Bright Eyes (First Avenue, Minneapolis, Thursday, September 12th, 2002)

(If you have time, check out this lengthy and good interview and review by Tim McMahan: http://www.timmcmahan.com/brighteyes3.htm)

Now I know why I didn't recognize a lot of the songs Bright Eyes played the Women's Club Theatre on earlier this Spring when I last saw them. Many of the 12-14 songs they played that night in May were from the forthcoming album, just released on Saddle Creek August 13th with the title "Lifted or the Story is in the Soil, Keep Your Ear to the Ground." That was May 10th and day number one of their Spring 2002 tour. This show is the second or third night of the fall tour which officially started on September 10th in Lincoln, Nebraska. (Over the summer Conor Oberst, who should be up for the title of one of the hardest working men in show business, was on tour with his side project Desaparecidos.) The Bright Eyes show I saw last night has matured since the Spring and Oberst's band has ballooned to a whopping 11-14 member touring entourage, continuing to feature some of the members from The Good Life and Mayday that were with him in the Spring, but otherwise it's all new people again.

Thursday's show at First Avenue was quite the popular spot. More "grown ups" were present than the Women's Club Theatre show in May where I had guessed the average age way about 22, but it was still quite a young crowd. (Not many folks were seen pre-show at O'Donovan's Irish Pub across the street as is often the case with shows with older draws.) The show started with "False Advertising" just as May's show had. In May when the band reached the point in the song where Oberst sang "Now all that anyone is listening for are the mistakes" his band mate on loan from Mayday had said "Oh I'm Sorry," to which Oberst replied "It's Okay. It's Okay" (just as on the album.) For some reason I find the verisimilitude of this terribly is amusing. Thursday an audience member in front of me said the "Sorry" part, but I did not hear Oberst's reply so it may have been left out.

Most of the songs in last night's set were from the new Lifted album, including the lengthily titled "You Will. You? Will. You? Will. You? Will" featuring prominent bassoon and an unintentional bit of vocal feedback. This is the song in which Oberst pleads for a woman's return and threatens "If you don't, I'll start drinking the way I drank before." Now don't you just wish you could just say that sometime? Aw, the things you can get away with in your youth! "Nothing Get's Crossed Out," although it refers to items on a To-Do list not lines in songs, has been used it as a critical comment on the new record as about half the songs are about 6 minutes or more in length and the entire album weighs in at 73 minutes. (The opening song is 8 minutes, and closer is 10.)

Oberst addressed the crowd sending a special thanks to 400 Bar owner Bill Sullivan for being what he called "the daddy of this tour." Former Soul Asylum and Replacements tour manager, Sullivan has apparently come out of retirement to be tour manager for Bright Eyes current gig. And quite the challenge it must be to get all these musicians in place. The band features "a virtual all-star cast of Saddle Creek artists and Bright Eyes alumni including Orenda Fink and Maria Taylor of Azure Ray, Todd and Clark Baechle of The Faint, Matt Maginn and Clint Schnase of Cursive, Jiha Lee of The Good Life, and co-producers Mike Mogis and Andy Lemaster all make appearances on the bulky, ambitious album." (Quote from pitchforkmedia.com)

"Something Vague" from Fever's and Mirrors (Saddle Creek, 2000) was one of a handful of new songs played. This song in particular sounded a little cacophonous with all the musicians playing, sounding at times like a high school band gone mad.

Oberst was not shy about sharing a few political views last night. Introducing the dark and haunting "Don't Know When But a Day is Gonna Come" Obserst said "This next song is about the end of the world. And if the powers that be get their way you'll get to see that soon." He continued saying that we'll all be able to watch it on TV and just stay in our houses "until you get gas in your lungs and die." There appeared to be some additional lyrics in the live version of this song about gas prices and "infidels with their oil wells" that are not on the album. The cello player was head banging to this song which is something I don't think I've ever seen a cello player do (except for maybe when Rex Daisy was still around.)

Oberst switched to keyboards for a couple of songs including "Lover I Don't Have to Love" in which he changed the lyric "Let's just keep touching" to the more "blatant "Let's just keep fucking." Oberst had commented in recent interviews that one of the things he has been studying lately is subtlety. But apparently he has a few more classes to take in that department, and as far as I'm concerned, that's fine as too many songwriters tend to beat around the bush whereas Oberst is more likely to light it on fire, and go stand in the flames and sing. "From a Balance Beam" should be a familiar song to Bright Eyes Fans as it was released the "There is No Beginning to this Story" EP in May. The Steel Guitar player was playing an instrument I'm trying to place that he beat on with little mallets, but for now am calling "that tinky thing" on this song that was actually quite annoying.

It seemed that Oberst introduced "Make War" as a song about driving from Omaha to Denver. But I might be missing a song at this point in the setlist. Band members came and went throughout the set, and for this particular song there were no women on stage at all.

The set ended with the women returning for "Let's Not Shit Ourselves (To Love and To Be Loved)," the album's 10 plus minute closing song. There were comments from the peanut gallery and people shouting out requests at this point, some obnoxiously, and apparently some weren't even Bright Eyes songs which elicited the reply from Obserst that "I wish we could do more covers, but it's hard enough to learn all our own songs." The final song features the line that should be near and dear to the heart of anyone who dare write about a bright eyes show "I Don't read the reviews." And for over-zealous fans, "And I'm not singing for you!." The slide guitar player played a cool banjo part in the closer and with 13-14 people onstage. Drumsticks were thrown into the audience (or rather at them) and the band left the stage.

They returned for 3 encores. For the first Oberst played guitar with only drum accompaniment on a brand new song with lyric "There's a virgin in my bed / and she's taking off her dress / and I'm not sure what I'm going to do." The song ended starkly with something like "Audience walks away and you'll be all alone and shivering on a well-lit stage."

Encore two was "Laura Laurent" from Lifted which featured the return of most of the band. Then finally before the final encore, Oberst referenced the end of the world once again when he said "Tell all the people you love that you love them because there's not much time left." The final number of the night was Kathy with a K's Song," (Sometimes referred to as "Love is real") from the Oh Holy Fools collaboration album with Son, Ambulance (Saddle Creek, 2001.)

I'll leave you to process a middle verse of the song Bright Eyes left us with.

Love is real
It is not just something in long distance commercials
Or something that you felt back in high school.