Back Again

A slightly longer delay in returning to active posting than planned, because I am, as has been proven frequently, a lazy little f*cker.
Anyway, went to see the Eels last night in Glasgow, with the intention of perhaps writing a nice little mini review for here. That went out the window because, frankly, I have no idea what to say about the show.
I forgot it was an early start and got to the venue (The ABC in Glasgow, my first time there. Nice place.) and missed all but the last 30 seconds or so of the support act, Smoosh. That 30 seconds was alright. I'd never heard of them before, turns out they are a pair of horribly young sisters. I hate young people with talent! Since I now can't even claim to be anything other than late 20's I find myself developing an innate dislike of young people anyway mind you.

Back to the matter at hand though. There was a short, tolerable break between Smoosh and Eels, just long enough for me to drink a pint and sneak outside for a smoke (God damn Scottish anti-smoking laws, beer and cigarettes are made to be enjoyed together, not forcibly separated!) then E and friends turned up on stage and blasted through a wonderful set. My attempts at forming a setlist were ruined when I (a) remembered that I have an awful memory and (b) had plentifully amounts of booze. They played a mix of stuff from all their albums as well as some trademark cover versions. They could pretty much have turned up, played Dog Faced Boy and gone home as far as I was concerned though. Had they done that I might have wondered why I'd spent twenty quid to see them though, so it's just as well they didn't really.

E & The Chet were joined on stage by a burly man dressed as a security guard, who proved to be massively and bizarrely entertaining as he would occasionally fill in on guitar or keyboards, backing vocal and assorted percussion. The entertaining and bizarre bits were the Kung Fu moves he'd throw out when not playing an instrument, and the odd non-seqiters he'd give between some songs. E himself spoke to the audience only once that I recall, and that was to tell a section of the crowd to stop clapping along with his songs.

Being that it was an early show with a kicking out time a good half an hour to 45 minutes before you'd normally get, there was only time for 2 encores, rather than the three, four or more I've heard of the band doing. I clearly wasn't the only person hoping for more after the final song, as a large section of the crowd steadfastly refused to go anywhere till the venue staff started kicking us out.

All in all, a flipping wonderful gig, albeit one that's impossible for me to describe in any less vague terms. My one little disappointment was the lack of a special limited edition CD for the tour, like Oh What A Beautiful Morning or Sixteen Tons. A minor dissapointment though.

Since my only digital camera type thing is a piss poor mobile phone and the last time I took photos at a gig was SLF in March and they were utterly incomprehensible, I didn't bother taking pictures, so instead, I've nicked some from another website. Different night, different place, but same stage attire. If anyone happens to come across a bootleg from the current tour, I'll quite literally kill for a copy.