Life has been good to me so far

We were at the Eagles concert at the MEN Arena last night. Its the fourth time that I have seen them since they regrouped in 2001 with the current 10 man backing band and the fifth time in all (1977 Stafford being the other).

So many people associate them with Hotel California that I am always relieved when they play that early in their set because it stops the morons who shout out for a particular song. As it they are going to change their set.

In fact the Eagles are so varied. From the early country sound, through the harmonies and the ballads to Joe Walsh's heavy rock.

The highlight of the show is usually two or three songs from the end when Joe Walsh blasts out "Life's Been Good to Me so Far". There is a heavy irony here as he is extremely lucky to still make the stage after years of drug addiction. A reformed character he may be but he was brilliant when he appeared on the 1 Show 18 months ago and they asked him if he had made any provision for his pension and after a moment of silence he said: "I didn't think I would live this long".

24 hours earlier David Crosby had occupied exactly the same point on the stage. And he has a similar story to Joe Walsh. Quite how he makes the stage (or the high notes), after nearly dying from drug and alcohol abuse and getting a liver transplant just in the nick of time, I don't know. He is 68 next month.

Apart from the first song when the harmonies were a little lacking and I thought their performance might flop as they had at Glastonbury, Crosby Stills and Nash were superb. It was a special occasion for Graham Nash (originally of the Hollies) returning to his home town and it is now 40 years since (along with Neil Young) CSN&Y starred in front of 500,000 hippies at Woodstock.

The preview of the in the MEN for the two big concerts was "Many Hippy Returns".

PS At the interval last night we recognised a Manx accent from the people immediately behind us in the 12,000 strong crowd. When we asked if they were from the Isle of Man, they confirmed they were and even knew us by name. John and Juliet Kneale from Laxey are going to the second Eagles concert tonight and he had also seen them in Belfast last week.

PPS Amongst the emails I received last night was one from Steve Cain with the picture from France of Steve Brennan cooking. Mark Cavendish may have lost the green jersey but life is good for most of us.