When last seen Conor Oberst and his band Bright Eyes were getting blown off stage by Wild Flag at Radio City Music in 2011. A tired, obvious set highlighting a disappointing album. Conor had been on an artistic spiral since Outer South and Monsters Of Folk. The single most loved indie artist of the 21st century seemed to be past his prime by thirty years.
For me at least, the singer songwriter had something to prove and I guess he proved it Wednesday night at Carnegie Hall. But what he proved was Conor is a great student of Conor and his 18 song, certainly not overlong given his huge repertoire, concert was a tasteful travel though the past darkly. Conor is like the student who graduates with honors but can't quite get past it. At the one hour mark, he introduces "June On The West Coast" as as song he wrote when he was 16 years old. So Conor wrote " sorrow gets too heavy, and joy it tends to hold ya, the fear it eventually departs" when he was in his mid teens? When you are that good that young, well, how far is up? How excited can I get about "Ladder Song", which he plays as well?
On this night, Conor performs the "June On The West Coast" version for a life time, a small rewrite where the herky jerky rhythm you can hear in YouTube versions is replaced by a reliance on his wonderful bottom strings lick and an extended coda brings him home. If there had been any doubt that this would be a good night this would have ended them. But there wasn't.
In a gorgeous black suit and white shirt, top button undone, hair long, straight , face older and the boyish charm gone, Conor takes a seat and opens with a powerful "The Big Picture" and a wrought iron "First Day Of My Life" before the unreleased "Common Knowledge". The new one had this masterful couplet about a stripper: "She moves like a chocolate fountain, falling spilling all around him" suggesting Conor has lost nothing much in the past 16 years. As he settled into his set, various fellow musicians joined him on stage including multi-instrumentalist Ben Brodin. And though Mike Mogis is missed, Nate Wolcott is there and everything he adds his trumpet to, especially a definitive "Lua", is improved on impact.
Conor reminded me of Ryan Adams without the sense of humor and his rapport with his audience was way too cool. Rumor has it that Conor is a nice enough fellow but the way the head boy at boarding school is a nice guy, unless you play for Saddle Creek or are a member of his immediate, albeit extended family, he is not very interested in you. And it infects all of Saddle Creek, They are like Enid Blyton's Secret Seven or the Masons or something, they get by oin a barely concealed smirk. I've had dealings with Robb Nansell (Saddle Creek CFO) and he was an insufferable, rude, introverted prick. And a friend of mine played the Saddle Creek owned and operated night club Slowdown and he told me they were polite but cold. So is Conor on stage, he is too not withdrawn quite, but condescending and businesslike, too on point. Near the top of the evening he suggests we relax (actually, a Donald Fagen line) and then he performs at us. Compared to his easy rapport with the band members who wander on and off stage, it feels like arrogance and the whiff of arrogance is the last thing you need during an intimate acoustic performance. He should watch Jackson Browne one day, because Conor didn't get the mood quite right. His balance was off.
This was even truer when you consider his on stage patter. Oberst might not want to be well loved but he is, and yet when he spoke it was as if he was shouting over a brick wall. The only thing he said that was remotely revealing was his comments about "Map Of The World" being based upon a map his Grandfather had on the wall with white pins on every place his Grandpa, who had fought overseas in WW2, had visited. That was interesting. Certainly, since Obersts sympathy for Mexican Undocumented Immigrants (his wife is Mexican) suggest both an anti-imperialism at odds with his Grandfathers nation building and also, because we are discussing WW2, the last good war, also a belief in helping those who needs it, the song rings thru much more deeply. It was as if for minute he took a flashlight and pointed it at the song. I'd like to know what his new song "Your Mothers Child" is about, over and above rock nyc's exclusive breaking of the story of his marriage (we had friends who went to the wedding), this song appears to be about a son. Cliff Notes, guy. .
Or maybe not. The 90 minute set (two songs less than the set he performed in L.A. reviewed by Alyson) might have been special to him, it was Carnegie Hall and the acoustics were tremendous, the sound the best I've ever heard and his rasping voice a thing of beauty, but he didn't act that way at all. . With the exception of two songs on the piano, Conor remained seated and concentrated on the music and the career wide set had many, many magnificent moments. He introduces "At The Bottom Of Everything" by telling us he played it the only other time he was at Carnegie Hall, for the Tibetan Fest in 2004, it is a fine though by the numbers, however "Breezy" played on piano is a perfect elegy and very moving remembrance of his late friend and both the "Lua", hijacked by Nate, and the full band singalong to "Make War" are as great as I have ever heard Conor.
On the first song of the night Conor sang "If you want to see the future stare into a cloud" and that is essentially how I feel about the man, and he also sang "it's cool if you keep quiet but I like to sing" and that is also how I feel about the man. It will have to be enough.
Grade: A-