Desaparecidos

Oberst: Today’s Dylan or Just Another Hair-Whipping Monster?

By Brigid Choi“This is the most optimistic song we’re gonna play all night, and for that reason, I hope it penetrates deep into your ears. It’s about, if we all had a little dignity, then maybe the world would be a little better place. It’s naïve, but whatever, I’m a dreamer. Dream a little dream, and all that,” Conor Oberst said as he played at the Feb. 21 concert at the Variety Playhouse.Yes, we know you’re a dreamer, Conor Oberst. Even if sometimes your dreams are horribly sad and lonely, we can detect your optimism in songs like “First Day of My Life” and “Bowl of Oranges”. It’s hard to believe that that sad kid playing quiet acoustic guitar has become this terrifying, hair-whipping monster on stage, but it’s sort of relieving. Was I the only one who was worried about him, singing about loneliness and drugs for the longest time?Of course, the 33-year-old is still the poet he was in Bright Eyes. In fact, poetry seems to spew from his mouth like a second language. When his distortion pedal broke and the crew hastily fixed it, Oberst said, strumming raunchy, dissonant chords, “For some reason, God decided to take away my distortion. He didn’t realize that I need that distortion. So I prayed to him every night, just like I prayed to the devil every night. I don’t know if God answered my prayers, but I know the devil did. That’s why I’m gonna write some really dark shit after the show.”That could easily be a line from a Bright Eyes song, but the performance afterward is as far away from Bright Eyes as it can be. Oberst, to the left of his band (so that he doesn’t become the main attraction, although everyone came for him), is rocking a different kind of emo style. Not the short hair with the bangs to the side of his wide, anxious eyes. Now, his hair is cropped in the back and the rest pulled to the front, draping over his entire face, forehead to chin, as he screams into the microphone.“This is the part where he’s possessed by a demon,” explained College sophomore Sara Stavile.At times in the show he threatened to lynch racist sheriffs. At other times he thanked his bandmate’s parents in the audience for “having sex and producing this guy, who has positively influenced my life.” At one point he promoted consumerism by telling us to “treat your soul to something right” and buy their opener band’s (Joyce Manor) merch, and then later he preached against consumerism, commanding, “Don’t trust credit card companies. Don’t buy things you don’t need. Buy a reasonable car, not a sports car, even though you want one. Take public transportation, wherever you got, subway, bus. And, uh ... eat your vegetables.” After that introduction, he jumped (literally) into “Mall of America” off Desparecidos’ only album Read Music/Speak Spanish. He and his band weaved through dissonant chords and unorthodox key modulations. Everything sounded wrong and eerie as he wailed, “So send a national guard to the mall of America / And they can dress dead bodies up in tight designer jeans.” The eeriness is totally what he’s going for.The show started off with an audio clip of army propaganda before going into “The Happiest Place on Earth” and then following up with an audio clip of a way-too-giddy Mickey Mouse. It’s terrifyingly ironic, something he commented on later when he showed us the racist T-shirt he bought at Junkman’s Daughter across the street and then shouts, “This is a song about a racist sheriff I hope gets lynched in the fucking street!”With all these political lyrics, I can’t help wondering if Conor Oberst is our generation’s Bob Dylan: a protest singer who denies being a protest singer and probably hates all of his fans who look up to him. Who knows, maybe the next Monsters of Folk will just be Oberst and Dylan, both not being able to sing but singing anyway, both more poets than musicians, both doomed to be compared to their quiet, acoustic guitar years — just like I’m doing now.