Eels – Corn Exchange, Cambridge, 24/03/08

28 March 2008, 09:00 | Written by Rich Hughes

(Live)

“An Evening with Eels“. That’s what was on my ticket. However, it might have been better marketed as “A Night with Mark Everett” or “E” to his mates. This was a stripped down and quite personal evening. No support act, just the recent BBC Four documentary about E’s father, the originator of the theory about parallel universes. A nice idea but it’s hard to believe that any Eels fan hasn’t already seen it.

I was a little concerned with E strode onto the stage, in a rather fetching boiler suit, by himself and no band. “This could be a very quiet and dark evening” I thought to myself. However, after the opening pair of songs, including a thread bare version of ‘It’s a Motherfucker’, The Chet joined the stage. This multiple instrument playing genius, and later book reader, helped add a certain something to the songs. No longer just an electric guitar or piano, the songs were still stripped back to their dark, cold and sinister hearts, but the extra elements of Saw, guitar and drums just gave the songs the sufficient twist they needed to break out of the mundane.

Having just released a “Greatest Hits”, it was perhaps unsurprising to hear most of them tonight. The quietly brooding ‘Souljacker’, the warped bedtime story of ‘My Beloved Monster’, the darkly comic ‘I Like Birds’, the sinister twisted love song of ‘Flyswatter’ (which included a perfectly executed coda involving The Chet and E swapping drumming duties mid tune), and a fantastically charged and distorted version of ‘Novacaine For The Soul’, were all on offer. We were also treated to a rather surprising cover, a loud and fun version of Led Zeppelin’s ‘Good Times, Bad Times’ – perhaps E has an eye on the drummer stool for the Led Zep reunion tour…

The only thing that jarred, slightly, were two readings from E’s recent autobiography. Thankfully not read by the man himself, but by the master of ceremonies The Chet. His impersonations of Angie Dickinson and E raised plenty of chuckles and added some romance to what were otherwise, as you might expect, quite raw and depressing tales.

As it was an all seated gig, the atmosphere was slightly quiet, but there was a reverential awe for E himself. When he announced that it would be a “Soft Rock encore, bitches” everyone just accepted it… Which summed up the evening; it was an enjoyable romp through the back catalogue of an artist who seems to find fame and fortune a rather odd antidote to his troubled past. It doesn’t feel, like some artists, that performing is a way of exorcising his troubles, it’s just something that he does and people are prepared to pay and watch him. In the end we should be lucky he’s got this far and appreciate him for what he is – a very talented song writer.