July 01, 2005
slippery
I saw the Eels for the third time this past Wednesday and it proved to be quite a different show than prior performances. There is no doubt that Mark Everett has a very distinctive style of rock and roll and virtually every Eels song is instantly recognizable after a few notes. Some might say that they all sound the same, and they wouldn't be entirely mistaken. But I enjoy his style and will gladly listen to his continued variations album after album.
What was great about this particular performance was that things sounded different. There was a string quartet complementing Mr. Everett on guitar and keyboards, Big Al on upright bass and The Chet on virtually everything else imaginable (including the godforsaken saw). The other outings I saw were more of a standard rock quartet situation, so this arrangement really changed up the entire sound. At the end of the day, I actually prefer them when they rock out more with electric instruments and drum kit, but I appreciated the branching out as it was quite bold.
The other very cool thing that they did was to replace the opening band with an opening film. I loved that the show started with a 15 minute Russian claymation short about the importance of inter-species friendship and other such charmingly silly topics. I plan to rip this idea off as soon as I start performing.
