Bright Eyes’ Bleeding Heart
Apparently no one told Conor Oberst that reports of irony’s death
have been greatly exaggerated. Achingly sincere and awkwardly
melodramatic as only a twenty-two-year-old can be, Oberst has
managed the neat trick of translating ponderous self-obsession and
soul-killing misery into a growing cottage industry, and with the
new Lifted or the Story Is in the Soil, Keep Your Ear to the
Ground, the fourth album he’s released under the Bright Eyes
aegis, the Omaha native has even cracked the Billboard Top 200.
Concentrating primarily on material from that CD, Bright Eyes’
sold-out appearance on September 13th at Chicago’s intimate Old
Town School of Folk Music opened with the woozy, waltz-like “False
Advertising,” and from the outset the thirteen-piece band achieved
live a vibrancy that is merely suggested on record. Anchored by no
fewer than three percussionists, the songs marched forward with a
militaristic purpose that brought welcome structure to Oberst’s
sprawling lyrics, quavering vocals and ragged, folky melodies.
Although all of Oberst’s songs seem explicitly autobiographical,
the show’s climactic number, Lifted‘s “Let’s Not Shit
Ourselves (To Love and Be Loved),” proved particularly telling —
“I do not read the reviews, no I am not singing for you,” he cried,
and the predominantly twenty-something crowd responded with the
reverential applause of true believers, bringing to mind a pep
rally at a school for disaffected youth.
But while self-protection and critic-proofing are all well and
good, only when Oberst grows tired of preaching to the converted
and truly challenges himself will his music achieve the importance
it so nakedly strives to attain.