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“Look what we brought you!” shouts E. “A motherfucking wonderful glorious double-rainbow!”

It’s a beautiful sight in the sky, but Eels‘ mainman has also brought some serious rock’n’roll energy with him to the first day of End Of The Road – they’ve toured in many different guises (power trio, acoustic with strings, etc) but tonight the band (all dressed in matching black tracksuits and shades) are distorted and fierce, dispensing with keyboards, strings and brass, and using just bass, drums and a lot of loud guitars.

Naturally, the more full-on songs in their Woods Stage set come off the best, including “Fresh Blood” and the “Jean Genie”-esque “Prize Fighter”, but the five-piece are also able to turn their hand to the more tender areas of Eels’ canon, such as “Dirty Girl”.

The highlight of the set is a blistering version of Fleetwood Mac’s “Oh Well”, hounded by fuzztone guitars and blazing maracas. E seems to enjoy the song so much he orders one of his guitarists to come down from his riser for a hug.

Tom Pinnock

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