Drinking the ink from my pen

(cross-posted at blog)

The Bright Eyes concert was amazing. I loved them before I went to the concert, of course, but after hearing a lot off of their new albums, I'm Wide Awake, It's Morning and Digital Ash In a Digital Urn, I was even more impressed. If I had to create a list of the Top 5 Best Songwriters of All Time, Conor Oberst would no doubt be included in that list. Even if you do not like the music of Bright Eyes, you will at least appreciate Conor's lyrics because they are always poetic and always personal. Not only that, but many Bright Eyes songs are very political and have a lot to say about the environment, humanity, and the general state of this world and what we can do to fix it. Sean has been to three Bright Eyes concerts and told me Conor has had a different anti-Bush song for each one. The one he did last night was called something like "When the Pesident Talks to God." It was amazing.

The only major downside to the concert was the crowd. The Phoenix is a very small venue here in Toronto and there were hundreds of people packed in there. They sold far more tickets than they should have. I was literally breathing on the girl's neck in front of me the entire time. Obviously, this type of crowd is not good for someone with social anxiety disorder, but I tried the best I could not to have a panic attack. When I first walked in I thought I might but luckily, I sucked it up and I was alright. On top of that, it was an all-ages show and the amount of Conor look-alikes made me sick. A Bright Eyes concert is the epitome of "emo," and all the boys had longish hair parted on the side, wearing black-rim glasses and white dress shirts. Ugh. It was lame. I just ignored that as much as I could. Actually, there was another downside: they are very strict with security at The Phoenix and the security guard checking people was a complete asshole. I had two bottled waters in my bag and he just took them out and threw them into the trash. What about people who do not want to pay $7 for something they can just get for free at home? That is a disgusting capitalist practice. I was really angry but there was nothing I could do.

There are actually a lot of Bright Eyes songs I dislike, so I had planned on going to this concert liking a few and not the rest. Well, it was the complete opposite. I disliked three of the songs they played but that was all. And the only reason I disliked the songs was because they got a little too folk-country for me. You know, with the banjo and slide guitar. The rest were beautiful. They played the most gorgeous song I have ever heard that will probably become my new favourite Bright Eyes. It was called One Food In Front of the Other. Sadly, it is an unreleased song so I cannot for the life of me find the download anywhere. The only album it is on is a Saddle Creek compilation album that I will purchasing later this month, mostly for that single song. "We made love on the living room floor/With the noise in the background/From televised war/And a defeaning pleasure/I thought I heard someone say/"If we walk away, they'll walk away." [edit: This song is called "Landlocked Blues" on I'm Wide Awake, It's Morning.]

All in all, it was just a great night. It was exactly what I needed after weeks of being angry and depressed. After the show Sean and I weaved through the crowd for what seemed like hours (there was a huge lineup just to get out of the stage area and huge lineups for the coat-checks), but finally we got outside and caught a cab back to his place. I told him to put on Lifted or the Story is in the Soil, Keep Your Ears to the Ground, my favourite Bright Eyes album, and we listened to that and talked until 1a.m. when I had to catch the last subway home. I actually slept well last night too. That is definitely a rare event.