Eagles Take It To The Limit

The Eagles are touring Canada and made Saskatoon a 3-concert venue. I am sure the band thinks that they are in hell and it has indeed frozen over. The temperatures have been in the low -30s with windchills dipping below -40 C.

With the mercury sinking to -33C last night we attended their sold-out concert. Parking is a problem at the best of times at the Credit Union Centre (CUC), however, 500 spots were unavailable due to snow being dumped in them. 13,000 people attended this concert and all wanted to get as close as possible to the building so as not to freeze on the way in. We have a secret spot that we park at outside of the CUC grounds and not only is it easy to get into but when the crowds surge out afterwards, this spot permits a quick getaway from the traffic bottlenecks that occur.

As we approached the building we could see quite the lineup to get inside and I certainly did not want to stand there freezing and noticed a few people walking towards the back of the stadium. We followed the small group of people and quickly found an entrance into the stadium.

We had seats in Section 8 - Row 19. We pushed our way through the milling bodies and eventually found the stairs up. Up. Up. Up. Up. This concert sold out in 5 minutes. Peter and I used both our computers to secure two tickets at $100.00 each. And we found ourselves seated in the 2nd last row from the top of the stadium. We could barely see the stage.

The seats are hard and there is barely any leg room. Looking around the crowd I noticed something very similar - lots of bald heads, grey hair, glasses, and conservative clothing. After all - as Don Henley said himself, this was the 'Eagles Assisted Living Tour'.

The concert starts around 8:15 and at first Peter and I are not very impressed. The sound was quite low and much to our disappointment we could not see the Jumbotrom due to a girder that hung down blocking our view. I really think that those seats that have impeded view in CUC should not be priced the same as those that have a better view.

To add to insult, behind us sat a couple of 20 something girls who just had to carry on a loud conversation between themselves. I wanted to enjoy the music and didn't want to hear their insipid giggling and conversations about who is texting them at this moment. Third song in was 'Hotel California'. Now this is one of my favourite songs and I sure didn't want it ruined by those two boorish girls behind me. Suddenly, I grew horns and fangs and turned around and snarled "Girls, please keep quiet!" Big eyes! They managed to keep quiet for all of 2 songs. I figured they probably spit in my hair. Oh I forgot to mention, when these two crawled into their seats they managed to spill their drink on Peter. Much to our relief they decided to leave (probably found better seats) about 10 minutes before the break and never returned.

I know we saw and listened to a very different concert than the people who were in the lower balcony and floor. The music was great - they sang all their hits. Joe Walsh is as crazy as ever and wore his helmet cam for his hit 'Life's Been Good'. The background with computer generated images was incredible and at least we were able to see that. But we never did really see any close-ups of the band. Closing songs were 'Take It Easy' and the last one 'Desperado'. Instead of people holding up lighters - they held up their cell phones. Speaking of cell phones - I was amazed at the number of people who were on their cells the entire concert - most likely texting. I could see all the little glowing globs throughout the crowd. Despite the stifling hot air up in doldrums of CUC, the lack of a good view and hard seats I was happy we went. I'll probably never get the chance to see The Eagles live ever again.

I am also glad we had our secret parking spot because after a 1/2 hour shuffle in the crowds to exit the stadium, we quickly got to our van and onto the road.

Unfortunately, we came home to a piles of poop - and nasty, stinky ones too. Oh well.