A word of explanation here. There are several pages of this so I will divide it into each night. I did post a lot more than this on Eagleland at the time but I only was able to keep the reviews. For Melbourne, there is no review but only something about the new songs as they were then. I'm going to cut out anything irrelevant so the posts won't be too long. Any inaccuracies reflect what was written at the time.

So the first post is about the new songs which I saw in Melbourne on November 14, 2004 and reads as follows:

One Day At A Time was a return to the Eagles' hallowed country rock style. It was fast, nice & loud. Joe played electric. Glenn acoustic & Don played percussion. Glenn & Tim sang harmonies. Joe sang about how he was blaming other people for his situation & finalyy realised it was down to him & he had to take responsibility to pull himself through. This was the gist of it. It was inspiring, uplifiting and may I add, superbly sung by Joe.

No More Cloudy Days - now this is difficult. Please bear with me.

They were in the acoustic formation at the start of the second half. Tim, Don, Glenn, Joe. They had finished Tequila Sunrise. Then Glenn told us about the song. He said that when they performed it in Perth & it rained 'I opened my eyes once & it was pouring with rain... it was fun, when we finished it'.

He started vigorously strumming his acoustic guitar & then they all chimed in. Then he started singing. All I can remember is it was a combination of the lyrics of This Way To Happiness & True Love - in fact I believe I posted beforehand that I thought it would be Son of True Love & sure enough he sang something like 'I know a place where true love stays' twice. He sang about 'I would never lie to you' (or let you down, something like that). They joined him in singing 'no more cloudy days' but it was lika a close, block harmony. Also, on a couple of words he soared up into falsetto. At the end of the song Al* did the inevitable sax solo. The reports have been that it was inspired by English* singer-songwriter David Gray, and I think Glenn wrote it by himself. It was positive, but it was pleading. It was heartfelt. More I can't tell you, yet.

When they finished the crowd erupted. Then he did something I have never seen before. He sat there & instead of saying 'thank you' in his usual exuberant style, he murmured 'thank you. Thank you very much' in a barely audible voice. He sounded very emotional.

HE was emotional. This is how I thought I was feeling. I thought 'my spine has turned to mush' - those are the exact words. I was literally melting away.

* NOTE: the solo is played by Chris & David Gray is Welsh, although Glenn called him Irish last year.