Eagles soar in S'pore (Straits Times)
Monday, October 18, 2004 at 1:40PM Eagles soar in S'pore - OCT 19, 2004
TEACHER Margaret Yeo, 52, had her dream fulfilled at the Eagles concert at the Singapore Indoor Stadium last night. She had paid $499 - the most expensive ticket in the house - to catch her favourite band perform here for the first time. 'I've waited 30 years to see them. It was worth every cent I paid,' she said after the three-hour set which saw the legendary 1970s Californian country-rock band deliver three encores and 27 songs.
She was among the 11,300-strong audience, some of whom had come from Indonesia, Malaysia and the Philippines. Made up of people from their teens to their 60s, they roared and applauded when the group - Don Henley, Glenn Frey, Joe Walsh and Timothy B. Schmit - took to the stage at 8.30pm with The Long Run.
Other Eagles classics like Take It To The Limit and I Can't Tell You Why followed, as well as solo hits by the individual members, including Henley's Boys Of Summer and Frey's You Belong To The City. The band also performed in Bangkok for the first time last Friday. Tomorrow, they will make their debut in Hong Kong.
This is the Asian leg of their Farewell I concert that will also take them to Japan and Australia. -- Ong Soh Chin Life! deputy editor
Reader Comments (4)
After close to a decade, I got to see them live yesterday at the Singapore Indoor stadium. Never had I have reservations over the quality of the performance, especially when it was made known that they would be bringing their own tour band, PA technician team,...right down to the catering... close to 100-people entourage. Of course I was ridiculed for the hefty price I paid for the tickets. But think of it this way, 10 years = 3,650 days. Apportion the ticket price over this period, what's that few hundred bucks really? 10 years ago, if the price were to be set at the current levels, I would have still went for the gig.
Yesterday was the first time I felt proud of audience in the Singapore Indoor Stadium. According to Straits Times, there were 11,300 people from all over SEA region, all here in full gear, all prepared to cheer on, all prepared to give their unreserved applause & salute to one of the world's most celebrated folk rock band. In 1999, the Record Industry Association of America recognised The Eagles "Their Greatest Hits, 1971-1975" Album as the bestselling record of the century. Phew! (^^)'' ~
I overheard this group of middle-age gentlemen discussing their accomodation arrangements in Singapore after the concert during the 20 mins' break. Some were desperately looking for their "long-lost" friends, making calls and waving across the stadium. It wasn't just a reunion of a legendary country folk rock band afterall.
"Tequila Sunrise", "Lyin' Eyes"(Frey dedicated to it his first wife called "Plaintiff"), "Already Gone" (Frey dedicated it to George Bush), "Heartache Tonight", "New Kid in Town", "I Can't Tell You Why", "Love Will Keep Us Alive", "One of These Nights", "Take it to The Limit" (Frey said his current wife call this the credit card song), ....
And the solo from Don Henley (Dirty Laundry, Boys of Summer), Glen Frey (You Belong to The City from "Miami Vice")... all 27 songs . There were three encores and all three were the most memorable moments of the concert. "Hotel Calfornia" kicked off the encore session and the whole stadium were in roaring frenzy~ Imagine you on stage and 11,300 people singing to your song? I caught a glimpse of Don Henley smiling over the TV monitor when he heard the chorus from the floor as he played the drums and sang "Hotel California". Listening to The Eagles singing "Hotel California" live is such happiness~~
The finale song had to be "Desperado". The lights dimmed and as Don Henley scrooned this lovely classic, couples around me, started hugging each other and swayed to the tune of "Des~~pera~~do~" ... All of a sudden there were twinkles of light appearing in the audience stands... a sea of "handphone screenlights" began to illuminate the stadium. You can feel love and romance in the air tonight~~
It was a concert worth waiting for, worth every cent of it. Just like to say thank you to everyone present at the Singapore leg yesterday for making the evening such a memorable evening for me. I hope it was just a wonderful evening for you all too. m(_ _)m
Joyce@Singapore
Moving along now, I finally got the chance to see them live in the SingaporeIndoor Stadium on October 18th 2004. I jumped at the chance and blew whateversavings I had to get the best tickets available. Missing this performance wouldhave been sacrilege, so I made sure I got my tickets, and made sure I gotthere. The only down side to everything was that I didn't get myself an EaglesT-shirt, all that was left by the time I arrived was their tourbook andkeychains, which I promptly bought.
I have no negative criticism for the concert whatsoever, it was amazing. Imerely pray that I will have the chance to see them again, and maybe even meetthem. The only thing that I do consider to be a negative, was something Idiscussed with another attendee who was sitting in front of me (sorry I didn'tget your name); Don Felder. As good as the replacement may be, I have to saythat his guitar solos were frigid and had no feel to them... but then againalmost everyone is frigid and has no feel when compared to someone like DonFelder. There is no comparison whatsoever.
Nonetheless, THANK YOU THE EAGLES... for coming down to South East Asia andblessing us with your music. ROCK ON!!!
P.S. Can anyone else post pictures? I would have brought my camera but theticket did say not to bring cameras, so I didn't as a sign of respect... butnow regret it :D
I was there with two friends and we took aton of pics, security didn’t bother to stop us andI’ll get them end of the week, I think. Some weredodgy because my hands were shaking from excitement,but we got some good shots.
The concert started at around 830pm and didn’t endtill about 1130pm. They took a break after about anhour of playing, then teased us with little breaksthat sent the crowd crazy because we hadn’t heardHotel California yet! The Sing papers called it“encores”, I wouldn’t have called them that, more likelittle teasers! The entire concert was filmed, so I’mhoping it will be released as a DVD or something.
It was FULL house, some 11,300 people had turned upfor the concert. Quite a number had come fromMalaysia (as I had) and some had even come from as faraway as the Philippines. It’s good to see the music ofthe Eagles transcending ages and colours, the crowdwas a good mix of locals and expats, of young and oldfans. A couple of seats away from me was a young boyabout 6 who’d been brought there by Daddy. All I cansay is – you lucky kid! We were seated next to a womanwho told me she’d gone to high school with Glenn’s bro- cool or what!
The guys were in great form, they were tight, theywere technically superb and the harmonies were toosmooth to be true. I loved the horns, they added adifferent touch to songs I’d only known from my CDs.Stuart almost stole the show with his guitarwork and Idid wish he didn’t sit apart from the rest of the guysmost of the time. I was sitting amongst people whoclearly weren’t hardcore fans because they didn’t knowwho Stuart was but after a solo or two, everyone wasbowled over and I heard a lot of “Wow, he’s good, whois he?” comments.
Um, I must admit I DID wish that it was Don F. Stuartis a great guitarist, no doubt about that, but I hadalways dreamt of catching the HFO line-up and it wouldhave been really special to see that line-up.
They opened with TLR. People were waiting patientlyuntil they cut the lights and that’s when peoplestarted screaming. When we saw shadows climbing ontothe stage, the screams got even louder and when thelights came on, the cheers were just plain deafening.I mean, come on.. this is the EAGLES. They’re alegend! We weren’t going to just sit there and clappolitely!
When the guys came on stage, I could feel myselfbreaking into the biggest grin ever because Glenn waspositioned right in front of me. My favourite Eagleever and here he is, not five feet away from me. Andboy, does he look YUMMY. He wore blue jeans, a teeand this um, weird jacket with a dragon on the leftupper arm. But after the break, he ditched it for histable-cloth style blue-white checked shirt.
Tim was to his right, in front of the piano, and wow,he looked good too! He wore tight black jeans and ablack tee. Don stood to Glenn’s left when he wasn’tbehind the drums/percussion, looking mighty seriousbut that’s our Don, I would be damn worried if he hadJoe’s expression on! Don was in jeans and checkedshirt… and oddly enough, considering the climate, adenim jacket. And to Don’s left were Joe and Stuart.Joe was wearing a tee and really roomy balloony redpants with gold elephants near the cuff. Very cool.And he had on big white marshmallow-y shoes, maybe hehas big feet… hmmm… Behind Stuart were the keyboards,the horns were at the back (they looked too damn coolwith their shades!) and Scott was in the center atpercussions/drums. I didn’t realise how cute Scott isuntil that night!
When Don hit the opening drum parts to TLR, I justcouldn’t stop grinning. I’d waited for this momentfor ten years! This sure beats the CD any time! Isang and clapped along to every single song, even toSunset Grill which isn’t a song I fancy much.
After TLR, Glenn took the mic and said, “HelloSingapore… Malaysia… and I know some of you have comefrom the Philippines!” The appreciative crowd roaredback as Glenn talked about how nice it was to be inclean and tidy Singapore and that this is the firsttime here for them. He joked about how it could bethe first of many goodbyes and we laughed at him.When he suggested that they could come back, we madesure that they knew we wanted it real bad and that wewouldn’t mind if they came back another 20 times.
When we were finally quiet, Glenn said, “And now,we’re going to play you two songs from our album‘Hotel California’.” and the moment they launched intothe first bar of NKIT, the crowd went crazy again.(they played New Kid and WT)
This was pretty much how the concert went. We wouldscream and shout and cheer before each song, then stopwhile they sang (cause you can’t scream and singalong at the same time) and scream again before theylaunched into a new song.
Glenn intro-ed “Already Gone” with “This is our songfor George Bush, it’s called Already Gone” and theaudience greeted with it whoops of laughter andcheers. As you may have guessed, Mr Bush isn’tpopular in these parts of the world.
Joe was pretty funny… when it was his turn to take thevocals, he would yell, “Wassup?” and get an excitedcheer back from the crowd. Before his first song, hesaid, “This next song was written when most of youweren’t even born yet…. (laughter from crowd).” Hepaused and deadpanned, “If I’d written something else,we wouldn’t be playing this.” And that got everyonelaughing and they went into Funk #49.. if my memoryserves me correctly. I doubt if most of the crowdknew the James Gang stuff they played or even Glenn’sYou Belong to the City, but the band’s delivery goteveryone clapping anyway.
Don talked about HITW, said he wasn’t sure if it wasreleased here and I felt like shouting back, “YES ITWAS, DON!” Personally, I didn’t like the single verymuch when it was released here, I thought it wasrather weak and I thought the guys were capable ofmuch better. But I remember a lot of the fans herewere saying it was a great song live, you had to hearit to believe it and they were right. The guys werein perfect harmony for this one, they got every singlenote right and they got us singing along as well.
I liked it when Glenn intro-ed the rest of the band,because he seemed to go a little loony and boogie hereand there. The crowd knows a good musician when theysee one, the loudest cheers were saved for Stuart andAl as they both had impressive solos throughout thenight.
Cute stuff:- Glenn calling Lyin’ Eyes a song for his first wife,“The Plaintiff”.. old joke for us on this list, Iknow… but the crowd loved it- Glenn making jokes about how they wrote a song (Ithink it was PEF) when the Dead Sea was only sick- Joe and his helmet cam- TBS dragging Stuart to the edge of the stage to showhim off to the crowd who responded with a huge roar- Glenn calling Take it to the Limit as the creditcard song. I’m beginning to realise that they reallydo recycle their jokes. :D They were perfect on thissong, Glenn took lead on this one.- Don looking like a cook whipping up a batch of friednoodles whenever he was behind the percussions. It’shard to explain, you had to be there. If there areany locals reading this, don’t you think that Donlooked like he was making a batch of char kuey teow?- Don realising that they’d nearly banged the leftpercussion cymbal off the stand and hurriedlytightening it before he continued- Tim giving me funny looks when I was taking picturesof the horns. :D- Joe giving Scott a funny look and Scott respondingwith a giggle when Scott played the sound effects toLBG- When Glenn intro-ed Take it to the Limit as “… asong Don and I wrote with our first bassist, RandyMeisner..” someone shouted, “God bless you, Randy!”- Don being thrown off guard during a song by a guyshouting, “Yea, Don baby! Awright, man!” I believe itwas during WT.. towards the end of the song- Glenn yelling to us, “Who likes country-rock here inSouth-East Asia?” before Stuart played the solo in PEFand getting an appreciative roar from the crowd.Personally, I think he could have asked something assilly as “Who wants to see me wear a tutu?” and hewould have gotten the exact same reaction cause wewere THAT excited- “They write me letters/tell me Don’s great” – Joe onLBG while pointing at Don, who rolled his eyes- Joe hiding behind his guitar to point vigorously atGlenn at the line, “Some people like to stay up late”on Heartache Tonight
This being strait-laced Singapore, it took us till thelast third of the concert before we finally got to ourfeet and danced. And we only got up because wethought they were leaving too early, so we all got upto beg them to come back! HAHA! But after that, weall remained on our feet and danced and sang alongwith them.
The best part of the concert had to be HC. This is*their* song, the Eagles ARE Hotel California and theyknew we were waiting for that. We were cheeringourselves hoarse when Al climbed back on after one oftheir little breaks and played this sexy-sexy-sexyhorn intro. As he was playing, Stuart appeared holdinga double-necked guitar and I (and some hundred others)went nuts, because I knew that meant the electricversion of HC. The rest of the guys came back onstage and when they began THAT famous intro to what isprobably the most famous rock song of all time, thestadium went crazy. You had to be there to believehow much noise 11,300 people can make. When it cameto the chorus, it was Don, Glenn, Joe and Tim backedby 11,300 people who sang along to those immortallines.
They took another short break, which only sent thecrowd into another “Please come back” frenzy. I foundmyself dancing next to this woman who told me, “…I’mfrom Texas.. which is where Don Henley is from?” andshe was so worried the concert was over. I told herconfidently, “Don’t worry, they’ll be back becausethey haven’t played Desperado yet!” She was so amazedat my “intelligence” when they came back for a couplemore songs. LOL
Desperado was cool… people started taking out theirhandphones (I guess it’s a cell phone to the Yanks!)and pretty soon, the dark stadium was lit up by littlesquare, handphoned-shaped lights, all swaying in timeas the crowd sang along. In non-smoking Singapore, wehave to find alternatives.
And when the song ended, the guys took a bow as we allcheered, I know I was screaming my lungs out. Thistime, when they went off the stage, it was for real.People started leaving then, it was a fantastic show,we sure got our money’s worth because it was threehours of great music and that’s what the Eagles areall about, isn’t it?