Three River Arts Festival
Information
Pictures
Setlist
Intro. tape / "Saturday Morning" (Muzak version)
Saturday Morning
Old Shit/New Shit
Rock Show
Crazy
Eyes Down
Jesus Gonna Be Here (sung by The Chet)
Mother Mary
My Beloved Monster
A Magic World
I'm Going to Stop Pretending That I Didn't Break Your Heart
Not Ready Yet (complete 15 minute version)
Dog Faced Boy
Souljacker Pt. 1
I Like Birds
I Put a Spell on You
That's Life
Reviews/Comments
- trey:
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.