review

EELS were essentially the opening act for Tom Verlaine at a free summer festival in Pittsburgh. I have a lot of respect for Verlaine (particularly his work with Television) but I feel pretty strongly that EELS should have been headlining this show. The stage was very small and reminded me of the puppet show scene from This Is Spinal Tap. EELS played for about 70 minutes, starting with Saturday Morning (great drumming!) and then moving into a shortened version of their usual set. The current version of I'm Going To Stop Pretending... reminds me a lot of R.E.M.'s Country Feedback - really powerful, a great live song. Not Ready Yet was indeed the full 15 minute performance, complete with E walking offstage and handing Krazy Al his guitar. Another great version, but I can't help wishing that they dropped this from the set instead of about 4 shorter songs which could have been played instead. The show ended with E giving up his guitar and wandering the stage as he sang the two "oldies" cover songs, I Put A Spell On You and That's Life. It was his most charasmatic moment of the show - for the earlier part of the concert he seemed content to let Krazy Al and The Chet take the spotlight. I'm guessing that's just his persona for the current tour, but the show did get off to a late start and EELS weren't able to soundcheck, so he also may have been somewhat annoyed by that.

The biggest surprise of the night (for me, at least) was how little Krazy Al was given to do musically. He was extremely funny both during and between songs, but aside from that he spent as much time doing actual security duty as he did playing instruments or singing. There was an incredibly irritating person in the front row who was out of his mind on drugs, and twice Krazy Al needed to come down off the stage and put an end to his nonsense. The audience applauded him both times, it was really great.