Everyman put the china coffee cup back on its saucer by the side of the still unpaid for mock-velvet bulging armchair. Watery sun infiltrated through his new, spotless double glazed front window. In front of the rented colour TV Everyboy and Everygirl sat intent on a cheap American cartoon about suspiciously clean young people living on Mars. They seemed to be blankly enjoying it, and anyway, there was little else to do in Everytown on Sunday.

Everyman yawned and reached for the Sunday Papers as he had every year for the last three years. Something had happened in 1974 that he didn't really understand but he felt vaguely contented with it--the mid-length hair, the Burtons suit, the company Cortina. He didn't really miss the long dirty hair and incense, the commune, the patchouli.

Everyman was twenty-eight and, he supposed, happy enough.

The ad caught his eye immediately as he turned the page. A half-remembered line drifted into his head from somewhere.

He found the phrase oddly insistent and uncomfortable. It reminded him of an earlier time when the sun came through undiluted by expensive glass windows.

Looking through those windows, thought Everyman, was just like watching it all on TV with the sound turned down. Then everything was beginning to seem like TV nowadays.

His eyes scanned the ad closely through the metal-rimmed spectacles, but the writing was small and he couldn't find focus. Removing the glasses, he held the newspaper close to his face. The letters solidified. The Eagles, it said, live at Wembley Empire Pool.

The Eagles, the Eagles. Young bucks, outdoor teen dreams, another time.

Everyman felt an odd sense of pique, of being cheated.

He raised his eyes from the page and stared vacantly at the Swedish Pine coffee table. He hadn't bought an LP since last summer and that had been for his wife. The Carpenters, he remembered...

He very rarely used his music centre now; in fact it was only his wife, Everywoman, who had talked him into buying it because she had a space to fill next to the magazine rack. Everyman usually preferred to read the Daily Mail or fall asleep in front of the TV. Still, he remembered, there were albums in the closet that he hadn't listened to for years.

Hesitantly, he put down the paper, stood up, and stepped over the rarely opened closet in the corner of the room. Pulling the door open he saw a bundle of newspapers. He couldn't read the writing on them too well, but he knew they were yellowing back issues of Rolling Stone.

Underneath the papers, with a thin layer of dust where about fifty records, closed edges facing outwards. Dusting them off with his handkerchief--an eggshell blue to match his tie--he strained to read the titles. Half way down was what he was looking for.

Sliding the albums out of the pile, he was that it was battered and creased around the cover, but the vinyl didn't seem too badly marked.

Everyman put the record on the turntable, the Eagles debut album. He saw form the label that it was released in 1972.

Everyboy and Everygirl started crying. They couldn’t hear the cartoon. Everyman wasn’t listening to them. Sitting down, he methodically tore out the ad and put it in his wallet.

The mustachioed longhair and his pasty girlfriend watched without interest as the Red Cortina tried to reverse into the small space. After the third attempt, the driver, a mouse-haired man nearing his thirties wearing flared tailored jeans and cotton shirt with inexplicable representation of Groucho Marx printed all over it succeeded in placing it crookedly next to the curb. The couple paid no more attention and walked suddenly through the rain towards the Empire Pool, where a behemoth banner announces the presence of the Eagles.

Everyman sighed and got out of the Cortina. He had left Everywoman at home tonight, telling her he’d had to work late at the office. At the time it had seemed a good idea—to relive a slice of this past, to visit a concert once again, to feel the unity of audience surging in reaction to the music, but the sheets of rain made Everyman feel miserable and ridiculous. He had remembered it all, after hearing that record the other day. Everyman knew the Eagles must have made a lot of records since, but he felt sure they wouldn’t have changed that much…

Everyman smiled. Yes, it would be all right, even if they only did that one number, just to remind him, just to let him feel again.

Everyman felt surprised when security men searched him at the door. The last time he’d come here—what was it, the Dead?—there had been none of that.

Still. Times change, he thought, as he paced through the stone doorway into the messy, cold passageway that flanked the entrances and exits. Bars, selling drinks at inflated prices, flecked the corridors. Everyman saw a programme seller and took the glossy booklet. He assumed he’d misheard when the seller, with just a hint of smugness, told him it was 70p. Reluctantly, he reached into the pocket of his brown sports jacket and fished out the 70p. Everywoman would be livid if she found out, he mused, but dismissed the thought and forced his way to the front of a bar crush.

The luke warm lager in the plastic glass depressed him. Staring around at the directionless milling of the fans it struck him how bland the audience was. He included himself. Once there had been uniforms, polarized roles. The security men had scornful expressions, short hair. The punters wore it long, hid behind dilated pupils. The divisions were concrete. Once. Now there was a lump, without identity. Everyone looked joyless and bleached. Everyman felt that way, too. He finished the lager without enjoying it and began walking towards the exit. Why bother, he thought. It’s pathetic. Good film on tonight too.

Take it easy, thought Everyman. It’s just a concert. And the bell was ringing, says the show’s about to start.

Everyman walked up the stairs and handed in his 4.25 ticket. His seat was in the South Grand tier. On one side of him sat two young girls about 14 or 15 he guessed.

On the other sat his creator, me, with a notepad on my lap. I decided not to introduce myself. I was working out what I would have Everyman think of the concert and whether I would make him agree with what I thought. Everyman looked concerned, because that was the way I felt he ought to look, sitting next to the person who invented him. I decided to ignore him to watch the concert and then form some opinions for him afterwards. Preconceptions after all, are unprofessional.

The Eagles came onstage, and everybody clapped, including Everyman, excluding me. I was making notes already. ‘Blue Hotel California’ neon either side of the stage’ is what I wrote, and ‘Glenn Frye and Don Felder look exactly the same’. Everyman looks over my shoulder curious to see what I have written, but because I’ve made him forget his glasses, he can’t read it.

This is what I was writing.

‘ ‘Hotel California’. V. good number. Sound v. good for Wembley. Interesting choice of opener. ( ) unreadable.

‘Audience oddly static. Eagles not body music? Harmonies slightly faint.’

Then, a quote from whoever at the end of the number.

"Hello, we’re the Eagles from Los Angeles."

Then I’ve written a large number two and ‘Seems to Me’ the title of the second number they do.

Then, ‘Walsh showpiece. Vocals stunted. Powerful. Walsh ugly even at this distance. Frey and Felder dressed ex. The same, b. jeans and long white shirts. Same hair and moustache.

‘Three. Victim of Love. Good guitar work. Felder v. good guitarist, prob. Much better than lumbering Walsh. There is this quite incredible misconception that the Eagles are a wet band. Much of their materials is v. hard, dfntly not country rock.’

Not is underlined three times.

‘Four. Doolin-Dalton and reprise. Perfect recreations. Sound just like record. Don Henley has grt. Voice. Finest material from best album.

‘Five. Lyin Eyes. Bit wet. Stereotype of what most people think the Eagles are all about. Six. Wasted Time. Bit boring, too. Half way through curtain rises to reveal on-two-thirty-six piece orchestra and everybody cheers.

Everyman leant over to me and asked me what everyone was applauding. Maliciously, I screwed up my face as if he were some sort idiot and told him. This made him feel pretty bad about being shortsighted, which was patently unpleasant of me, but the string section had annoyed me. Ammunition for the anti-Eagles critical brigade, for they are legion.

The notes continue:

‘Audience lap it up. Giving the audience what they want which is fair enough. End of number loudest applause so far. "shucks," says whoever onstage. More clapping. Large number of audience probably only recognize songs form the last two albums. Seven. Take it to the Limit. Randy Meisner on lead vocals. Don’t like it. Eight. New Kid in Town. Twee but appealing. Strings faintly annoying. Nine. Desperado and Reprise. Beautiful."

Beautiful is underlined once.

‘Ten. Wasted time (Reprise). Strings in their place. On their own. V. pretty. Curtain down on the 36 penguins. Goodbye. Eleven. One of These Nights. Perfect recreation of record. Eagles are very musically sharp. Transatlantic reports incorrect. Technically flawless performance all through. Twelve. Turn to Stone. Joe Walsh number. I came to see the Eagles, not J. Walsh ego trip. He is good though. They’re having a JAM. The Eagles. Quite a good one too. Don’t really go in for that sort of thing myself, though. Thirteen. Already Gone. One of my favourites. Eagles more adept at rocking than at balladeering sometimes. Immaculate. Trendy Eagles Haters might poss. Change mind after this. That is naïve. TEHs made up their minds long ago, as soon as band began to sell.’

There were few open minds in the concert. Everyman was one of them. I was not. I had decided by now that our opinions would differ.

‘Sixteen. Rocky Mountain Way. Voice box fun. Walsh again. His best number. Seventeen. Unidentifiable but competent instrumental, leading into eighteen. Witchy Woman.’

Witchy Woman was the first number Everyman recognized. He moved to the edge of his seat and squinted at the stage. He had a look of faint surprise on his face because I decided to give him 20/20 eyesight in order to see what was going on without his glasses. Not that there was much to see.

‘Encore. Nineteen. James Dean. Good choice. Security guards out in force now. Nobody allowed to have a good time. Hateful. Hateful.’

Then the whole page is taken up by the word STUPID in big jagged red letters.

‘Somebody jumps from the stage and starts yelling and pushing the security men. Seems to have some effect. Hundreds of them disappearing. Return soon enough. Twenty. Best of My Love. Finished with it at Wembley Stadium a few summers ago. Minutes past. Second encore. Twenty-one. Unidentifiable Joe Walsh number. Annoying and ridiculous to do numbers most of the audience don’t know and don’t want to hear. Twenty-two. Take it Easy. Supreme. Fucking Joyous.’

Everyman was still grinning when I left him.

In the Red Cortina, his mind was brimming with forgotten exuberance. The Cortina went faster and faster. In Everyman’s mind it was a shiny Cadillac. Wembley High Road transformed into Hollywood and vine. His eyes and throttle wide, Everyman screeched round corners, shot through traffic lights and eventually found himself driving up his own drive.

He walked through the front door and then into the living room. Everywoman sat in the armchair facing the television but reading a copy of Woman.

She turned her docile face towards him.

"Where have you been dear?" she aid flatly.

Everyman thought for a minute, and spoke, but not to her. "Trying to loosen my load."

"That’s nice dear," said Everywoman.

Everyman said nothing, but walked over to his loving, generous, pleasant wife, picked her up bodily, and threw her through the plate glass windows.

When the police cam to fetch him a few minutes later, Everyman was sitting in his wife’s armchair, listening to his beaten up copy of the first Eagles album. One line stuck in his head as they bundled him in the back of the turquoise blue Rover.

There is no moral to this story.