eels@volksbuehne 20th february 2008

and so the story goes...

last time i saw mark oliver everett aka mr. e in concert with his band eels he was not very friendly to the fans. more than once a mocky "fuck you!" was shouted in direction of the audience.
when i went there yesterday i was quite excited, if he had turned into a "normal" person again.

the concert started with a bbc-documentary ("parallel worlds, parallel lives") about e., who was tracing the life of his father, who died when e. was 19 years old. "i remember seeing my father lying on the bed. he was fully clothed, with his glasses on and all. and i leaned over the bed and embraced him with both arms. he was completely stiff. that was the clostest i've been with my father. when he was dead."

44 year old e. starts looking for people that knew his father. people he had worked with. hugh everett III. was a quantum physicist who first proposed the many-worlds-interpretation.
as e. had never understood what his father was doing, the bbc showed him meet all those physicists and gets an explaination of the thoughts his father had. and he seems to have understood now.
the documentary takes a spin through all parts of e.'s life as well, the suicide of his sister liz, the death of his mum. it showed his quite lonely life with his dog and gave a quite intimate insight into his life.
not a bad way to start a concert, but 60 minutes were just too long.

after the film finished, the white sheet that covered the stage, was torn down and revealed a look onto at least six or seven different instruments. then e. came, sat down with his guitar and played the first song.
the first part of the concert was a bit sad, with "elizabeth on the bathroom floor" (which is abouth his sister's suicide) and "it's a motherfucker". but thank god was e. not depressive all his life and so we could hear beautiful songs such as "i like birds", "souljacker part I", "novocaine for the soul", "last stop: this town" and "flyswatter".
what impressed me most with "flyswatter" was, that in the middle of the song during a drum solo of his partner chet atkins III. (who by the way played the steel pedal, the piano, the drums, the guitar, the zither AND the musical saw) e. left the piano, went over to the drums and then first took one drumstick out of chet's hand - continuing playing - and then the other one, sat down and took over chet's part. chet meanwhile wandered to the piano, played a little, and then they changed it again. it was AMAZING!!

as e. has also written a book (things the grandchildren should know - his autobiography), chet would read some parts out, while e. would just sit there, listen and make some funny comments now and then. he even pretended to read out fan mail ("hello e. you scum, thank you for playing in perth and treating your fans like shit, you cunt!") and concert reviews (which turned out to be one of the eagles'...).
talking about other bands...after playing "novocaine for the soul", chet did a led zeppelin cover of "good times bad times" which was awesome!

including the documentary the concert was nearly three hours long (they did two encores) and was one of the coolest gigs i've ever been to. at some points it was a bit too obvoius that it's all acted but it was funny and seemed very honest.

and oh, e. seemed to have learned a new phrase just for his germany-gigs - danke schatzi!

likewise. a pleasure.