| Mark Eitzel The Academy, New York City,NY March 5th 1995 |
| Having seen Eitzel play some convincing sets with his San Fransico quintet
American Music Club, it was nevertheless shocking how much more moving he is
with no one standing behind him.
Opening for Bob Mould at the Sugar leader's theater show, Eitzel accomplished the impossible: he made a distant balcony seat (no kidding, that's where I was perched, second row from the back) [I got there real early, and was in the front row of the balcony--great seat. Sat next to a guy who bootlegged Mould's set] seem like the photographer/bouncer pit up front. And he sure as hell didn't do it with his fancy-dancy guitar playing: half the time he picked at it so sparingly or infrequently it seemed like an afterthought - like a dog with a ratty bone. What it did was put the lyrics so far to the front, that it made his voice take on an even-more-tortured quality than on record. Although he didn't grimace, or milk the audience's sympathy with any show of aggrievement in his bearing, there was no escaping a soul in such distressed torment on songs such as Mercury's "I've Been a Mess" - put this up there with the outro coda of The Smiths' "Unhappy Birthday" for poignant pain expressed over the loss of a lover [ack! I hate Morrisey comparisons!] - and San Francisco's "The Thorn in My Side is Gone" and "Can You Help Me?" In fact, that last song performed in this naked style must have made therapists in attendance want to go back stage and proffer a business card with th offer of free sessions. It's not noticable with AMC, but Eitzel has one hell of a _loud_, penetrating voice when he bellows, so several times he had to take a full step back so as not to overwhelm the microphone with those mega-decibels of howl blasted out of his agitated throat. While no one of the 2000 in attendace was reduced to tears as we should have been (perhaps if he'd headlined) [I would say that I was pretty damn engrossed by it though], and Eitzel even had to give an aural finger to one balcony heckler ("Do _you_ want to come up here and do this? 'Cause I get paid either way. I'm just here 'cause I wanted to play with Bob Mould"), anyone who had the slightest trace of a nervous system and paid even 50% attention couldn't fail to be riveted by this extraordinary, if brief, one-on-one concert, even eclipsing the seemingly possessed Mould in emotional volatility department. If Eitzel's blacked heart was any more evident, we could have eaten it with a fork and steak knife. Review by Jack Rabid for The Big Takeover #37 Return to homepage here |