2005 was a pretty spectacular year for US indie music. My Morning Jacket’s Z, Death Cab for Cutie’s Transatlanticism, Sufjan Stevens’ Illinois. I could go on. It was also the year that the Conor Oberst-led Bright Eyes released their breakthrough opus I’m Wide Awake it’s Morning solidifying their place as the poster boys for teenage angst. Twelve years on, not an awful lot has changed.
Oberst may now be a married 37-year-old man, but the beautiful stripped down melancholy of last year’s Ruminations shows that Oberst is no closer to writing the feel good hit of the summer. Drugs, Sex, Alcohol and an excess of all of the above are still Oberst preoccupations all these years later. Recorded almost as a demo album, without additional instrumentation, Ruminations is the loneliest and most distinct record of his career. But it was Ruminations’ “companion piece” Salutations, a full band presentation with many of the same songs, that set the tone for this tour. Rolliking Americana that doesn’t quite connect.
The MOR sound of Salutations doesn’t lack energy, though Oberst still remains uneasy onstage. At times it started to feel that Oberst and co were just going through the motions, phoning in a performance to an unconditionally dedicated fanbase. Get-Well-Cards and Eagle on a Pole settled down a shaky start, but the performance was never consistent, not helped by a cluttered mix and often inaudible vocals.
A moment of clarity was provided by cross-over mortgage advert favourite ‘First Day of My Life’ a song that so divides fans that half of Shepherds Bush Empire smiled gleefully whilst the other half wept (both parties confused by the reaction of the other). Cape Canaveral was another fan-highlight as Oberst’s dense full-band sound sometimes struggled to offer the intimacy that his recorded music demands.
It wasn’t until the encore that Oberst really provided his fans with the lonely musings that his audience have been morbidly attached to for almost two decades. A new song ‘No One is Going to Change’ adds yet another anthem of no hope to Oberst’s canon. Alone at the piano and without the frills of a full band it provided the most electrifying moment of the night. It simply isn’t possible for performers like Oberst to basque in their own misery every night of a world tour and yet despite a few wobbles, he is still able to pull of a remarkably honest performance and Conor Oberst remains as compelling a songwriter as he ever has been.
O2 Shepherd’s Bush Empire, W12
