With many tickets costing £60, an official baseball top going for a mere £70 and queues of more than 30 minutes to enter Earls Court, the audience's commitment was never in doubt. Had the band reciprocated, it would have been an evening to savour. Instead the mood was one of repellent cynicism.
Without Don Felder, Randy Meisner and Bernie Leadon, the Eagles now number four. Their shtick is to stay on stage for three hours, play the hits and dip wary toes into solo canons. This seems like a potentially fair deal £60, despite a venue that makes one yearn for the relatively welcoming embrace of Wembley Arena.
Yet the Eagles give nothing. They can't even be bothered with most of their own guitar solos, leaving them to hired hand Stewart Smith. Without any light show to speak of, let alone any sense of spectacle, they simply stand there, sweatless, churning out their back catalogue with neither fire nor interest.
Dressed as a Bond villain, Don Henley still possesses a voice capable of giving Wasted Time and the closing tune, Desperado, an edge, although his own The Boys of Summer drew the night's best reaction. Glenn Frey, resplendent in a sky-blue suit, went for everything except the high notes, thus destroying Lyin' Eyes and New Kid in Town. Bassist Timothy B Schmit hit his notes on I Can't Tell You Why, but seemed incapable of movement, while Joe Walsh forgot the words to Life's Been Good.
Showing further contempt for an increasingly dispirited crowd, the band began the second half, not with the anonymous Heartache Tonight or Already Gone but with Hotel California, ensuring that anyone braving the queues for toilets and snacks missed the Eagles' defining moment.
No matter, for a struggling Henley proved how difficult it is for a man of almost 54 to simultaneously drum and sing. By the time Life in the Fast Lane had been rendered as Life on the Hard Shoulder, the crowds were streaming out, £25 Eagles baseball caps worn at a less-than-jaunty angle.
• The Eagles play Earls Court, London SW5 (0870 903 9033) tonight and tomorrow, then tour.
