You’ve probably never heard of Deacon Frey.
The 30-year-old plays iconic venues like Madison Square Garden and The Forum night after night, and yet he’s managed to remain the most low-key rock star of his generation.
Unlike most musicians his age, Frey isn’t on Instagram and doesn’t have any studio albums out.
But you most certainly know his father, the late Glenn Frey, who rose to fame in the 1970s as a founding member of the Eagles and went on to have a successful solo career in the ’80s.
After Glenn died in 2016 at the unripe age of 67, his middle child, Deacon, stepped up to the plate to carry on the legacy of the fallen Eagle.
Dashing, wavy-haired and mustachioed like his dad, Deacon has been performing with Don Henley, Joe Walsh, Timothy B. Schmit and Vince Gill ever since (sans for a brief break in 2022), and the band is back on the road this summer for the first leg of what is expected to be a years-long farewell tour.
On Wednesday evening, the Eagles brought their phenomenal two-hour swan song, dubbed The Long Goodbye, to UBS Arena on Long Island, where Deacon was the unsung hero.
The Rock & Roll Hall of Famers didn’t make a spectacle about the youngest member of their tribe when they stepped onstage at the increasingly popular Belmont Park venue, instead treating him as if he had been a part of their lineup for decades — just like 76-year-old Henley.
After all, Deacon has been an honorary Eagle his entire life.
He was born in 1993, just a few months before the Grammy-winning group began planning their memorable comeback from a 14-year break with the chart-topping live album “Hell Freezes Over.”
As the Eagles’ second wind stretched on, a young Deacon and his siblings, Taylor Frey and Otis Frey, were firsthand witnesses to greatness.
The band kept selling out arenas and even released their first new album in nearly three decades, 2007’s “Long Road Out of Eden,” which defied the odds by beating Britney Spears’ seminal “Blackout” to No. 1 on the charts.
But then Glenn died in a devastating blow to the Eagles, the Frey family, his fans and beyond.
Henley stated that he didn’t think the group would ever hit the road again, but the following year they did — with a then-24-year-old Deacon forfeiting relative anonymity to become the “New Kid in Town.”
Since then, “Take It Easy,” “Peaceful Easy Feeling,” “Already Gone” and many other classics that his father made famous 40- or 50-some years ago have become second nature for Deacon, whose soft but smooth voice captivated the crowd at UBS.
Throughout the must-see show, it was hard to ignore the twinkle-eyed scion’s palpable impact on the ever-harmonic legends around him.
Had Deacon not joined them in 2017, Henley, Walsh and Schmit may have never performed together again after losing their beloved Glenn.
But Deacon has become the glue for these guys, and it’s evident there’s a mutual respect between them.
The rising vocalist and guitarist doesn’t seek out the spotlight onstage (or off); in fact, each time one of his bandmates rotated in to sing lead on tracks like Henley’s disco-leaning “One of These Nights,” Schmit’s swoony “I Can’t Tell You Why” or Walsh’s raucously fun “Life’s Been Good,” Deacon gladly took a step back to let them do their thing.
When the Eagles all came together, though, magic was made — with Glenn’s strikingly gifted heir front and center where he belongs.
