Bright Eyes
9 out of 10 - Simply Amazing. Can't wait to see 'em again.
Monday, November 19, 2007
Radio City Music Hall, New York
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Photo [CRED]
You must know, dear reader, I am writing this under duress. Or at least under a pregnant cloud of guilt. I got home today and strangely, every possible excuse, every procrastinator’s list of obligations had been attended to, ostensibly as a favor to me.’ Free up the night. ‘Come home from the day job, put my feet up. Oh look the kitty’s been bathed, oh, and there’s my laundry, and dinner, and I can smell a trap when I’m in the thick of it. So here I am, sequestered with the now very clean cat and a cup of tea and my charge; to finally review the show I attended at Radio City. It’s not actually that I don’t want to write the review; it’s that sometimes you want an experience to continue to be in excess of the words that’ll pin it down and I’m not quite ready to let go of the event. And yeah, I thought it was that good.
I’ve been a fan of Conor Oberst since I first saw him play in LA somewhere after the Collection of Songs, and around the Fever and Mirrors release, when mostly it was just him and his guitar or his keyboard and mostly by the end of the set you just wanted to give him a hug and tell him every thing’d be okay but were afraid he’d scratch like a feral cat at the physical contact. To see him play at Radio City was starkly different from these earlier intimate settings and yes, I do believe, along with most of the blogosphere, that those small shows will become quite rare and ever more expensive.
I do not, however, agree that the music was at all deflated by the cavernous space or that the show itself was anything other than exuberant. Whereas the Felice Brothers and even the imposing lankiness of Thurston Moore seemed remote and distant, like the bad dream in Frog and Toad books where toad keeps diminishing in size, swallowed up by the monstrous theatre (that’s for the fans of all things tangential), Conor made the space feel intimate and familial. After nearly a year on the road, Bright Eyes had a fraternal closeness amongst band members that was infectious, and this, their last show of the tour, was celebratory in tone, as though they wanted to end their long meandering road trip by pulling out all the stops. The songs seemed to build around this theme of passing time on tour, on that transient feeling of homelessness, and there was a dynamic arc to the set list, with swells and lulls to showcase Oberst’s strong songwriting. It was a less overtly political set than past shows. The emphasis was definitely on enjoying one another’s musicianship and pushing songs to their fullest, biggest sound. (The woman next to us left during Spring Cleaning, covering her ears the whole time) Oberst is admirable in supporting his fellow musicians and in showcasing their talents and having James Felice join him for an accordion accompanied “Lua” is a perfect example of how dynamic the exchange between artists make his songs and his sets. I can say that every time I see Bright Eyes, the music is alive in new and exciting ways and the songs are never rote exercises in recreating what transpired in some mixing room.
The jubilant mood of the set reached its apex at the encore, where Conor and the boys basically played what the hell they felt like playing with no nod to promoting anything except the power of music to move people, and move them it did. The entire audience was on its feet. The aging hipsters were doing their best white man’s overbite shuffles, sexing up their wives to “Lover I Don’t Have to Love” while a gaggle of young girls tried to make a break for the stage. Oberst again gave the stage over to the songwriting of his supporting band, including a Felice Brothers’ song, True Blue. This was followed by the huge sound of the band plus all the Felice Brothers covering Tom Petty’s Walls. Then, the Psyche-Rock sounding anthem to political protest, “Roosevelt Room,” brought the energy up even higher. As the room spun with disco ball refracted lights, giving the feeling of swirling in a snow globe of sixties inspired musical transcendence, it seemed to me that with this show, Oberst had proven himself to be, not the enfant terrible of his earlier years, but the avenging angel of alternative folk-rock. His angst has matured into an integrity that stands by his music and his convictions and he still puts on one hell of a show.
Set List:
Another Traveling Song
Four Winds
We Are Nowhere And Its Now
You Will
Arc Of Time
Method Acting
Spring Cleaning
If The Brakeman Turns My Way
Bowl Of Oranges
Lua
Poison Oak
Old Soul Song
A Song To Pass The Time
-Encore-
Lover I Don’t Have To Love
True Blue
Walls (Tom Petty Cover)
Roosevelt’s Room
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