HOLY CRAP! Conor Oberst at the 9:30 Club.

by Katie

UPDATE: I think this is finished now. Review after the jump.

In the meantime, you can always count on NPR to broadcast a great show for All Songs Considered. Listen to last night’s show here.

Sweet NPR slideshow, where you can (among other things) see Mr. Oberst dressed like a hobo drifter here.

Conor and the Mystic Valley Band took the stage at the 9:30 Club Monday night at 10:00 to a packed house (1200 people, according to NPR) where, fortunately, no one was getting peed on. Like I said, Conor looked like a hobo drifter in a big sweater whose sleeves he kept hitching up, and a felt hat. Guitarist Taylor Hollingsworth looked like Ben Kweller with my hair. (Not that Ben Kweller and I have especially different hair to begin with.) Jason Boesel looked like a dude who grew up in Hawaii. (Seriously? Shell necklace and peasant blouse?) Everyone else just looked like regular guys. Why does this matter? I dunno. I wanted to include everybody.

The band opened with the new “Nicorette,” during which Oberst spit so hard that we could see it from the back of the room. Part of my brain kept going “Yeah!/Gross!” every time it happened for the rest of the night. For once, I was glad to be so far from the stage. Oberst called “Sausalito” “a classic car song,” and “Get Well Cards” a “song about forgiveness” before launching into the new track, “Slowly, oh So Slowly.” Two new songs out of four? Someone’s been busy. The band kept powering through the set list, playing for almost half an hour before stopping to say more than two sentences. (“This song is called… It goes like this.”)

Between “Danny Callahan” and “I Got a Reason,” someone tossed a mostly-deflated pink balloon on stage, which Conor stared at blankly for a minute. “That’s… that’s Jenny’s album,” he mumbled, which means that someone apparently saved a pink Acid Tongue balloon from the Jenny Lewis show in early October. They had written something like “I love you Macey,” on the back, so Conor handed the balloon over to his bassist.

Conor didn’t say much the whole night, but the crowd cheered for every word out of his mouth nonetheless. The biggest cheers were reserved for Barack Obama, whom Oberst called “the number one man in the world” before sighing, “Let’s hope that he comes through for us, guys.” The music spoke for itself, with Oberst’s lyrics about living, dying, and loving supported by the talents of Nik Freitas on guitar, Macey Jenkins on bass, Jason Boesel on drums, Taylor Hollingsworth on lead and twelve-string (!!!!) guitar, and Nate Walcott on keyboard. Hollingsworth is a pretty sweet guitarist, and makes even the twelve-string look effortless. Bastard.

Surprisingly, and pleasantly, we also got to hear songs written by other members of the Mystic Valley Band. Early on, we heard Jason Boesel’s “I Got A Reason,” which (according to an interview on the World Cafe) Conor accidentally ripped off in what then became “I Got A Reason part 2.” To start their encore, Taylor Hollingsworth sang “Air Mattress,” a cute Ben Kweller-like pop song that had me flashing back to when I lived on an air mattress at Liz and Wes’s condo. Conor had slept through sound check that day (rock and roll!!!) so he joined the band on stage after “Air Mattress” to play Nik Freitas’s “Sun Down.”

Highlights of the night included an achingly gorgeous version of “Cape Canaveral,” and a bluesy version of “Corrina, Corrina” that made me want a cigarette and some kind of brown liquor. Best of all was their rendition of “Moab,” a song for the rambler in all of us. Hollingsworth shredded away on the 12-string, the music hit us like hurricane wind, they built the sound higher and higher. Then it peaked, and the stage went dark except for a spotlight on Conor as he strummed the final chords of the song and sang, “There’s nothing that the road cannot heal.”

I wish I’d known at the time–though I probably was too late to get one anyway–but at each show on this tour, they’re selling 30 or 40 copies of “The Gentleman’s Pact EP,” a four-track disc featuring some of the gazillion new songs played last night. It might be online. Check it out.

Last time I saw Bright Eyes, Conor was drunk and stumbling, slurring his speech, and angstily rocking our faces off. This time, he was energetically bouncing around the stage, dancing. He sounded a little hoarse in his upper register, but that’s part of his charm isn’t it? His jumping, thumping, almost optimistic new songs matched this weekend’s warm fall weather a little better than the freakish cold snap of Monday night. The band played almost as many new songs as old, which shows that some 15 years into his career, Conor is happier and more prolific a songwriter than ever.

In brief, fucking rad show.

Set list:

Nicorette (new)
Sausalito
Get Well Cards
Slowly, Oh So Slowly (new)
Moab
Ten Women (new)
Danny Callahan
I Got A Reason part 1(sung by Jason Boesel)
Cape Canaveral
Spoiled (new)
I Got A Reason part 2 (new)
NYC (Gone, Gone)
Souled Out!!!
Milk Thistle

Encore:
Air Mattress (sung by Taylor Hollingsworth)
Sun Down (sung by Nik Freitas)
Corrina, Corrina
I Don’t Wanna Die In the Hospital
Breezy (new)