Eels

The summer air of the Marche region is thick with electricity. An electricity that seems to run through the evening breeze off the coast, materializing as if by magic among the instruments propped up on the still-empty stage of the Mamamia in Senigallia. It's an electric storm that seems to come out of nowhere, the one the speakers pour over the audience staring at the shadows of the deserted stage. Then, the imposing and menacing shape of a bearded, tattooed giant makes its way through, shaven-headed and wearing a black T-shirt reading "Security". It's Krazy Al, once known as Big Al, and he's the most surreal element of the new show born from the deranged mind of Mr. E.

We'd left the Eels at the end of last year in the solemn setting of the Milan Conservatory, complete with a string quartet in tow: today, anyone not used to the sudden stylistic shifts of Mr. E's creature might struggle to recognize them. No more "Eels With Strings" for Everett and co.: the new tour proclaims itself right from the title as "No Strings Attached", with an E armed with scissors leering with a sadistic smirk from the posters. Then again, according to E himself, an album like "Blinking Lights And Other Revelations" required at least a double tour to do it proper justice…

What takes the stage this time, then, is a sturdy, uncompromising rock trio, though naturally still filtered through an entirely eelsian dimension: Mr. E wears a flight suit and aviator cap with big goggles pulled down over his face, guitarist The Chet sports a beret and military-style outfit, while newcomer Knuckles sits at the drums with an orange helmet on his head… All ready for battle, sporting the regulation "Souljacker" beard. Beside them, bassist Krazy Al does everything except play bass: for the entire duration of the show, his role is almost exclusively to thrash about on stage like a madman, miming kung-fu moves, boxing and bodybuilding poses…

The opening, with an impetuous, thunderous "Old Shit/ New Shit", serves as the perfect statement of intent: "I'm tired of the old shit, let the new shit begin". No sooner said than done: out comes the swaggering hard-rock riff of "Rock Show", a cover of a track co-written by Peaches and Iggy Pop, which the Eels unleash with their usual heavy dose of sarcasm toward rock's clichés. "You came to see a rock show/ This isn't a fuckin' talk show", E barks at the (admittedly not exactly packed) Senigallia crowd… The parody of the rock concert is one of the key ways to read this new Eels tour: E doesn't say a word throughout the whole show, delegating all interaction with the audience to bodyguard Krazy Al, who rattles off the most bombastic rockstar clichés between songs. But the most brilliant moment comes when Al ceremoniously puts on a nurse's glove and wades scowling into the front rows to high-five everyone E peremptorily points out to him… As if to say that the rock-concert ritual is nothing but a pantomime in which the star, even while pretending to mingle with the crowd, never actually steps down from the pedestal.

Straight away comes another cover, Willie Dixon's "Crazy Love", clearly dedicated entirely to the night's resident "crazy one", Krazy Al. The absence of bass in most of the songs, combined with the dirty, abrasive blues that defines the band's sound, makes this "No Strings Attached" incarnation of Eels surprisingly close to a more singer-songwriter-leaning version of the White Stripes.

Once the cards are on the table, the show really gets going with a rousing "Eyes Down", a gorgeous, criminally overlooked b-side from the soundtrack to "Holes", and with a "Dirty Girl" that once again proves to be one of the crowd's favorites. Never one to stop enjoying wrong-footing expectations, E seizes on another recent b-side, "After The Operation", and transforms it from an acoustic sketch into a powerful electric ballad, before handing the mic to the phenomenal The Chet, who proves himself a bluesman of real substance with his rendition of Tom Waits' "Jesus Gonna Be Here".

Mr. E alternates between guitar and keyboard, delivering the organ flourishes of a vigorous "Mother Mary" and a dip into the past with "Rags To Rags", "Last Stop: This Town", "The Sound Of Fear" and the inevitable "My Beloved Monster", updated for the occasion into a frenetic soul rave-up.

Eels circa 2006 seem less inclined toward nuance and more geared toward physical engagement. But when the fervor subsides, as on "A Magic World," the guitars of E and The Chet are left alone to cut deep with their piercing sweetness, giving "I'm Going To Stop Pretending That I Didn't Break Your Heart" a force so poignant it brings to mind Rem's "Country Feedback." Ranging across a repertoire now a decade deep, without ever worrying about pleasing anyone, Eels remain stubbornly indifferent both to those who still fail to grasp the Andy Kaufman-esque humor of their stagecraft, and to those who turn up their noses every time the band plays at reasserting their own personal "it's only rock 'n' roll."

On the notes of "Not Ready Yet" a kind of sonic black hole seems to open up, leading the band to drift for some twenty minutes through a distorted, dreamlike jam session, in the middle of which E leaves the stage and wanders off, handing his guitar over to Krazy Al, who over the course of the evening also occasionally amuses himself with a toy piano and tambourine. The band carries on undaunted until it erases the very notion of time, as if that ceaseless back-and-forth of surges and retreats were meant to last all night long. Then Mr. E reappears on stage and picks up the thread of the song right where he left it, finally bringing his exhausting instrumental excursion to a close. As Krazy Al treats the audience to squirts of whipped cream (!), E launches into the grand finale, mic in hand in full lounge-singer mode for yet another couple of covers that night: a frenzied "I Put A Spell On You" and Frank Sinatra's "That's Life," which seems tailor-made to fit Everett's crooked grin.

After a brief pause, Eels return to the stage just long enough for a wild "Cancer For The Cure" and the usual punked-up version of "I Like Birds," if anything even more rambunctious than usual. Hopes for one of those surprise encores that have by now become legendary among fans fade almost immediately, as soon as the night's DJ set starts pounding away from the venue's open-air dancefloor. But while preparations are in full swing at the Rotonda in Senigallia for the hotly anticipated performance by Fred Bongusto (!), the die-hards lingering by the tour bus after the show still get the chance to swap a few words with the band members, who are as relaxed and approachable as ever... and even to grab an autograph from Mr. E, who mutters just a few words with a cigar in hand, but doesn't turn anyone away.

As Al would say, "crazy motherfucker called E"...

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