Dying Onstage

Not so long ago, I was lucky enough to get this record a week early when I took the three hour road trip with my friend down to Cleveland to see one of three “secret” shows Bright Eyes was playing with Neva Dinova. Unfortunately, after a solid opening set by Neva Dinova, Bright Eyes came out and, well, Conor was fucked up. He had blown out his voice to the point of barely being able to talk, much less sing, he couldn’t remember lyrics, had real guitar tech problems and eventually after a set cut short, sat on an amp and talked about wanting to to kill himself. It was a truly depressing night and I guess I just wanna talk it out. So let’s get into this new album and what it’s like to watch someone you admire fall apart live on stage. Let’s start with the record, Five Dice, All Threes. Musically, this record is full of upbeat and midtempo songs that occasionally breakout into bombastic guitars and big pounding drums. One of the lead singles, Bells and Whistles, sounds like it could be a Target ad. Aside from that though, the bouncy tunes mostly work for me. One of my favorites, Rainbow Overpass, feels like a mature version of The City Has Sex with its fuzzed punk sound that pushes the song forward with enough energy to pogo to if you felt like it. Really, that’s something you could say for most of the record. It’s a more mature and experienced version of a band that has been around for awhile now. Gone are the days of basement tapes and lofi jams or of sprawling poetic stomp alongs. Instead we have the tight production similar to that of their pervious record Down in the Weeds, that is from musicians that are focused and have plenty of experience to draw from. The biggest change might be that Conor has abandoned the over compressed, tightly double tracked sound on his voice, that I personally never a fan of, to return to a more naturalistic sound. A very welcome change if you ask me. To contrast with the joyous tunes (there are two or three slow, piano heavy songs, but even they have extra instrumentation and production experimentation that keeps them from being straight forward sad piano songs), lyrically this record is cynical, nihilistic and most of all vicious. Conor seems to feel like all the warnings he sang about on previous records have come to fruition and the people who are supposed to guide us, save us and give us hope have betrayed us. One such target is religion especially with songs like Hate, where Conor rails against all the conmen who have taken advantage of the downtrodden and led us to this special hell we have built for ourselves called the 21st century. He also seems to be grappling with getting older. This may be me projecting (I am writing and recording this a day before my 36th birthday so age is on my mind) but it feels like he’s going through something a lot of people loosely acted into the millennial generation are feeling. Amongst most my friends, there’s always been a sense that we wouldn’t make it this far. We all seemed to privately come to the conclusion that we would kick the bucket or the world would end by the time we were thirty and for too many of us, that was true. But for those of us that are still around, we didn’t really plan this far ahead and, frankly, judging by the state of things, it would have been pointless to try. It’s a fucked up and idiotic world out there and most of the time it doesn’t feel like there’s anything worth saving. We are tired and angry. Two of the main ingredients for hopelessness. And this record drips with that hopelessness and a failure to find a way to cope. Which brings us to the not so secret warm up show at Beechland Ballroom. After getting an email with a link to tickets, my close friend and I got ourselves an airbnb (we’re old and can no longer drive three hours, see a show and drive back in one go) and headed down to Cleveland. As I said, Neva Dinova opened, playing some stuff off of their new record Canary, and it was a solid set. The songs were great to sway in place to and they caught and kept the audiences attention, which is no easy task when people are there for one specific act. Everything was added up to have the potential for a special night. The Beechland holds maybe 400 people, so it’d be the smallest venue I’d ever seen Bright Eyes in (Fun fact. The only other time I’ve been to the Beechland Ballroom was to see IDLES and not long after, they wrote a song about it. Or at least titled a song Beechland Ballroom). It was also a warm up show so maybe they’d play some songs they hadn’t played in awhile or have some fun stage banter while they figured stuff out. It’s not often you get to see such a big artist in such an intimate setting, so the crowd was tingling. Unfortunately, after a couple of songs, a bucket of cold water was thrown on that excitement. From the beginning, you could hear something was up with Conors voice. It wasn’t its normal cathartic broken sound but something much more painful sounding. Apparently, he blew it out in the six days of practice leading up to the shows and the band has since canceled several dates on orders from a doctor (They actually just cancelled their shows for the rest of the year and honestly, the more I thought about it, it’d be terrifying to be a singer songwriter and be in danger of losing your voice. So here’s to a speedy recovery). Very unfortunate but ultimately the right call and if that’s all that was wrong it still would have been a good show (I can relate to this though as in the past, the less people in the audience, the harder I went in my bands and I was guilty of leaving it all on the field during practice). Unfortunately, in what seemed like an effort to self medicate, Conor ended up pretty drunk. As the show progressed, he stumbled through some of their biggest songs, forgetting lyrics, skipping whole sections of the set and by the end, letting the touring members of the band sing for him while he sat, head in hands, on his amp. There were at least ten minutes that he stopped the show and spent on a distortion pedal that didn’t seem to be working. He stumbled around, rambling and apologizing and in one too real moment talked about killing himself. After which he had to be reprimanded by Mike Mogis for brining it up on stage. The crowd morphed into a friend watching someone they care about lose a fight with addiction. We were watching someone who at some point in our lives gave us the strength to carry on, die on stage before our eyes. I don’t think anyone left there feeling hopeful for the future. This would be bad enough if this was a one off occasion but unfortunately, it seems to be happening more and more and not just with Bright Eyes. The last time I saw Bright Eyes was at the Masonic Temple a few years back and at that show Conor was also almost too drunk to stand. At that show he also had dark rambled banter about being in the hospital and wanting to die. He even hurt his wrist falling off he stage at one point. It was a mess. I believe that tour ended in flames, if I recall. Online, comments suggest this is a typical Bright Eyes show. He’s always been this way, they say. That’s not the defense you think it is. In fact that makes it much worse. This pattern of addiction is not sustainable in the long term and you can’t help but wonder why it’s continuing. I’ve seen Conor play with some of his other bands and he seemed simply happier and more engaged (I’ve actually seen Conor play eight times. Four with Bright Eyes, twice with Desaparcidos, and twice with the Mystic Valley Band. He was definitely the most relaxed with the latter). If this band is leading you to your worst instincts and addictions and your addictions keep you from doing essentially what is your job, maybe you just gotta stop. But what can we do as fans? I don’t know Conor Oberst. Aside from a handshake and a few pleasantries, I don’t know him from Adam. As fans are we doomed to watch as someone important to us slowly marches to their grave? Is it the most that we can hope for that someone close to him can help and not just watch? I don’t know the answer I just know something has to change. Too many artist are melting down and cracking to the pressure. Bright Eyes and Conor are just the one I’m most familiar with but evenly we’ve seen a spat of folks lose it onstage. We are killing our idols in the most literal way. But I’m sure that Oasis reunion will be smooth sailing. I know no one from the band will ever see this (I mean, I’m averaging what? 30 views a video?), but if I could talk to Conor, I’d say this. What are you doing man? It seems like this thing, this band, is killing you. So stop. Get some help. Just as an outside observer/long time fan, if the choice is between churning out a few more albums and tours where two out of three shows are passable until you burn out (to borrow a phrase from another doomed poet type I’m a fan of) and quitting but living longer, I’d take the latter every time. The world is better with you in it. And you’re right. Those who are in power, and especially the ones you’ve championed in the past, have betrayed our whole generation. They took our hope for change and used it to profit from the status quo. But you can’t let that send you down the spiral of nihilism because that only benefits the bastards. Use that betrayal to motivate you to help build a better world without the people you’re railing against on this and other records. You’ve written some amazing songs about the problems in this world and the pain it causes. You should stick around to write the anthems of the better world we are gonna build together and tell the stories of how we got there. You don’t want to make music anymore? Fine. Sculpt, paint, garden, write a novel, fly a kite, anything. Just stick around cause the world needs someone watching and holding them to the flame. It needs you. We are all rooting for you. Feel better. Anyway, that about covers it. What do you think? What is the responsibility of fans if their favorite artist is obviously unwell? Did you listen to this record? What’d you think? Let’s talk about it in the comments and as always, death to the algorithm.