Former folk-rock wunderkind Conor Oberst has grown into a institution unto himself, playing in a diverse array of musical projects with a host of prominent collaborators, running two record labels, and presiding over a legion of fans so fervently devoted that novelist Jonathan Franzen likened it to “religion without the bullshit of religious dogma.” A rapt congregation was on hand at a sold-out 9:30 Club on Sunday night as the 31-year-old singer-songwriter led his most famous band, Bright Eyes, through an impressive, career-spanning set that spotlit his considerable musical talents and charismatic cult of personality.
Opening with the rollicking “Another Travelin’ Song”, Bright Eyes — currently a seven-piece that includes D.C. native Laura Burhenn (Georgie James, Mynabirds) on keyboards and vocals — immediately proved themselves to be a tight, versatile outfit, as dual percussionists laid down a formidable foundation beneath Mike Mogis’ countrified pedal steel and Oberst’s raw, punchy vocals. The strutting “Four Winds” elicited shrieks of delight from the crowd, which sang along ecstatically to Oberst’s strident lyrics (“The Bible blind, the Torah’s deaf, the Quran is mute / If you burned them all together you’d be close to the truth.”). Between songs like “No One Would Riot For Less” and “Cartoon Blues”, Oberst kept most of his banter affably banal, but he couldn’t resist a few site-specific comments about D.C., stating that “this whole town’s a fucking street hustle,” and that “we live in some of the most evil shit on the planet.”
Politics aside, Bright Eyes showcased a few older fan-favorites like “Lover I Don’t Have to Love”, along with a few songs from its latest album, The People’s Key, such as the keyboard-heavy “Shell Games” and the upbeat “Jejune Stars”, which featured a relatively straightforward modern-rock sound punctuated by melodic keyboards and electric guitar. After a mostly solo-acoustic rendition of the lovely ballad, “First Day of My Life”, Oberst introduced Burhenn as a “hometown hero” before letting her share lead vocals on a cover of Gillian Welch’s “Wrecking Ball”. The plaintive “Ladder Song” concluded the main set on a quiet note, before the band returned for a rousing encore, blazing through the Beethoven-inspired riffs of “Road To Joy” before Oberst stage-dived into the arms of adoring fans during the show-closing “One For You, One For Me”.
Oberst had high praise for his supporting act, Sweden’s First Aid Kit, two precociously-talented sisters whose exceptional vocal talents first garnered attention on a 2008 cover of Fleet Foxes’ “Tiger Mountain Peasant Song” that arguably rivaled the beauty of the original. That song was not on the setlist on Sunday night, as the duo understandably chose to focus on their own burgeoning catalog of exceedingly charming folk-pop songs. On tracks like “You’re Not Coming Home Tonight” and “Hard Believer”, Klara Söderberg plucked simple chords and arpeggios on acoustic guitar and handled most of the lead vocals, while Johanna Söderberg added accents on keyboard and autoharp. Backed by a drummer, with Bright Eyes’ Mogis joining in on pedal steel for one song, the duo combined on some enchanting vocal harmonies, and the lyrics to songs like “Ghost Town” and “Tangerine” at times conveyed an emotive poignancy that belied the musicians’ youth.
