OTTAWA -- So, this is how the other half lives.

It was all professional hockey players, television comedians, a billionaire and the Eagles at last night's season-opening subscriber kickoff at the Corel Centre.

With billionaire Senators owner Eugene Melnyk leading the cheer and funnyman Alan Thicke, dressed as a Catholic priest, providing racy jokes no self-respecting priest would be caught dead repeating, the pair introduced this year's edition of the Senators.

Festive

Yeah, you could say that the mood was pretty festive. More like a post-season Stanley Cup winning celebration.

But while all 16,500 bodies were invited because they're Senators subscribers, the real lure was the entertainment, a private concert with the Eagles.

After all, what's a hockey party without a little music?

Hired by Melnyk himself at a rumoured cost of $2 million, veteran country rockers the Eagles treated the fans to 90 minutes of their greatest, and not-so-great hits.

The band had no trouble living up to its reputation as one of the premier bands ever to come out of the good ole U.S. of A.

And though this was one of the more lethargic Eagles concerts I've seen, it's like that old saying, even when they're off their game, the Eagles are still better than most.

Rocking the house

Looking remarkably unchanged as they did back in the 1970s when they cranked out an unparalleled string of country-rock hits, Joe Walsh, Don Henley, Timothy B. Schmit and Glenn Frey settled into the well-worn business of rocking the house down.

Accompanied by an armada of players, including guitarist Stuart Smith, Wilf Howtz and Michael Tompson on keyboards with a horn section of Billy Armstrong, Chris Moskert, Al Garth and Scott Freygo on drums, they opened with The Long Run.

Virtually everyone in the Corel Centre either stood up or raised a fist or cheered.

Don't you love it when the band begins on time and opens strong?

Meanwhile dandyman Frey took vocal honours on Peaceful Easy Feeling and Schmit did the same for the wedding-bell standard I Can't Tell You Why.

Occasionally, they dipped into one of the occasional solo hits band members Henley, Frey and Walsh generated during their 14-year sabbatical, the impasse that resulted in 1994's

"Hell Freezes Over" reunion tour.

Henley's Boys of Summer and Walsh's Life's Been Good were about as artistically egocentric as the band would get in this 90-minute greatest-hits set.

After 30 years of playing together, the Eagles as a band are greater than the sum of its individual parts. Pioneers

Simply put, the Eagles pioneered the whole alt-country rock thing that's so popular these days.

Their grassroots rock ballads are so familiar and easy to curl up to that this was a set list to sing along to.

Backwards frontman Henley (he's both the band's drummer and vocalist) coughed up a decent rehash of One of These Nights for an appreciative audience.

But it was guitarist Frey who proved the natural entertainer, dedicating Lyin' Eyes to his first wife, then singing Plaintiff, and after that introducing Take It to the Limit as "a song about our credit cards."

They closed the show on a high note with Heartache Tonight and Life in the Fast Lane before doing a double encore of Hotel California, Rocky Mountain Way, Take It Easy and Desperado.

Were the Eagles worth $2 million?

Check the Senators' box-office. (More on The Eagles)

JAM! Rating: 3 out of 5