Bright Eyes (Berkeley Community Theatre, 15 February 2005)

Me and my friends went to a party. It was a birthday party. It was Conor Oberst's birthday party, happy birthday Conor! And everyone at the party loved him very, very, very, very, very, very, very much. And then Conor started humming this little tune, and it was "At the Bottom of Everything," from the best album of 2005 thus far, I'm Wide Awake, It's Morning.

Yes, it was Conor's 25th birthday today and it was celebrated by an uplifting and memorable performance at this high school auditorium in downtown Berkeley. The whole show felt like a birthday party . . . albeit a rather large one. After the second song of the set, someone from the crowd yelled and encouraged everyone to sing Conor happy birthday. Of course, we all did and Conor was enamored by the love.

Bright Eyes played pretty much all of Wide Awake, with a sprinkle of Lifted's "Method Acting" and Fever and Mirror's "The Calendar Hung Itself." Wide Awake has been heralded as Conor's finest work. The music press has been waiting for Conor to realize his true potential when he was a songwriter at 19, then 22, and now when he was 24. Wide Awake is a true indie rock/folk classic, some even comparing it as a true Dylan-esque album. Although that may be too high a praise, at least at this point in Conor's career, it was pretty damn close to it.

"We Are Nowhere and It's Now" was played with such emotion that you can really feel that you have been drinking wine until you are blind. "Old Soul's" keyboards were just blissful, with Conor belting out the high notes at the end that made the back of my spine tingle with pure excitement. "Another Travelin' Song" sounded like a true western hee-haw ho-down. All I needed was my cowboy hat and boots and I would have been all set. Then my anger at the current political regime was put into words with "When the President Talks to God." Although this song received mixed applause in Texas, it was received with open arms and loud applause in this Blue State. Speaking of blue, "True Blue" was played with sillyness and coy. One cannot help but laugh at the simplicity of the lyrics when Conor sings this song. Hell, even I wrote a song called "The Red Song" on my drive home, already completing three lines of lyrics.

However, the true highlight song of the evening was "Land Locked Blues." The whole range of emotions this song had was captured live. A bit of sadness when Conor describes a scene where a girl begs her partner to come back to bed, to a bit of comedy when Conor describes being shot by kids with a tree branch gun, and anger at our government's handling of Iraq and Afghanistan. All that was missing was Emmylou Harris' presence and backing vocals and this would have truly been an instant live classic.

After a string of O.K. shows, seeing Bright Eyes was a welcome relief.

Beer Rating: 1 Beer