Dé Luain, Meitheamh 26, 2006

A word on Connor Oberst

I was thinking about going to the free Bright Eyes concert in Omaha, but I was invited to a party, and I am at best a lukewarm fan, so I went to where the licquor was. In truth, there are only a handful of Bright Eyes songs that I actually like, while there are several that are quite wretched. I'm refering to the west Omaha sprawl concept album in particular. It is over-simplistic to describe Oberst as "emo". His self-description as a folk singer is actually closer to the truth. But this album sounded like a South Park parody of emo. The insanity of West Omaha can only be properly described through skillful satire. But Oberst is only capible of one flavor, earnestness. There is nothing wrong with earnestness, in fact I could use some myself. In the right context, (Lua) Oberst can be deeply moving with his earnestness. But a one trick pony is bound to be inconsistent.
Anyway, I'm mentioning the boychild mainly because of a story I heard a few weeks back. I spoke to someone who had been at one of Bright Eyes's Sokal Hall shows. He claims that Oberst walked of stage for a few minutes, than stumbled back on with a heroin tourniquet still attached to his arm. My friend disaproved.
I on the other hand, see this as a good thing. Oberst is older than I am. (He's 26) It's about damn time that he stopped slouching in public and stop combing his hair in that damn waterfall. Than again, if he likes the junk, than his slouching is more understandible. At any rate, I was glad to hear the story. Oberst should write an entire double album about his love for hard drugs. It would show his critics that he understands Rock'n'Roll is a man's game, and he just might teach a valuable lession to the mopey kids in the crowd.