The Eagles

It wasn’t meant to be like this.

Reviewing the Eagles on this bankrolling lap-of-honour tour was supposed to be all about sly put-downs and sneering at the bloated, blandness of it all. Their reputation for “loitering on stage” as Rolling Stone magazine once put it, was legendary and memories of their last appearance here, where they more than lived up to their “laid back” ethos, didn’t auger well.

But then they only go and spoil it all by putting on a three-hour show that would’ve converted even the most sceptical of doubters. It helped that the set included solo outings like Don Henley’s superb ’80s singles, ‘Boys Of Summer’, and ‘Dirty Laundry’, and Glenn Frey’s Miami Vice soundtrack hits ‘Sunset Grill’ and ‘You Belong To The City’.

Even Joe Walsh, the star of the show as far as the crowd was concerned, gave us his hilarious paean to ’70s rock star excess, ‘Life’s Been Good’, self -deprecatingly changing the line “they write me letters, tell me I’m great,” to “...they tell me I’m overweight …”

But it was the big hits that predictably went down a storm: ‘New Kid In Town’, ‘Tequila Sunrise’, ‘Lyin’ Eyes’ and yes that number beloved of radio programmers everywhere, ‘Hotel California’. Personal highlights included Henley’s soaring vocal and the group harmonies on two ballads, ‘Take It To The Limit’ and ‘Wasted Time’, Timothy B. Schmidt’s soulful ‘I Can’t Tell You Why’, and Walsh’s guitar antics on ‘Heartache Tonight’. Even early rockers like ‘Witchy Woman’ and ‘Already Gone’ (dedicated to George Bush) were dragged out and given a fresh reading while the encores included a surprising ‘Rocky Mountain Way’, again courtesy of Walsh.

Wrapping up with ‘Take It Easy’ and the outlaw anthem ‘Desperado’, the sound of 30,000 voices in the warm night air singing “you gotta let somebody love you, before it’s two late,” brought a lump to the throat.

Love ‘em or loathe ‘em, with The Eagles it seems you can check out, but you can, em, never leave.

Anyone for the last of the bandannas?

Colm O’Hare