Articles:The Herald - October 14, 2009: Difference between revisions

He is an extraordinary performer. The first time I saw [[American Music Club]] play, at a club in Bristol in 1992, Eitzel drank a pint of whisky during the show, bellowed at the soundman for some mysterious transgression and finished by slapping a slice of processed ham on his head. Polished it was not. The last time I saw him, at the Venue in Edinburgh, he revealed that, although he was “basically gay”, after a few drinks he found women very attractive. “It’s confusing for ­everyone,” he sighed, before playing a spellbinding solo acoustic version of Joy Division’s Heart and Soul. On other occasions, I’ve seen him burst into tears halfway through a song.

I wonder what’s going through his head onstage. “I try not to look at the faces,” he says. “I love people who are onstage and generous, and I try to be that person for the audience, but my problem over all the years was that I was always distracted by the lights, the crowd and people looking at me.” On the current tour, piano player [[Marc Capelle]] provides the sole musical accompaniment. ­Eitzel says performing without a guitar has made him less self-aware: “Now I can just sing and close my eyes, and it makes me focus on the moment. It really works. We don’t have bad shows.”

Beautiful, remote and largely unknown. No wonder Eitzel felt at home there.