Review of Bright Eyes Concert

I'd like to chit chat about the Bright eyes show I had the pleasure to attend this past Sunday night at DAR Constitution Hall here in Washington, D.C. First of all it was right by my home, so it was a pleasant 4 block walk. I missed both openers intentionally, I don't like to do too much waiting around if I don't have to.

Originally I had a seat in a box toward the back of this "cavernous hall" as I've heard it described. The place is indeed big, but I liked the idea of sitting in a box, it felt like an enclosed cozy place for me and my companion to relax and sit in some comfortable chairs. But when Conor started playing we realized we were too far back to see much. People started to move towards the front of the floor/orchestra section and filling the aisles so we dicided to give it a whirl. One usher turned us away, "Your seats are up there!" But we were not deterred, and slipped past the ushers at the next door. We were able to snag two seats in about the seventh row. perfect view! So much better! We could see the adorable Conor Oberst facial expressions and we could stand and dance with the crowd.

His set list left nothing to be desired!! Truly! I was a bit scared he would play what I deem his weirdo song, off Digital Ash in a Digital Urn, but he stuck to all his normal singable and catchy tunes! The second song, "Another Traveling Song" got me on my feet where I stayed for the rest of the night. I had never before realized how danceable his songs were!

Luckily he didn't get drunk or anything so it was a solid show throughout. He really rocked on the encore. He covered a Tom Petty song and played his new song, i forget what it's called. The Felice Brothes and Nik Freitas came out on one of the encore songs to play egg shakers, tambourines and to dance and sing along. It was really fun. He also played my absolute favorite song, "Bowl of Oranges" along with one of the Felice Brothers on accordian which was really neat. When one audience memeber yelled out "What about Bush?" He said, "I forgot all about him, I don't think about him anymore. He's just a bad dream that I'm going to wake up from soon.....Dick Cheney on the other hand if I run into that mother fucker I'll knock him out. I hope beofre he dies he realizes what a fucking bastard he is!"

Anyway overall a great concert. The venue was not so great, I don't think I'll go to another show at DAR if I can avoid it. The 9:30 Club would have made it a lot more fun and full. Barely half the aud was filled and the hugeness of the place made the music seem a bit flimsy, that's the only word I can think of to describe it.

Afterward we waited around for a bit hoping to meet Conor, but it was raining so we soon headed home. We did get to talk to one of the Felice Brothers, the one with the cane. He was a really nice guy, he was walking around drinking tea and talking to everone, though he reeked of weed.