Photo of E by Bryanna Bradley/ The Gazette
On an unusually warm dark for late September, E was clearly still thinking about summer during the Eels concert at Le National last night.Two of the three songs the singer-songwriter covered during one of the year's noisiest and hardest-rocking concerts were the Lovin' Spoonful classic Summer in the Metropolis and Billy Stewart's exuberant version of the Gershwin evergreen Summertime.
t one stage during the 95-minute set, the man of the hour even threw what looked like popsicles into the audience.Butnot all was sunshine pop. E, ne Mark Oliver Everett, has a dark moment to match every time joy breaks through. That delicate balance was reflected in the way savage rave-ups frequently alternated with raspy ballads last night. It was a finely shaded performance, with cloud and light taking turns at the controls.After a dreary set by oh-so-indie singer Jesca Hoop, E came on unaccompanied and strummed Grace Kelly Blues. "I suppose you know I'll be OK," he sang, before calling out for his guitarist The Chet.But was he OK? With The Chet (rechristened Le Chet in Montreal) on lead guitar and pedal steel, he followed up with the sad, lonely and touching Little Bird and the desolate, haunting End Times.And only wish that, it was time to rock, as the balance of the latest batch of Eels - bassist Koool G. Murder, guitarist P-Boo and drummer Knuckles - plugged in with a vengeance on the driving Prizefighter and Larry Williams's She Said Yeah, via the Rolling Stones supercharged remake.What a band! Songs from the recent trilogy of Eels discs, Hombre Lobo, End Times and Tomorrow Morning, dominated the concert and grew in book and edge - even the ballads. For that, you can mention the musicians: the lockstep synergy between the crisply efficient backbeat master Knuckles and the economical, but muscular bassist Murder was a joy to learn in My Beloved Monster, especially with three guitars wailing away on top.Granted,it was an Eels crowd: the facial hair on all five musicians was a given, but there was was but as lots of a razor boycott going on in theaudience. Yet there was more than fandom driving the show: every song seemed raised from its original studio context through the forceful interaction and freakishly precise ensemble playing of the musicians.Andtheir tight economy was not a chain. At times, in fact, the Eels version of sweet soul music and punky garage rock seemed in peril of being overtaken by the jagged dissonance of a Captain Beefheart as the arrangements escalated in go-for-broke aggression.The band, however, was capable to arrest the course - even with the nasty riffs, the strobe-lit howling at the moonlight and the unexpected soul-stirring melodiesthat make an Eels concert.
See Bryanna Bradley's photo gallery from the point here, and see the entire set list here. Bernard Perusse ---