Eels

Ah, classy seated shows at the Tiv. Is there anything better? Well, probably, because it was freezing and I ended up with two guys sitting to my right who smelled oppressively of beer and whiskey. But we were close to the front and I think I enjoyed the show much more because of it.

Doors opened at seven and I was dreading having to sit around for nearly three hours waiting for Mr. Everett to rock out. However, instead of the usual cringe-worthy support act, the evening began at around eight with a really lovely documentary film about E’s journey to learn more about his father, Hugh Everett III, who was a famous mathematician and quantum theorist. It was called “Parallel Worlds, Parallel Lives” and I believe it was made for the BBC. I was thoroughly impressed with this – good production values (despite an incredibly irritatingly-accented female voice-over), as well as being very bittersweet, funny and charming. Plus Bobby Jr. was in it (of course) and that makes everything okay.

E came out about a half hour after this finished, which was great. He said hi, cracked a few jokes and took a seat at the piano for a beautiful version of “It’s A Motherfucker”. I totally did not mist up. The Chet (aka the awesomely fabulous Jeffrey Lister) then joined him for “Strawberry Blonde” and that was it, I was gone. It is such a gorgeous, sad song and it ruined my eye makeup. Ahem. All in all, it was an excellent show. E and The Chet traded jokes back and forth most of the night and the latter also read extracts from E’s autobiography (which was on sale at the merch stand but it was $35 and I was broke as all hell), Things the Grandchildren Should Know. I’d forgotten what a great musician The Chet is. They also worked incredibly well together, the highlight being a crunchy version of “Flyswatter” that saw them swapping back and forth between drums and piano for an extended outro. So much love. E pretty much did all of Daisies of the Galaxy, plus classics like “Novacaine for the Soul”, which made me endlessly happy; some of the newer stuff from “Blinking Lights and Other Revelations” is a bit hit-and-miss. Sad that there was no “Saturday Morning”, “Fresh Feeling” or, worst of all, “Mr. E’s Beautiful Blues”. Boo. The non-musical highlight of the night was E getting stuck into a group of loud drunks right down the front – they were chatting endlessly before and during songs, and calling out random bullshit. At first, he was telling them to hush as politely as he could, but later told them, deadly seriously, “okay, you really have to shut up. It’s a concert, for chrissakes. I’m going to play some tunes now, if that’s okay with you guys.” You could have heard a pin drop in the Tiv; it was hilarious. They got thrown out by security mid-song about twenty minutes later. Mwhahahaha.

In conclusion: a unique and wonderful show that was well worth the expense.