Bright Eyes takes the stage last Sunday at the 9:30 Club. The crowd claps. The crowd looks down, stares at feet. Bright Eyes bangs out first song, lead singer Connor Oberst warbles another epic of woe and, well, more woe. Crowd claps, brushes artificially black hair out of eyes, becomes eerily silent and fixes gaze at feet.
Rob, GU student, Bright Eyes virgin: Laura, why doesn’t any one speak?
Crowd members from all directions, including those all the way across the club, look up from feet and glare at Rob.
Laura, GU student, Bright Eyes harlot, whispering: This is emo, Rob. These people are too involved in their own pain to interact with the music.
Rob: Oh. I mean, (whispering) oh. (Looks down at feet.) Are there 11 people on stage?
Laura: No, 13. You missed the fat chick with the cello. And I think that guy wandering around in the back drinking a Heineken is in the band too. Yeah, he just hit the tambourine.
Connor Oberst, lead singer, singing: “I thought about my true love, the one I really need, with eyes that burn so bright, they make me pure.”
Crowd: (Adjusts black-rimmed glasses, shuffles feet)
Connor: Hi, Washington.
Drunk guy in back: We love you, Bright Eyes!
Connor: Um, I love you, too.
Drunk guy in back: Urk! (Drunk guy in back dies under weight of dirty stares from crowd.)
Laura: Ooh, this one’s from his only successful album. I love this line …
Connor: ” … and I hang like a star for all the starving eyes to see.”
Rob: I think I wrote this song in sixth grade poetry class.
Laura: You ate alone a lot, didn’t you?
Connor: ” … the course of our fate, because people love and they hate, and I guess it’s just all turned to hate … “
Rob: He seems to want the crowd to sing with him. Are they afraid to sing along?
Laura: No, I don’t think they know the lyrics. All of this seems to be from his first album. They probably only own the second album, the popular one.
Rob: Is that a happy album?
Laura: No, it’s about death and loss.
Rob: Wait, look, Connor’s crying.
Connor: “On a string, on a string, on a string … “
Laura: I just don’t think all of the piano compositions from Fevers and Mirrors support a full string orchestra like he’s got up there. The girl with the piccolo is not adding a whole lot to the music. I can’t even hear her. I think this is what would happen if I asked my 20 closest fans to start a band with me.
One of the percussionists discovers some amazing little metal box in his stack of instruments. He rattles it during one of Connor’s tuneless monologues. Connor giggles sardonically.
Laura: Actually, I think these people are indeed his friends from back in Nebraska. He writes all the music himself, so it’s really just a vehicle for Connor’s unhappiness. Yeah, I guess my friends would probably smoke while playing the trumpet, too.
Rob: What instrument is the Asian girl playing?
Laura: I think it’s a bong.
Connor: “Every day you lose more color do you think that someone paints your mirror?”
Rob: Connor looks familiar.
Laura: He looks like everyone else at this show?anemic, slightly dirty, and desperately in need of a haircut.
Rob: No, I mean I think I’ve seen him before.
Laura: Do you read Seventeen magazine? They did a profile.
Rob: Why, yes I do.
Laura: Looks like he’s getting a second wind. I actually heard him stroke the guitar just then.
Connor: I could have been a famous singer if I’d had a better voice, but failures always sounded better. Let’s fuck things up boys, make some noise!
Defying apparent fragility, Connor leaps to top of drum set to jam on his violin-inspired acoustic guitar directly into the face of one of his three drummers.
Laura: I guess that just about sums up the entire lo-fi movement. But three drummers, eh? You think he’s compensating for something?
Rob: It does seem a little excessive, but when they’re beating in unison it almost makes me want to cry. (Empathetic tears of despair drop from Rob’s eyes.)
Connor: “The city had sex with itself, I suppose, as the concrete collides, the scenery grows, and the lonely once bandaged lay fully exposed, having exposed their wounds for each other. “
Other band members drift onstage, and will, upon some prearranged signal, occasionally all play really loud, all at once.
Connor: “Laura, you were the saddest song, in the shape of a woman. Yeah, I thought you were beautiful, but I wept with your movements.”
Laura: He’s singing to me, Rob! I want to take him home, feed him dinner, give him a shower and have him sing to me all night.
Rob: Emphasis on the shower.
As the band finishes its encore, some of the crowd start to trickle out, apparently having come to the concert to get the best taxi home. The crowd clap politely, raise their heads, and file out in an orderly fashion.
Laura and Rob bum-rush the stage to try and talk to the Asian girl, who stares blankly into space and resists their entreaties. They too then leave the floor, which is eerily devoid of cigarette butts and beer cans. At the exit, the 300-pound tattooed bouncer with excessive facial piercings sings Bonnie Tyler’s “Total Eclipse of the Heart” out of tune.
Bouncer: “Turn around, Bright Eyes, every now and then I fall apart. And I need you now tonight, and I need you more than ever … “
