It was a trip back in time for a couple of reasons. I've been fortunate enough to see American Music Club live before, though just once and it was way back in October 1994, touring the San Francisco album. The band split following year, although they reformed for a successful (critically, at least) second act between 2003 and 2010.
I'm a huge American Music Club fan and have all of the studio albums, but my engagement with Mark's solo material has been much more sporadic, with just a handful of the 15 or so albums that he's released to date. So, part of the appeal was knowing that much of this acoustic set was likely to be unfamiliar to me.
The other nostalgia trip was the venue, the Hen & Chicken pub in Bristol, just south of the city centre and river. For many years, I lived a few minutes' walk away, and it was my local. Mrs. K and I spent many nights at the Comedy Box upstairs, seeing the likes of Dara Ó Briain, Mark Thomas, Lee Mack, Dylan Moran, Tommy Tiernan, Ed Byrne, Richard Herring, Marcus Brigstocke and an up-and-coming comedian called Alan Carr (whatever happened to him?) There was a lovely working club vibe, and it was a great showcase for pre-tour works in progress or Edinburgh Festival warm ups.
Back then, the Hen & Chicken was a real spit-and-sawdust pub, but the gentrification that was creeping in to the high street and surrounding area had fully taken hold by the time we moved away. These days, the Hen & Chicken is a much slicker affair, catering more for the younger, more bohemian locals than being just another stop on the pub crawl to/from the Bristol City football ground up the road.
Bristol was the 17th show of a 25-date tour of Europe and the UK. The venue was an unusual choice, given it's somewhat out-of-town location. I'd never seen live music at the Hen & Chicken and it was well over a decade and a half since I'd been there, full stop.
I needn't have worried. Whilst the downstairs pub has evolved to reflect it's surrounding environment, the upstairs studio seemed to have resisted the passage of time, looking pretty much as it did when I last crossed the threshold with Mrs. K in the 2000s.
Whereas the comedy nights were set up 'cabaret style' with tables and chairs, the layout for Mark Eitzel's show was 'theatre style' and I grabbed a second row seat. The seats in front were unoccupied but someone had already placed coats across them for their yet-to-arrive mates. Even at full capacity, the crowd would be less than two hundred deep.
Mark came on stage just before 8.30pm and played music for approx. 75 minutes. Fifteen songs, two of them encores, with some beautifully dry between song banter and occasional anecdotes. There was a good spread of songs, covering three decades from American Music Club's second album Engine to Mark's 2017 album, Hey Mr. Ferryman. And, as predicted, I was familiar with about a third of them.
Mark also played four as-yet unreleased songs and apologised for playing so much new stuff, though I wasn't complaining, though the beauty was how coherent the whole sequence of songs was. Going from 1996's solo Misson Rock Resort to new song Fall From The Sky to Why Won't You Stay from American Music Club's 1991 album Everclear was seamless, Mark's unfussy acoustic arrangements making each song sound like they had been written yesterday.
He was in good voice, too. One of the things that always attracted me to Mark and American Music Club was his voice, sounding brittle yet soft, emotive yet always with a threat of a bum note. There were real shiver down the spine moments, not least with Will You Find Me, one of my favourite songs on 1993's almost-breakthrough album Mercury.
And then, after a shuffle off stage and return for an encore performance of Outside This Bar and Last Harbor, that was it. As I was making way out, I saw Mark re-emerge and stop to talk with a couple of the appreciative crowd. Although it wasn't even 10pm at that point, being a weekday I had to get home, it was a fair drive back and I had an early start the following day, so I continued on my way out.
Besides, I have form in clamming up or worse, saying really dumb things, in the presence of musicians. I bottled it in 1994 too, when I spotted and Mark and Vudi chatting in the foyer ahead of the American Music Club concert, so the slight pang thirty years later was a familiar but fleeting feeling.
Outside, the pre-show cheery sunset had been replaced by a night-time downpour. And me with no coat! I'd parked the car opposite the former Casa K, and I was soaked by the time I got back to it. Driving home on the motorway, rain hammering the windscreen, roadworks up ahead, clothes still damp, Mark Eitzel's music playing loud on the stereo, everything that was wrong seemed so, so right.
A wonderful night.
1) Sleep: Mark Eitzel (2001)
2) Enomie (Live @ Dorado, Torino, Italy): Mark Eitzel (2025)
3) God's Lonely Dog (Live @ Dorado, Torino, Italy): Mark Eitzel (2025)
4) Rode All That Way (Live @ Copenhagen Hotel Cecil, Denmark): Mark Eitzel (2025)
5) Nothing And Everything: Mark Eitzel (2017)
6) Will You Find Me (Ahuja Mix): American Music Club (1993)
7) An Answer (Alternative Mix): Mark Eitzel (2017)
8) Misson Rock Resort: Mark Eitzel (1996)
9) Fall From The Sky (Live @ Dorado, Torino, Italy): Mark Eitzel (2025)
10) Why Won't You Stay (Album Version): American Music Club (1991)
11) I've Been A Mess: American Music Club (1993)
12) I Love You But You're Dead: Mark Eitzel (2012)
13) Western Sky: American Music Club (1988)
14) Outside This Bar (Album Version): American Music Club (1987)
15) Last Harbor: Mark Eitzel (2003)
1987: Engine: 14
1988: California: 13
1991: Everclear: 10
1993: Johnny Mathis' Feet EP: 6
1993: Mercury: 11
1996: 60 Watt Silver Lining: 8
2001: The Invisible Man: 1
2003: The Ugly American: 14
2012: Don't Be A Stranger: 12
2017: Hey Mr Ferryman: 5
2017: Hey Mr Ferryman (limited edition vinyl + bonus CD): 7
2025: Live @ Copenhagen Hotel Cecil, Denmark, 2025 (bootleg MP3): 4
2025: Live @ Dorado, Torino 2025 (bootleg MP3): 2, 3, 9
Party With Ghosts (1:02:07) (KF) (Mega)
A note on today's Dubhed selection:
Given that the set included several songs that haven't yet appeared on studio albums, some online research was required to obtain song titles and live recordings that I could potentially use.
Three of the songs are lifted from Mark's show at Dorado in Torino, Italy on 7th April 2025. This was the only version of the second song, Enomie, that I could find full stop. It includes Mark having to pause and leave the stage temporarily following a coughing fit, which personally I think adds not detracts from the performance.
No such incidents at the Hen & Chicken, although Mark did have to ask his manager to bring him a bottle of water. I bet this never happens to Ed Sheeran.
Rode All That Way was taken from Mark's set at the Copenhagen Hotel Cecil in (you guessed it) Copenhagen, Denmark on 13th April 2025. There were other versions online, including the Torino gig, but this was the best version overall.
