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Eels: No question, they're different
by Mike Barnett26/ 5/2005
MARK Everett, Eels main-man, known as E, once played a gig in
Manchester in his pyjamas.
He was more conventionally dressed at the Bridgewater Hall last
Friday evening, but there was little else conventional about the
gig.
The proceedings began with a film show, which featured a hilarious
piece of footage of E being interviewed by a TV presenter who
wasn't so much out of her depth as in desperate need of life-saving
equipment.
Backed by a string quartet, E, cheekily puffing away on a Groucho
Marx-style cigar in the no-smoking hall, performed much of the
band's new album, Blinking Lights And Other Revelations.
A sprawling 90-minute double CD, it's in places as painfully
confessional ("Daddy was a drunk, a most unpleasant man," runs a
refrain from Son Of A Bitch) as is much on Eels' five previous
genre-defying releases, which have earned E a fan-base as loyal as
it is discerning.
Gauche and determinedly left-field, E hardly moves, yet demands and
commands attention as he plays a variety of keyboard instruments,
as well as an acoustic guitar. It was utterly captivating from
start to finish.
Many of the sell-out crowd had left the auditorium when the band
reappeared, to give those of us remaining a surprise encore of
Prince's I Could Never Take The Place Of Your Man.
It made for a surreal finish to what was an unforgettable show.
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