Mark Eitzel
Wednesday 6/27/01, The Gypsy Tea Room Dallas, TX
Thursday 6/28/01, The Mercury Room Austin, TXYou never really know what to expect at an Eitzel show. It could be a religious experience or quickly deteriorate into self deprecation, or a bit of both depending upon Mark's mood. Fortunately for these two shows, Mark was affable and tolerated himself and annoying audience members, for the most part. Mark is backed by a 3 piece band on this tour: Kristin Sobditch - keyboards and occasional bass guitar, Brian Gregory - bass guitar, guitar, pedal steel guitar and backing vocals and Andrew Plourde - beats, electronics and mixing ...
The sets drew mostly from the latest CD, "The Invisible Man", plus some American Music Club classics and two yet to be released new songs. Songs I'm sure were played at both shows: "The Boy With the Hammer", "Can You See?", "Sleep", "To The Sea", "Shine", "Steve, I Always Knew", "Bitterness", "Anything", "The Global Sweep of Human History" (nice drone finale), "Seeing Eye Dog", "Proclaim Your Joy" (very rocking, with customized anti-George Bush lyrics in Austin), "Greeting Cards" (new) and "Soap Opera Star" (new, solo). The band leaves stage during the solo songs where Mark plays with electric guitar. In Dallas the solo AMC songs were "Last Harbor", "Western Sky" and "Blue and Grey Shirt". I can't recall what they were in Austin, but it was only 1 or 2, plus "I've Been a Mess" (on acoustic guitar) at the very end. They played between an hour and hour and a half total ...
Mark really gave his all vocally, moreso than on "The Invisible Man", and is quite animated while playing. Not to disrespect the band as they were solid and sounded great, but it's when Mark plays solo that I'm totally enthralled. He completely loses himself in the songs (the only other person I've seen like that live is Michael Gira of SWANS/The Angels of Light). He closes his eyes and tends to wander back away from the mic during instrumental sections and will begin singing again oblivious that he's off mic. But it doesn't matter because the audience is perfectly silent, entranced. I think he came close to crying during "Last Harbor" in Dallas. I felt all tingly during most of "Soap Opera Star". Just stunning. It must be difficult to draw upon that much emotion night after night. Surpringly, Mark announced on stage that he'd be selling CDs after the show. There were 2 for $10 apiece: "Eitzelsuperhitsinternational tour CD" (unreleased studio demos from 1999) and "Mark Eitzel - Live on WMFU NYC Solo/Acoustic 4/16/01", both of which were available on the Exit Productions web site after the tour ...