Bright Eyes makes us swoon in Seattle

By Brittany Tiplady
[contributor]

Conor Oberst, backed by the six musicians that make Bright Eyes, took the Paramount Stage in Seattle opening with the Cassadega favorite “Four Winds.”

Thirty-something Oberst looked reminiscent of his younger years as he manically continued into “Old Soul Song” and “Bowl of Oranges”, with his infamous hair dangling into his daunting crowd-avoidant eyes.

Bright Eyes continued through memory lane, taking to the keyboard for a rocky start to “Lover I Don’t Have to Love”. Taking sips of water and sharing awkward glances with keyboardist Laura Burhenn, Oberst finally made it through the first line “I picked you out…” and the audience was swept into the infamously stirring “Lifted or the Story Is in the Soil”, classic and the cutting backup vocals by Burhenn.

Jumping into the The People’s Key singles “Jejune Stars”, the keyboard hit “Shell Games”,  the audience chanted the line “slipping steadily into madness, now that’s the only place to be free,” and spitting the lyrics to “Approximate Sunlight,” it became clear that Oberst has matured out of the drunk, ridiculous, breaking-harps-onstage phase from his “Wide Awake” days, and into the title he was given nearly 20 years ago as “the new Dylan.”

Breaking out of the hazy rock of The People’s Key album, Oberst clutched his acoustic for “Landlocked Blues”. The I’m Wide Awake its Morning song had the audience falling to silence, singling out the die-hard Bright Eyes fans singing along.

A belligerent audience member bellowed from the balcony “This is bogus, you suck!” as Oberst was heading back to the keyboard for his next song. He responded with an apology before starting the Bright Eyes/Neva Dinova ballad “Spring Cleaning”. “Sorry guys, I’m going to sing something kind of boring. It’s a ballad. I hope that’s okay with you. I hope that’s okay with you.”

Moving into “Poison Oak”, the night became increasingly less about Bright Eyes and more about Oberst as he played the “I’m Wide Awake It’s Morning”” tune with the nostalgic strength of his emo, substance-abusing poet days, and the maturity of an indie-rock musician with prodigal lyrics that has earned his cred as the “missing link between Einstein and Jimi Hendrix.”

The Fevers and Mirrors favourite “The Calendar Hung Itself” brought the crowd out of the slow-song standstill, and screaming along with Oberst as frenzied as ever, ditching his guitar and jumping off the stage, hugging audience members and grabbing hands at the front of the crowd-shaggy hair still in his face.

The night capped off with an encore from Digital Ash tune “Gold Mine Gutted” and the Lifted song “Lets not Shit Ourselves (to love and be loved)”. Kurt Vile, front man for the Bright Eyes openers Kurt Vile and the Violators, joined Oberst on-stage for “Road to Joy”.

Fans went wild for Oberst as he crowd surfed – before security quickly brought him back to the stage, that is – while it seemed that the entire Paramount Theater was harmoniously screaming “I’m Wide awake its morning” the most prolific part of “Road to Joy” and it became some sort of collective artist and audience finale to the U.S. Bright Eyes tour.

Ending with “One for You, One for Me” from 2011 album The People’s Key, Oberst acknowledged each member of his band with a striking gratitude, and thanked the Seattle audience for a successful and long section of the U.S. tour. “We are all human beings, and I think we have forgotten that,” he said.