This year's gigs

Not many gigs to report on this year. There was From The Jam and the Skids (see The Bitterest Pill and an unexpected delight, 6 May) and two more since - The Eagles Long Goodbye tour and Squeeze's 50th anniversary tour.

Off we went recently to our local venue, the venue of Wales - Venue Cymru - for the Squeeze gig. This was the 6th, or maybe 7th or 8th time we've seen them dating back to one of our favourite ever gigs, at Liverpool's Royal Court in 1981. They're always good and this was no exception. Though on this occasion the audience reaction, always warm, was ecstatic.

When we saw Squeeze about 15 years ago Mrs H, a bigger Squeeze fan than me, said she hadn't enjoyed it that much. "Why not?" I asked, "I thought they played well". "Oh they were great" she said "it was the audience". "They seemed enthusiastic to me". "Well they were but they all looked so old!" What had got to her, as we sat in the circle, was the view of all the bald heads below.  Take a look at us, I thought. Especially since, as Squeeze became successful in the late 70s, many of their original fans would have been born in the 60s, not the 50s like us. It was the evidence in front of us of the years ticking by that had got to her.

So this time I made sure we were in the stalls.

However, the audience seemed to mainly be more like 20 rather than the expected 10 years younger than us. And they knew all the words. Not just the hits like Up the Junction, Is That Love, Labelled with Love and the evergreen Cool For Cats, but all the album tracks they played that had never been hit singles.

The atmosphere was fabulous, they played well and everyone was up and dancing by the end. The band seemed chuffed with the reaction at the end which, given it's a sell out tour, was notable. But it is a fairly intimate venue for its size.

Pictured below is Glenn Tillbrook, with a satisfied smile, after nailing the guitar solo in Another Nail For My Heart on his trusty Fender. There are a lot of vocals in Squeeze songs and his voice never faltered, albeit these days occasionally reinforced by an addition to the band, a supplementary female singer.  His guitar work was as good as ever, which is very good indeed.

A few months ago we went to catch the Eagles, who we'd never seen before, at the Co op Live, the new Manchester venue. Yes, the one that had all the teething troubles, delayed opening, cancelled gigs etc. Fortunately that was all resolved for our trip. The venue is on the impressive  Etihad campus right next to Man City's ground. Walking around the football stadium the statues of recent era City players, like Kompany, Aguero and David Silva, really does reinforce how little sustained success, "history" if you like, the club has had until the last 15 years. The only older era reference is a statue of Bell, Summerbee and Lee from when I was a lad. Here I am by it, holding my nose - and wearing the right shade of blue:

The venue itself is good though there wasn't enough space around the food and drink outlets and, depending what you wanted, you couldn't necessarily get it in one queue; very frustrating! And surprising in a venue purpose designed for music when they make much of their money from those sales, the big bands forcing a tough deal on who gets the ticket money and merch revenue. The public areas were all rather disorientatingly black. But inside the auditorium was good and, as billed, the sound quality was excellent. 

It's Britain's biggest indoor arena, its seating capacity of 20,500 marginally bigger than London's O2 and nearly twice that of Liverpool's Echo Arena. But, even though we insist on sitting facing the stage to avoid that half turned in your seat position that your back and neck tell you about the next day, it didn't feel as if we were any further away than at smaller arenas like Nottingham.  Here's the view we had for our £250 outlay. The cheapest seats but not at all bad:

Ah yes, that price. Having never seen the Eagles before, when I saw the Long Goodbye world tour tour was coming to Manchester for 5 nights - the only dates for their 'last ever' UK  appearances - I rather fancied it. I've always been keener on them than Mrs H and I thought she'd probably pooh pooh the idea. She didn't, not outright anyway. Then I pointed out that the support was Steely Dan. Now we have only two Eagles albums but 5 by the band named after a steam powered dildo in William S Burroughs's novel The Naked Lunch*. And we used to listen to their album The Royal Scam while doing jigsaws and colouring in psychedelic pictures with felt tip pens, when they were a novelty, in our first house in the 1970s. Nothing better to do I suppose with only 3 TV channels, though maybe that was before we even had a TV.

Anyway Steely Dan clinched it and so we arrived at the Co op Live excited to see the world renowned Eagles but mildly disappointed that Steely Dan had long since pulled out, main man Donald Fagen having been hospitalised with an unspecified illness. However Steely Dan had been replaced with the Doobie Brothers, who we also like (though only one album in our collection to the Dan's five and Eagles two).

The Doobies were a bit of a disappointment. The main problem -  for us anyway - was singer Michael McDonald, he of the wide vocal range on songs like the 1980 Billboard number one and Grammy award winning What A Fool Believes. McDonald, who had sung with Steely Dan, joined the Doobies in 1975 to give some relief to founder member and original lead vocalist Tom Johnson who was having health problems.

The problem is we much preferred the early, raunchier Doobies style and it certainly came over better on the two songs Johnson sang lead on, China Grove and Long Train Runnin'. In contrast the McDonald songs came across as rather strained, as he seemed to struggle with the high notes and it felt like the band were holding back. Oh well at least they rocked it on China Grove and Listen to the music.

The Eagles came on to a video montage of their performances across the eras which set the scene nicely. While I've always liked their stuff some of their early songs verge on being too countryish for me and definitely so for Mrs H who famously likes her music to have "balls" (her phrase).  But they got Take It Easy, with its irritating hillbilly banjo, out of the way early and it was immediately onward and upward with One of These Nights and its guitar string bending atmospheric opening. The song was written to get away from the country ballad style and features some heavy guitar with distortion to add bite. Superb.

Then through their huge catalogue of hits including  Witchy Woman, Take It to the Limit, Tequila Sunrise, Lyin' Eyes etc, etc. Mrs H told me she'd read suggestions that the performances were 'too good' to be 100% live. Now you never know what's going on backstage but it didn't sound 'too perfect' to me. Just to make sure I recorded some snippets on my phone, like you're not meant to, and I can vouch that my ears were right - very good, essentially note perfect performances but it definitely sounded 100% live.

I think there's a reason for this. When you have an 8 piece band playing some classic but fairly simple songs like Lyin' Eyes, with two drummers, two keyboard players and up to 5 guitarists, none of them individually have to do very much. And when they play as carefully as Steuart (yes I've spelt that right) Smith, their touring guitarist who took over from Don Felder when he left nearly 20 years ago, nailing those inter-woven guitar sections is very possible. I've never seen a guitarist playing with a major band look so attentively at the fretboard while playing. The band also sang well, which helps when the harmonies are such a big part of the sound. It also helped that the lead singing role is shared between so many: Don Henley, Vince Gill (a distinguished musician in his own right before joing the band), Deacon Frey (deceased band member Glenn's son who, with Gill, sings Glenn's songs), Joe Walsh and Timothy B. Schmitt. As a result voices don't get strained.

It took me a while to figure out, apart from Joe, who was who. The band position themselves in two rows, front and back. Remaining founder member Henley plays drums (and sometimes sings while doing so) and sometimes plays keyboards or guitar, all in the back row. But then he pops up to sing lead and play guitar in the front row. I say pops up because the Eagles adopt that lights out and silence approach between songs, without chat or announcements. The lights come up and, like a Pep Guardiola team, they've switched positions and, in some cases, instruments. 

Henley eventually did some introductions,  said he liked the new auditorium and praised the sound quality. He noted that he wasn't normally fond of being away from the USA but as things were pretty crazy there (this was June before Biden pulled out of the presidential election) he was happy to be away. This produced warm applause. After letting that die down he said words to the effect of "but you've got some fairly crazy people of your own at the moment". Too true.

I was pleased that the Eagles included a couple of Joe Walsh's songs from his solo repertoire.  I remember first hearing that Joe had joined the Eagles. It was a big surprise at the time, and not just to me. While the Eagles were already hugely successful, Walsh had released three albums with his own band and had a hit with Rocky Mountain Way - a track I've always loved -  on both sides of the Atlantic, featuring the then novel guitar talk box which he uses to shape the notes a bit like a wah wah pedal with your gob. "The reinforced Eagles" a buddy called them, though it wasn't an obvious fit: Walsh was much rockier. But the Eagles needed another singer/guitarist, Bernie Leadon having announced his departure from the Eagles by pouring a beer over Glenn Frey's head. And it worked, the next album, Hotel California, having some significant Walsh inputs and becoming one of the most successful albums anyone's made, anywhere, ever.

I'm still trying to think of any equivalent scenario where a successful  guy with his own band takes up an opportunity to join an even more established band. It was a bit like Clapton joining the Beatles.  But for Joe it was simple: he didn't have to try to think up a whole album full of new ideas, just a track or two and come up with some guitar breaks on other guys' songs, while still doing solo projects when he wanted.

I wondered just how much the original country style Eagles fans would like Joe Walsh. But when Don Henley introduced him as the King of the Stratocaster**, the auditorium erupted. The answer was they all seemed to love him. Apart from Mrs H who said he looked weird. She clarified this was because he looked so old - see Squeeze audience comment above - but yes very wizened. And also because he pulls strange faces while singing, gurning to reach some of the notes. When you look back at live videos from the 1970s he always did, but such mannerisms become exaggerated as one gets older. Phil Collins does much the same.

Walsh's Rocky Mountain Way and Life's Been Good, a solo hit single with a humourous, self deprecating lyric*** from a couple of years after he joined the Eagles went down a storm and I'm really glad I got to see him perform them.

Leadon's beer shampoo for Frey was far from the end of arguments in the Eagles. The band, formed as Linda Ronstadt's backing band, basically argued until Henley was the only pre Joe Walsh member left. Bass player Randy Meisner decided he'd had enough in 1977 and was replaced by Timothy B Schmitt, just as he'd been replaced by Schmitt when he left Poco to join the Eagles. Don Felder joined a couple of years in and was fired in 2001, leading to a slew of lawsuits, though in the meantime the band had argued themselves into breaking up in 1980 before re-forming for live tours in the 90s . The survivors and their replacements all seem to get on now, but then the paycheck must be enormous: having completed the world tour part of the long goodbye the band is now doing residencies at the new Sphere venue in Vegas.

Henley's solo hit The Boys of Summer was another highlight as was Desperado which he sang beautifully (he was never happy with the recorded version having only been given 4 takes at it by producer Glyn Johns).

The band left the stage after 16 songs and came back for a 4 song 'encore', starting with their Hotel California epic which was, er, epic, Smith and Walsh ably reproducing the classic Felder/Walsh closing guitar joust - though it didn't sound quite like the record so yes I'm sure it was all live.

It was a superb gig and the Eagles put on probably the most profesional performance I've ever seen. It was even value for money for the most expensive gig tickets we've bought. (I don't think I'd have said that if we'd shelled out several times as much to be at the front though!)

It's theoretical but would I go and see them again? No, been there, done that, don't need the tee shirt, etc. 

Would we go and see Squeeze yet another time? Well we wouldn't travel far but if they're back in our neck of the woods next year - yes, like a shot. The Eagles were brilliant but Squeeze are fun.

Though neither band put quite as big a smile on my face as the Skids performing Into The Valley, the single song I'd pick as my favourite performance from the gigs we've been to this year if I could re-live the experience. 

Another Nail for Your Hearts Squeeze and Heartache Tonight for the Eagles?

 

* I recall my two sons, aged around 10 and 12 perhaps, approaching me conspiritorially. "Da..ad...?" "Ye..es...?" I responded, wondering what was coming. "What's a dildo?" I wondered for half a second where they'd seen or heard the word and then for no more than another two how to respond. "It's an artificial dick" I replied bluntly. Their eyes lit up, they looked at each other and guffawed and ran off cackling. Now they're 40ish maybe I should remind them of the conversation next time we're all together

** Rolling Stone magazine had Walsh at number 54 in their 2011 list of the 100 greatest guitarists

*** snippets include - I've got a mansion, forget the price/I've never been there they tell me it's nice; I've got an office, gold records on the wall/just leave a message, maybe I'll call; Lucky I'm sane after all I've been through....