Cooper play the classic "Seven Bridges Road", it dawned on me just how much Glenn Frey and the Eagles mattered to rock music. Even as a child of the 80's, someone who was too young to have witnessed their heyday, those songs are the soundtrack of my youth.

Like many fans of my generation who never had the chance to see them play, I was excited to see their reunion tour in 1994. I still vividly remember camping outside a local record store in suburban Denver to get tickets the morning they went on sale.

The first leg of the Hell Freezes Over Tour included three dates at Fiddler's Green Amphitheater. By the time my buddies and I had our numbers called in the ticket lottery, the first show was already sold out. Happily, we went ahead and bought our tickets for the second concert, which took place on June 15, 1994.

A veteran of many concerts by now, I wasn't a fan of the venue. The sound is terrible, there's a 10:30 p.m. curfew and the parking areas around Fiddler's sucked for tailgating. Nevertheless, this was The Eagles and we weren't going to let Fiddler's ruin this show for us.

The day of the concert, I piled into an old van with several friends and we headed south on I-25 to the suburb of Greenwood Village.  When we finally arrived, the parking lot party began. We cracked open a few cold ones and tailgated with fellow fans.

One of my buddies, Mikey (whose last name we won't mention), quickly graduated from beers to whiskey. As the afternoon progressed and show grew closer, Mikey had already polished off a bottle.

After walking to the venue and getting inside, we split off into several groups. I headed for the men's room, some of my pals secured a spot on the grass and Mikey hit up the beer vendor. Sadly, that would be the last time we saw Mikey that night.

As showtime quickly approached, we wondered what had happened to our friend. When the band came on, Mikey was still nowhere to be found. After the concert was over, we set out in search of our friend. We looked high and low and we couldn't find him anywhere. It wasn't until the next morning we heard the full story.

Evidently, as our friend was walking from the beer stand up to the green, double-fisting of course, he stumbled right in front of a police officer. After spilling both of his beers, the officer helped Mikey up, then cuffed him and took him over to the patty wagon.

According to my buddy, the patty wagon was so full that night, the police actually had to bring another vehicle to haul off all the drunks. Instead of witnessing the show that night, Mikey and a group of others performed an impromptu sing-along in the back of a van.

Luckily for his sake, he ended up spending the night in a Commerce City detox facility instead of a jail cell. Not only did he miss the chance to see his favorite band live, he got a $400 ticket in the mail two weeks later.

The next year, we saw the Eagles play again at Mile High Stadium. Fortunately, nobody in our group got hauled off to detox on that night. Although we probably should have been.

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