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Eels: No question, they're different

by Mike Barnett
26/ 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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