Groningen, Oosterpoort, august 26th 1997, HOLLAND
time: 90 minutes
attendance: 1500 (sold out)
support act: Buzz Aldrin
setlist soundcheck: Not Ready Yet/ Novocaine For The Soul/ If I Was Your Girlfriend/ My Beloved Monster (3x - including a punk version)/ Susan's House/ Fingertips pt.III/ Superstar/ Spunky/ Susan's House (jazz version)
Setlist show: Not Ready Yet - 12" mix/ Livin' Life/ Guestlist/ Fingertips pt.III/ Susan's House/ Spunky/ Mental/ 13/ Blue Hat/ Fucker/ My Beloved Monster (bossanova version)/ Flower/ Novocaine For The soul/ A Most Unpleasant Man/ Rags to Rags/ Lucky day In Hell/ Exodus pt.III/ If I was Your Girlfriend/ Beautiful Freak/ Hello Cruel World
wow, this show was by far the coolest I ever went to! Musically this was just a regular eels show, but the afternoon ROCKED! We were allowed to get inside to see the crew set up the stage and after that we were allowed to stay and watch the band do their soundcheck! This was so cool! A big THANK YOU to Pete for taking us with him and to Eric for letting us stay!
When the stage was being set up, Butch sat on the floor of the venue to fix his snare drum. It was quite fun to see. "Spider, I need a screw", he yelled. "Yeah, me too Butch", was the reply.
Then he went to do the drum soundcheck, going over all kinds of rythms and songs. After Butch had finished his soundcheck, Tommy went to do his. Going over Susan's House again and again.
When the two of them were finished E came out and the whole band went trough some great versions of My Beloved Moster (a country, a bossanova and a punk version) and Susan's House (a jazzy version). At one point the guy at the lighting desk tried the smoke machine, which was situated right behind Butch. "I think Butch must be ill", E joked, "there is smoke coming out of his arse..." Indeed it looked kinda silly, the whole stage was covered in smoke....
The biggest surprise of the afternoon; Superstar. This rendition of that song was absolutely BEAUTIFUL! I wish they would play it live some more.
A big THANK YOU to the eels and their crew for letting us stay and for being so extremely nice to us :) THANKS GUYS!
The show started as most shows started the last week; Not Ready Yet, Livin' Life etc. "Sorry we are late", said E, referring to the cancelled show in may. A huge cheer from the crowd showed they accepted his apologies.
Spunky was played for the first time this tour. We already heard it during the soundcheck, but this version was even nicer. A big applause again. The crowd's reaction was extremely good. The band was treated as if they were the world's #1 band. One guy even climbed up the stage during Flower, but he got removed soon. "I guess this is the wrong song for stagediving", E said....
During Rags To Rags the stage diver got up the stage again. "He's BACK!!", E screamed... again the guy got removed from the stage before he got the chance to jump. In the middle of his drum solo Butch kept on throwing drumsticks to Scott (E's guitar roadie). At one point Scott had to hide behind some amps, just to avoid getting hit. Spider was also getting into it, opening lots of bags with drumsticks for Butch to throw.... this was a really cool sight. The best part of it was that Butch hung on to the rythm with his feet and his other arm.
This shows how good of a drummer he really is.
Exodus pt.III started with Butch making sounds squeezing a rubber duckie. Then he went over his rendition of birdsounds again. He's becoming better and better each night!
When the show was over everybody rushed to the stage to get a setlist, a guitar pic, a drumstick, a towel..... anything really. Those people from Groningen are really mad! When the band came out to do some signing, the crowd almost went hysterical. The strangest things were signed. Cigarrette papers, matchboxes, arms and other bodyparts, plastic cups, posters that got ripped from the hall.... it was a madhouse.
Then the band left and so did most of the crowd. About 20 minutes later Tommy came out again to thank me for the tape I had given him. We talked for a while about the tour, the shows we've seen, Prince etc. Then Pete (the soundman - he's been really nice to us all the shows) came by to say goodbye to us. Also E came out again, driving around with one of those cars from a supermarket. We thanked everybody for all the cool
shows we saw and then headed towards our car. Still 3 more hours to drive and get home.....
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