Bright Eyes - Chicago, IL

Bright Eyes came to play the Chicago Theater recently and I was all excited about it. Allow me to qualify – I was all excited about Andrew Bird opening up. Photographer Patrick Sinco and I had just enjoyed a lovely pre-show meal at Chicago pan-Asian mainstay, Big Bowl. Stuffed full of noodles and bok choy, we rolled down the street all giggly and pleased. Will call was surprisingly unproblematic, for as much as I love those old union box office guys, they can be kind of crotchety and slow. We got crotchety, all right. One old buzzard, crouched sadly behind the bulletproof glass, leaned over to one side and grinned when doling out our tickets. The best I could surmise, he'd just farted. The other two septuagenarians in the little booth took on an even more sickly shade of their already greenish pallor, waved their hands in front of their faces and began coughing violently. All of this was like a silent and unscented movie to us on the other side of the window, and Patrick and I turned to each other with looks of amused surprise. The old guy who had let it go smiled, which probably hadn't happened in decades. I thought the effort would split his taut leather face horizontally. Clearly desiring to get our line down and get outside in the fresh air, the guys suddenly moved the press line quick - like nauseated little bunnies. Quite a funny, unexpected pre-show indeed, and we filed into the house in good moods. Our seats were wonderful, and the theater is beautiful; we here in Chicago know all of that.

Here's why Andrew Bird is great: He plays like a dozen or so instruments a coupling of emotion and expertise, and usually four or five at once. His sound is soft yet aggressive, and he has admirable confidence in himself when he starts to whistle, sing, or play. Normally, any sort of hesitation is so easily detectable as a listener, and that sort of fear almost always ruins the musical phrasing that follows. But Bird goes right in like a master craftsman pounding a nail, doing his job habitually, caring and perfect without thinking too hard about it. His talent is mesmerizing. He has this Janus Horn, like Siamese twin Victrolas, that spin round and round and make a sort of rhythmic whooshing noise that fills out the sound. I kept picturing two little spotted terriers under each one getting centrifuged to the point of vomiting up their kibble. Bird played the violin, guitar, and electric piano, and sang and whistled and pounded the pedal on his Victrolas; he sounded so good it staved off an almost comic picture of the classic one-man-band, with a big bass drum and cymbals on his head. We were treated to stuff off the relaxed, sonically-scrumptious new album Armchair Apocrypha, like "Spare-Ohs" and "Armchairs" with laconic vocals, and of course classic representation from The Mysterious Production of Eggs; "Master Fade" and "Sovay." The Bright Eyes crowd really, really dug this Chicago native, which was awesome. I wasn't sure they would appreciate Bird; and I wonder how his opening set would go over in another city where he's not so legendary.

He's a tough act to follow, Andrew Bird, even if you're great. I had gone to the show specifically to see him, and had no idea what to expect of Bright Eyes.

Bright Eyes suck.

Conor Oberst is a little bitch who takes himself so freaking seriously it's as sickening as that fart the old man cut in the box office. In fact, I'd have rather been in that claustrophobic glass booth suffocating than listening to that little shit trying to show us how hard his life has been. I was gonna go through my notes from the show, but I don't even fucking have to. He came out in this sincerely frightening like, forest ranger getup, with that Smoky the Bear hat and all, and stayed in the dark with the girls all screaming and going nuts. Then during the second or third song he took that and his jacket off which made all the girls scream louder and go even more nuts. Sad, sad, sad. The best blues singers have a sense of humor about themselves, the most depressing country song has a thick layer of self-effacement; every musician needs to employ this sort of levity if they're going to be well-revered by an intelligent musical community. The last musician I can think of to cop this sort of ridiculous attitude was Jim Morrison, and his delusions of grandeur actually didn't serve him well, if you really think about it. If the Doors didn't have Ray Manzerek they never would have had one hit. Period. Conor ain't so lucky, he's got no Manzerek of his own. So I look at Patrick after whatever the third song was, and he was done taking his shots so I begged him to split. He acquiesced and we tossed two cute suckers into our wonderful seats and ran up the aisle as fast as we could. We ducked out the side door and saw the old man collective from the box office leaning against the wall, breathing deeply. We joined them, a lungful of piss and pigeon feathers far preferable to the bad air we'd all, in our own way, endured.