Giving the Rockettes a well-deserved night off,
Bright Eyes took the stage at Radio City Music Hall for their final show after a lengthy round of touring. Yes, much to the dismay of an elderly gentleman who a friend told us had somehow wandered into the ornate theater hoping to be dazzled by dancing reindeer in the Christmas Spectacular (he bailed during openers the Felice Brothers), Radio City belonged to the thrift store sweater set tonight.
Given a concert venue so formal, it does seem a bit strange that the performance that ensued on this night represented something of a return to form for the band. No fancy suits, no backup singers in matching outfits, no abstract video projections, no “surprise guests” – band leader Conor Oberst and his four backing musicians took the stage in jeans and hoodies, and performed in front of a simple black backdrop, playing a set full of stripped-down songs from older albums
Lifted… and
I’m Wide Awake It’s Morning. If it weren’t for the massive scale of the theater, the tuxedo-clad ushers and the plush seats, this could have been any Bright Eyes show, anywhere. Perhaps it was presumptuous of me to assume that the band would’ve busted out any number of gimmicks for the “big show” at Radio City, but they certainly did their best to prove me wrong.
According to extensive research (aka
the Saddle Creek message boards) Bright Eyes have been focusing predominantly on old favorites over the course of their fall tour, save for two tracks from this year’s
Cassadaga; the ironically toe-tapping elegy to society’s ills “Four Winds” and the catchy ode to “leveling out”, “If the Brakeman Turns My Way”. Older pieces like the jaunty “Bowl of Oranges” and “We Are Nowhere And It’s Now” (a song about purgatory, he told us, “because I always thought Heaven would be really boring”) were crowd pleasers, and though the addition of trumpet and accordion added some nice frills to “Lua”, they ultimately eradicated the lovely simplicity of the song. Thankfully the band left the melancholy “Poison Oak” relatively bare, rendering it one of the most beautiful and effective moments of the evening.
Of course it wasn’t all downbeat love songs and nostalgic country tunes. Those who’ve seen a Bright Eyes show in the last several years know Conor loves to get political, and he didn’t disappoint tonight (he just held back until the end of the set.) Prefacing a new song entitled “Roosevelt Room”, Conor gave a short monologue about this mess we’re in, and then exploded into a loud, angry punk number the bilious intensity of which has only been hinted at in his previous musical tirades. I guess desperate times call for desperate guitar riffs, and it would seem, crazy stage antics; Conor dramatically threw his beverage up in the air, spilling liquid onto the floor and then stomping in the puddle to cause a huge splash, like a naughty kid testing out his first pair of rain boots. If it weren’t for the pristine setting, I imagine Oberst would’ve tried something a little more destructive.
It seems so much and yet so little has changed since the days when Bright Eyes were playing ill-attended gigs in basement clubs and coffee houses. The venues may have gotten bigger and the fans more rabid, but at the core, Oberst’s honest lyrics and the bands’ able musicianship have been the constants that have carried them this far. As he performed “A Song to Pass the Time” from 2000’s
Fevers and Mirrors, Conor mused, “All I have for the moment is a song to pass the time/A melody to keep me from worrying/Oh, some simple progression to keep my fingers busy/And words that are sure to come back to me/and they'll be laughing, and they'll be laughing/My mediocrity/My mediocrity”. I certainly doubt Oberst’s long-time fans have ever considered him mediocre, and yet I wonder if part of him still believes those self-doubting lyrics that he penned so many years ago. I would hope that as he stared out at the sea of rapt fans lining the balconies of Radio City Music Hall, he felt secure that he no longer needs to worry about being anything resembling mediocre.
[Photos by Mina K]Labels: bright eyes, radio city music hall, the felice brothers
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