One of the most exciting concerts I have been to took place on 12 August at a very modest-sized venue in trendy Tempe, Arizona. The band was Eels. The audience was quite small, but that didn't stop Eels from rocking that tiny theatre like it was a sold-out stadium. I'd been a casual fan of Eels for about a year, the brilliant Electro-shock Blues being my proper introduction. So while I arrived at the show not knowing what to expect, I left certain that it was one of the best I'd ever witnessed: oddly welcoming, straight-up pop-rock; refreshingly unpretentious; somehow familiar and new.
One thing in particular I won't forget: during the latter half of the song, "Love of the Loveless," Eels leader, a man called "E," delivered a curiously affecting rock homily. It was oddly profound, but not in an obvious way. It wasn't just what E said, but also the context and manner in which he said it. It just seemed odd to me that this "rock star" carried such an aura of maturity and wisdom, and that it didn't undermine the power of his music.
Neither preachy nor ironic, his words floated over the music with a particular gravity. Our hero believed what he was uttering. After the concert, I became obsessed with how much the performance of that one song affected me, and it wasn't long before I had tracked down and intimately acquainted myself with the entire Eels catalogue. I needed to hear more of this music and understand where this guy was coming from. Beyond the peculiar surface, just waiting to be discovered, there is a wealth of musical pleasure and insight of someone who has wrestled with life in way few in his position would be willing share.
E's unique expression of what it feels like to live in a confusing, unfriendly world, combined with the way he celebrates those times when getting out of bed is actually worth the bother, is something that deserves some recognition.
And the following essay recounts this music lover's belief of why this is so. This Rotten World? As I implied above, the name Eels is misleading. Despite being signed to a major label Dreamworks , and having songs on soundtracks for various high-profile films such as Shrek , The Grinch , American Beauty , and Disney's Holes , it is quite interesting how uninterested in high-profile "success" Everett seems to be.
