Any artist who titles an album “Lifted or The Story Is In The Soil Keep Your Ear To The Ground” is likely to either be a nature freak or a very intense about their creations. In the case of Bright Eyes leader Conor Oberst, it is definitely the latter. The Omaha, Nebraska outfit proved that at the Black Cat Sunday night, treating a full house to an hour of emotionally charged, poetic and occasionally surly, indie folk -rock.
Oberst is Bright Eyes only constant member and for his current tour he has assembled a seven-piece, all female band to fill in the tone colors of his word-drunk compositions. Led by guitarist/keyboardist Jiha Lee, the Bright Eyes lineup included violin, cello, clarinet and flute in addition to bass and drums, lending a chamber-rock swirl to the program, which mainly drew from the aforementioned---and not yet released---album. Like his previous recordings, which have drawn a legion of heavily devoted followers, Oberst’s heartfelt singing veered new songs like “Loose Leaves” between indie rock and sensitive folk with a melodic grace and often included marvelous lyrical interchanges.
Oberst, who played electric guitar and occasional piano, takes his craft seriously, which was clear when he stopped the quiet “Messenger Bird’s Song” to tell the chattering crowd to “go home if you’re not interested” and later stomped off stage without a word at set’s end, ignoring prolonged howls for an encore. Still, when Bright Eyes was fully engaged on tunes like “Arienette” and “The Center of the World” the full force of Oberst’s considerable singing and songwriting gifts was enough to make a little brattiness seem trifling.
Washington Post, 2002
