Bright Eyes at the Boulder Theater August 9, 2011
Posted in Concert Reviews on August 10th, 2011 by corpo
Liz and I are fully on the bike program these days so of course we biked to the Bright Eyes show. It’s the first show we’ve ever biked to.
Which comes in pretty handy when they are putting Pabst in glass and Fat Tire in plastic. Not that we had very many of those though. We did learn a new trick which is to go into the external bar through the door near the restrooms and save a few bucks on a beer. Hyped!
The first band was Omaha’s Conduits. They proved that they were from Omaha by being almost amazing, but trying to hard to hold back rocking out and therefore being pretty boring. This is such a typical characteristic of smaller bands from Omaha. Haven’t you learned anything from the likes of Bright Eyes, Cursive and The Faint? It’s just fine to rock out sometimes! Anyways, they were decent for sure, but there is so much more potential.
Next up was Bright Eyes and the theater had gotten pretty crowded. They came out sounding good and played a lot off I’m Wide Awake It’s Morning and Digital Ash. They were great. For awhile. The crowd wasn’t helping. People yelling cat calls and “I Love You Conor” during quiet songs suck. Seriously, you jerks took the show down several levels.
Although I have to admit the mixed signals from the man in charge didn’t help. Conor was clearly wasted by the end of the set, talking about how he wants to be a party band, wearing a funny hat he picked up that day and went on a 10+ minute drunken rap about the members of the band. Yes, I said “rap”. I think it’s great how much Conor values the members of this band, but this was overkill. No one else on stage was partying. Liz and I have seen Bright Eyes so many times and most of those shows he’s so wasted it kind of bums us out.
So I don’t know. I love the music of Bright Eyes. They played a great set. The sound was great. I think Conor Oberst is probably normally a great guy. But I left that show very confused about what I saw and heard. I hope he gets it figured out soon.
The family and I was in Omaha for Christmas and it just so happen’s that one of our favorite musicians Conor Oberst was playing a show while we were there. Being the the cool cats we are we were put on the VIP list of course. Or was it we spent $60 on ebay for tickets? I can’t remember. Anyways, we got there early through the freezing rain and proceeded to play the worst game of pool the bar has ever seen. Finally some music came on so we could stop embarrassing ourselves.
Up first was Renee Hoover. Decent Omaha style music. Mellow, grown up and talented. Good opener.
Up next was Simon Joyner. Did I mention these photos were taken with my cell phone? Well, they were. I didn’t like this set at all. BORING. Put me in bummer mode and made me tired. From what I can remember Liz enjoyed it somewhat at least.
Finally Conor and crew came on stage. Here’s the setlist that I found on what is hopefully a