Bright Eyes, Big City

So, after very little prompting from a friend (who basically said if I had the time and the money I should check it out), I decided to go to Monday night's Bright Eyes concert here in Milwaukee after all. I mean, it was a weeknight, I had the cash, and I live in the Midwest, so what else was I gonna do?

Surprisingly, in light of his wimpy reputation, Conor Oberst and his band came ready to rock. They played a mostly electric, and always loud, set that definitely convinced at least this attendee that he's a true Rock God -- a boyish, frail-looking Rock God whom I could probably take in a fight, but a Rock God nonetheless.

Conor was so confident in his benevolent Powers of Rock that he mostly ignored the songs from this year's Cassadaga album in favor of some older, harder numbers. (Unfortunately, I can't give you a playlist, because I just got into Bright Eyes two albums ago.) In fact, he only played one song from his most recent release, a song that, much to my chagrin, wasn't "Four Winds," a song that's on my shortlist for Song of the Year. (Other contenders, among many, on this not-so-short list include Rufus Wainwright's "Going to a Town," Lady Sovereign's "Random," and Aly & AJ's "Potential Breakup Song." Sigh. If only I were joking.)

Our boy was "in fine voice" all evening, as boring and unoriginal newspaper writers like to say, and very, um, intense. He came to rock, and nothing else, certainly not to chitchat. He didn't address the audience until the encore, although his drummer made a couple of dorky and poorly timed announcements throughout the show. Note: A drummer talking is always a bad idea, folks.

For his grand finale, The Boy Wonder kicked over his amp, slammed his guitar on top of it, and rammed this new instrument to the foot of the stage, where he damn near poked out some poor chick's eye, before exiting the stage to the accompaniment of much squealing (from all the feedback) and, um, even more squealing (from all those Indie Kids in ill-fitting jeans). Note: Skin-tight jeans are a worse idea, people.

In contrast to a previous Milwaukee show from earlier in the tour (or so I've overheard), he kept his on-stage drinking to a minimum. While he did occasionally swig from a bottle of beer, he thankfully didn't fall on top of any of his bandmates or have to be carried off the stage afterwards by a security guard (in much the same way, one imagines, as Jesus was carried by his Mother from the cross and directly onto the canvas of a Renaissance painting, if the hushed, reverent recountings of Conor's earlier performance are to be believed).

Basically, he gave the old fans something fresh and all the fans, both old and new, something fierce.

In short, and somewhat unexpectedly, he rocked. At length, he rocked my Nicolas-Cage-John-Travolta-face-switching-movie.

So, no more troubadourdom (troubadordumb?) for him, no sirree. He left that to his snooze-inducing opening acts.

Mixtape Time!

I may have purchased my last new CD of 2007 today: We Are The Pipettes, the debut album of the British girl group the Pipettes that I've seriously been hearing tracks from since 2006. Seriously. At least they added a couple of tracks for this belated American version.

So why's it my last album of the year? I realized today, as I started planning the tracklist(s) for my now annual year-end mixtape(s) -- when I was supposed to be proofreading descriptions of all the latest High School Musical pajama sets at work -- that I'm still struggling to digest all the music I discovered this year. I just kept buying and buying and listening and listening... So now's as good a time as any to get to know some of those albums a bit more intimately. Take 'em out to dinner or something.

Plus, according to Rolling Stone's preview of upcoming albums, there's absolutely nothing coming out for the rest of the year that I want to purchase. So I'm done. Mixtape time!

While I don't have any statistics in front of me, and while I don't even keep such statistics, I'm pretty sure I bought more CDs this year than I ever did before. Further, I feel like I'm simply into music more now than I ever was before, with the ever expanding amount of shows I attend, the artists I absolutely love, and the words I'm still able to spill on the subject whenever I find the time. There are so many musicians out there writing and playing songs for me that I almost feel religious about it. Like, if there really is a God, the music He's giving me is the proof that He exists. (My boy Kurt Vonnegut said something similar but much more profound.)

So, instead of talking about it all, here's my tentative top 5 albums list of 2007: the Once soundtrack, Rufus Wainwright, Rilo Kiley, Tori Amos, and... Brandi Carlile? Arcade Fire? Common? Shit, it's too early. I can't do it yet. I'm pretty sure nothing will top Once, though, as either a movie or a film, at least in their total impact on my life. Definitely watch for it on DVD.

And, as I might have mentioned, briefly, to some of you a couple months ago, the Rufus Wainwright show I saw might have been the best show ever. I wanted to write a review of it, but I feared I couldn't do it justice, so here's a string of words and phrases just for you, without any punctuation: filmed by the guy who filmed Gimme Shelter and several hours long with all the new songs and most of the hits and several awesome do-overs and costume changes and a Judy Garland tribute with voice and piano in almost perfect form and opera and jokes and totally utterly gay gay gay.

Hey, are any of you into Rilo Kiley at all? Their new album was pretty much targeted directly to me. The band was all, "Hi. You might know us from that one girl at work's music collection. You know, the one band of hers that you actually like and you don't have to lie about liking? That one. Anyway, we're on a major label now, and we're pretty much going to sell out by blending all of our rock, country, and pop influences into one poppy mixtape, with a little bit of rock, and a whole lot less country, and we're gonna make every track sound like a single. Love, Rilo Kiley."

Love,
Matt