I saw them live last week. Holy shit! I had no ideas they would rock out like this! They have just released a mellow and beautiful live album called “With Strings - Live At Town Hall” and then they enter the stage like early Wire or MC5. The setlist included great covers of Tom Waits, Willie Dixon, Dean Martin and Screamin’ Jay Hawkins as well as the most rockin’ of Eels tunes. Hits were pretty much ignored (ie no “Novocaine For The Soul”, “Mr. E’s Beautiful Blues”, “Fresh Feeling”, “Susan’s House”, “(Hey Man) Now You’re Really Living”), but that didn’t matter. Like a true great E can apparently play whatever he wants and people will love him for it.
The band also included a ridiculously huge security guy who danced around, did some body building, said random things in between the songs and shook hands with the people so E didn’t have to do it himself. I swear, the Eels are the funniest band since DEVO!
When the lights went on after only two encore songs people just wouldn’t accept the band leaving, so they had to come back for “Saturday Morning”. This gig was magic! I hardly ever saw anything like it.
Posted on Sat, 15 July 2006 at 15:20
