Support:
Documentary about E finding out about his father the famous physicist.
Yeah so the support was a BBC documentary Parallel Worlds, Parallel Lives which had E traveling around the states learning about his father and his father’s quantum mechanics theory. It was really good and I’d only just found out that Hugh Everett III was his father.
Eels live is a strange thing, I’ve seen them at least 4 times before this and it’s always been different. On the Souljacker tour they pretty much only played tracks from that album with older songs being rearranged. For Eels with strings in Vicar St it was a grumpy acoustic/classic set which was amazing and the two nights in the Astoria was some kind of garage rock band show with a lot of fuzz and feedback. Incidentally on this tour they are selling a live bootleg of the Astoria shows from the year before which was nice, grabbed his autobiography too which is great.
This time I had an inkling it would be more like the Vicar St show as it was in the Royal Festival hall and I was surprised. The entire show consisted of just The Chet and E and it seemed like E was genuinely having fun. After introducing "The Queen", a lookalike because the real one declined E’s invitation E wound his way through his entire career playing his radio friendly hits and obscure b-sides too. All the time laughing and joking including reading fan letters and live reviews (which turned out to be for an Eagles gig).
The highlight was the drum solo in Flyswatter which involved E and The Chet swapping places on the drums without missing a beat, literally, twice. The Chet started E took over and then they swapped back again with the drumming never stopping as they swapped limbs one by one. This was an amazing show and hopefully they’ll bring it back to London sometime soon.
- God save the queen (intro tape)
- From which I came/A magic world
- It’s a motherfucker
- Chats to the queen etc etc
- Strawberry Blonde
- Dirty girl
- Cheater’s guide
- Souljacker part 1
- Elizabeth on the bathroom floor
- Climbing to the moon
- My beloved monster
- I like birds
- Reads letters/reviews
- The Chet reads from the book (his arrival in LA)
- Jeannie’s Diary
- In the yard behind the church
- The Chet reads from the book again (coming back to his apartment after Liz’s funeral)
- Last stop: this town
- I want to protect you
- Flyswatter (with drum solo)
- Bus stop boxer
- Novocaine for the soul
- Good times, bad times (Led Zeppelin cover)
- Somebody loves you
- Souljacker part 2
ENCORE 1 - I’m Going To Stop Pretending That I Didn’t Break Your Heart
ENCORE 2 - P.s. You rock my world
Later days,
Halo.