London Dominion Theatre

The mind boggles at what might actually pass for 'bizarre' in the world of
Eels. After all, they're the band who donned 18th-century funeral togs for
their last London date, who eke uplifting ecstasies from cancer, dementia
and death. So when the band, minus E but including new live Eel Lisa
Germano, open with an overture incorporating the melodies of the band's
greatest 'hits' (augmented by a two-man brass section dressed as an
accountant and a department store Santa, natch), no-one blinks an eyelid.
Hey, it's Eels. Weird is what they do.

So E strides on, blue denim trucker's ensemble clashing nicely with his
rhythm section's OK Corral chic, sits at his saloon-bar piano and pounds out
a sensual take on Nina Simone's 'Feeling Good'. Later on, he'll cover 'Can't
Help Falling In Love' with all the majesty drummer Butch Norton's rumbling
timpanis can muster; in between, he'll croon his finest music-box
symphonies, juggling gallows humour and naked tenderness with ease. You
might justifiably fear the worst eclectic rock crimes, but as with so many
of pop's unlikely treasures, you really had to be there.

Those initial Beck comparisons now seem so wide of the mark; Eels may share
the boy Hansen's sonic magpie-isms, but E maps that musical playfulness
emotionally, eschewing the zeitgeist for the personal. Beck could never pull
off the touching, Big Star-esque innocence of 'Jeannie's Diary', or the
disquieting 'I Like Birds', which E, lacking such self-consciousness, does
with grace and glee.

E's closer to that other '90s blond alt-waif, Kurt Cobain, whose crushing
sensitivity and tendency to be totally subsumed by feeling and emotion,
resound throughout 'Sound Of Fear' and 'Ant Farm', where E sounds like a
little boy lost in situations he can't escape or even understand. Crucially,
though, E has the emotional equilibrium to make sense of this terror,
creating songs as cherishable as 'PS You Rock My World', songs which
simultaneously scrape the heart's highest peaks and darkest depths. Tonight,
sumptuously rendered by the six-piece band, it strikes chords still ringing
from The Flaming Lips' last UK jaunt.

"Bring me my bongos!" yells E, as the band begin 'Hospital Food'. Beating
wildly at the hand-drums like Andy Kaufman's kindred spirit, he's a Dadaist
with a heart, cheating the failure his wildly ambitious muse and blind
bravery should deliver him. Always contrary, and always completely
enchanting.

Stevie Chick