EDMONTON - We could use a few of those peaceful, easy feelings right about now - but they don't come cheap.
With tickets to last night's Eagles concert up to $225 each, the question isn't whether they're worth it, but what do they do with all that damned money? Does it go back into the show?
Rocking this softly must be expensive. So are horn sections, a dazzling light show, power suits, immaculate vocal harmonies and the sheer sweat it takes to create note-perfect renditions of everything they ever did that mattered over a peaceful, easy hit parade that stretched to nearly two hours.
Yes, they had all that. In the heavy nuclear element that is this legendary California country rock band, perhaps money is the subatomic "glue" that keeps these powerful talents and egos from flying apart.
Don Felder, of course, was not present last night, having played some unspecified role in the Eagles in the past, at least as far the show was concerned.
But enough banging on the ticket prices. The Police were comparable, had only three guys and were a lot less rehearsed.
At this point - 15 years after Hell Freezes Over (the name of the 1994 tour and album taken from Don Henley's opinion on ever getting back together again) - the Eagles are tight.
They sounded much more like a real band last night than they did 15 years ago, when they sounded like five guys trying to learn not to hog the spotlight.
Last night, they even doffed the jackets of their power suits at the same time, as if they overheated in sync.
For playing, perfection was the rule, passion was the attitude. They almost approach their material with reverence, as if each song couldn't possibly be improved.
Some bands at this level will purposely mangle their biggest hits - whether through boredom, creative urges or both is not clear - but not these guys. They do it the way it was written. They do it like an orchestra playing Mozart.
They know that their loyal fans paid up to $225 to hear Hotel California the way they remember it when they were young and had hair - and so nothing less than an exact reproduction will do. The Mexican trumpet intro was a much appreciated new wrinkle to the band's most well-known song.
Think of concert value another way. With the Eagles, you not only get the Eagles songs, but you also get Don Henley songs, Glenn Frey songs and Joe Walsh songs.
Henley, bouncing from drums to vocals to guitar, evoked the '80s early with Boys of Summer, while Walsh provided a first-set highlight with In the City.
Frey, who did the talking, had moments of his own. Walsh did most of the rocking, meanwhile. Each of the "big three" is a formidable draw in his own right. Well, maybe at the Jube, which is not too shabby.
It has been said that the Eagles is a band whose parts are greater than the sum. Think of them as the original boy band - it's just that instead of dancing, they stand there and strum guitars, sing these soaring R&B harmonies, and when an audience member shouts out a favourite Eagle, it's usually in a husky male voice. Other than that, they're the '70s 'NSync with better songs.
Too far? How about the rich, white Temptin' Temptations? OK, never mind.
Maybe they didn't lay any alternate takes on us because they had so much new material to introduce.
By the third song, most bands at this level would've brought out a big gun or two. Not the Eagles.
A foursome of songs from the latest album, Long Road Out Of Eden (available exclusively at Wal-Mart) opened the show and was riddled through the rest of both sets.
A lull in audience enthusiasm was detected in the middle of the second set, which opened with a seated-on-stools acoustic set, but the hits - both solo and collective - returned to remind people in the cheap ($85) seats why they were here. That's right: To hear Joe Walsh play Life's Been Good.
Still is, I'm sure.
