Dallas

About five years after he'd left the Eagles, Randy Meisner recorded this live set in Dallas on December 2, 1982, before a none-too-big or (at times, at least) enthusiastic-sounding crowd. To his credit, at this point he wasn't resting on his work with the Eagles, filling up most of the set with songs from his trio of albums from the late '70s and early '80s, though he did include the Eagles' "Try and Love Again" and "Take It to the Limit." Still, it's bland if slickly executed singer/songwriter rock, touched with traces of country, folk, and pop, but less so than the work of the Eagles. Like many live albums, it's one for fans only, whether of the Eagles and/or (less likely) Meisner's solo work. The packaging is disappointing in that it has few details of the show, though it does at least list the musicians and print the lyrics. There are, incidentally, two versions of "Take It to the Limit," one of them identified as an "alternate mix." ~ Richie Unterberger