Scala, London
It's the day before Conor Oberst's 31st birthday but a spontaneous audience rendition of Happy Birthday has left the Nebraska singer-songwriter grimacing. "Well, it's one day closer, that's how I look at it," he reflects. "Let's get the fuck out of here!"
This awkwardly adolescent comment could be a throwback to the late 1990s when Oberst emerged as a precocious, thin-skinned teenage troubadour. It sounds less endearing coming from the worldly frontman facing us tonight, which may be why Oberst has been talking of killing off his Bright Eyes alter ego.
If he does, his new, seventh album under that moniker, The People's Key, will be a fitting epitaph. It's a consummately erudite record, full of gnarled songs of doubt and redemption, and tonight Oberst and his long-serving band lend this fertile material a sharpened, visceral edge. The album has found Oberst moving away from the plangent Americana that made his name, and there are few hints of alt-country about the Pixies-like power pop of Jejune Stars. He remains a charismatic, intense performer, trapped again on the cusp between youth and adulthood on the self-lacerating Shell Games: "Sold my tortured youth, piss and vinegar/ I'm still angry with no reason to be."
Yet Oberst seems happier in his own skin than he was as the sallow, lo-fi emo poster boy of more than a decade ago, and while tonight's two-hour set lags in parts, it's rarely less than quirkily engaging. Oberst may kill off Bright Eyes but he will go on writing literate songs of urgent yearning undercut with mordant black humour. Just don't expect a cover of Happy Birthday any time soon.
Amanda Bynes Ana Ivanovi Jessica Cauffiel Emmanuelle Vaugier Sarah Silverman
No comments:
Post a Comment